Area financial institutions are reminding residents to be on the lookout for several bank scams targeting customers.
“Scammers are using these internet-based services and some out-of-state telephone providers to spoof different banks’ telephone numbers, and they’ll send texts to thousands of random numbers in that bank’s service area about unauthorized charges, and the scammers hope that some of those random phone numbers will belong to real customers at the bank that they’re targeting,” said Cecilian Bank Senior Vice President Jim Eastridge.
While Cecilian Bank has been the subject of several scams seen locally, banks across the country have seen their names come up in scam attempts.
If you get a text that you think is suspicious, go through the proper channels to verify it.
“If you get a text from a bank or business, use a safe link, a search engine, or an app for that business to log on to the retailer banking account to verify that activity,” Eastman said. “Never click on the link, no matter how legitimate it looks.”
Now is also a good time to make sure you are using a variety of passwords, as a single password makes you more susceptible.
“When these credentials are stolen in breaches, they can be cross-referenced with other stolen data like information from credit bureaus to try to determine where a person banks, to get their phone number, their email address, and a whole lot more information,” Eastman said. “This data’s sold on the dark web all the time, and the bad guys use this information to attempt logins to banks that you may have done business with in the past according to that stolen information.”
Similar to phone scams, remember to never give out personal or financial information unless you can confirm who the information is going to.
