There’s A New Financial Scam Going Around And It Means You Should Be Wary Of Literally Any Call From Your Bank
By Leah Bourne So, you probably know by now to not wire your life savings to a bank account because a Nigerian prince asks you to or to give out your social security number to anyone who just asks for it, but there’s a new scam making the rounds that has the possibility to entrap even the most careful of folks out there.
Spread the word, according to a Redditer, fraudsters are calling people using masked numbers made to look like various banks’ numbers (so if you were to Google the number for Bank of America, for instance, it would match up) and then asking for personal information. Think about it, you get a call supposedly from your bank, responsibly Google the number to be on the safe side, it matches up, and then you freely give out your personal information thinking you are talking to your bank. A lot of people would do this. Like, I would do this. Here’s what the Redditer had to say about the scam:“Got a call today from my bank (caller ID confirmed) saying they’d seen fraud on my ATM card (telling me the last 4 digits of my ATM card) at a Walmart in Florida.
I live in Colorado. Of course that wouldn’t be me, and yes I do have the ATM card in my possession. They never asked for the full card number.
While they put me on a brief hold to verify something, I did a reverse lookup on the phone number, it DID match my bank. They sent me an SMS code to verify over the phone, the shortcode of the sending number ALSO matched my bank’s SMS shortcode.
Figured everything was legit, gave them my home address to ship me my new card. They put me back on hold “to talk to a manager” to waive an additional fee to expedite sending the card.
But it was NOT my bank.
While they put me on that second hold they withdrew almost $1,000 in small increments at an ATM in California. (again, I live in Colorado)
I hung up, *I* called my bank, they verified they did NOT call me, had no record of possible fraud in Florida but that the six ATM withdrawals in California DID flag as fraud.
I happened to record the phone call of the “bank” calling me, so I’m sending the phone recordings to my *actual* bank.
Meanwhile I have to wait 10 days to get the $1,000 back. Yay.
Thank goodness for things like an emergency fund, so the lack of the cash doesn’t hurt, but still a major nuisance.”
Read the full Reddit post which is pretty interesting, and beware, your calls might not be what they seem. Scary, scary stuff.
Feature Image: Twenty20
