HFGF community, You know those phone calls you get from your bank asking if you just made a purchase at a coffee house in Paris when you’re visiting family in the American Midwest (based on a true story)? I got one of those calls today. Someone posing as working for my bank’s fraud protection department claimed my credit card was being used Florida, and I live nowhere near Florida. Buuuuuttttt…as it went on it started sounding more phishy than legit. I was right. I hung up and called my bank immediately after and they said there was no activity on my card today. I’m safe now, but this scam outfit had the script of a legit fraud alert call down. They had convincing answers for company names, phone numbers with extensions, even employee ID numbers they were willing to share. They even had my mother’s maiden name. They tipped me off most when they asked for my online banking login info and couldn’t explain why they needed it. But, they had everything I had been trained to ask about ready to go. Again, I caught it in time and got all my info changed and new cards issued, but know it’s out there. I advise if you get such a call, don’t talk to that person and call your credit card issuer directly. Also, my bank told me they aren’t using mothers maiden name for security purposes anymore because it’s too easy to find out.
That’s all! I hope some find this helpful. Protect your money! We should be buying audio gear!
Every time i had one of these calls i have said thanks ill follow up. Then hung up and called a known bank number or gone to the bank itself. The two times this happened it was a legit call but its so easy to be scammed by this.
If you do get scammed or your numbers lifted, change everything. Banks will most likely try to take the easy route and convince you to just swap out credit cards but change those accounts too. Its a PITA but there is a good chance if they have the card they have more and theyll get to everything else eventually.
Yes I had someone steal and wash a check I wrote to a contractor.
Bank reversed the transaction immediately, but they insisted I change account numbers, when I tried refusing they said you can but you’ll loose any insurance on the account, so change them I did. It was a total pain in the ass that took months to work through.
To be fair the bank bent over backwards to make it as easy as possible, transparently transferring funds from the new account to the old one to cover charges that showed up there, but it’s not something you want to deal with.
Scammers are getting really good at being bad, too. The group that called me sounded 100% legit until they didn’t. So yeah, I advise the universal practice of immediately hanging up from such a call and calling the number on the back of your card(s).
These types of things are why I do as little transaction wise on my debit card (When I read “call from my bank” I assume you’re talking about the one that has your checking/savings). Instead I put my transactions on a credit card with good fraud protection. The card I’m currently using sends me a detailed text message requiring me to only respond with an affirmative if a suspected transaction is actually legit. I just clear the credit card monthly so I don’t incur any interest hits (of course this requires a little self control as my original credit limit of about 5K has been incrementally increased to over $20k).
Yes, but that number can be “replicated” by the baddies. Thats why i always suggest hanging up and following up with you calling the known bank number or going to a branch
