If you read this blog, you’re probably already security-conscious. But this reminder is worth repeating. Don’t trust anyone.
Sorry.
It’s a shame that’s what the world has come to. Even the good samaritan has to be looked at sideways.
Scammers are now blasting entire towns, phone number by phone number, telling residents that their debit card has been restricted. They target customers of a specific local bank or credit union, name it, and give the customer an 800 number to call in order to correct the situation. If you have a debit card from that financial institution, you just might believe it. Well, other people are believing it. After all, their caller-ID proves that it really is the bank calling.
Or does it? The scammers are able to “spoof” the phone number, so it only appears to be the bank calling. You have no inkling that you’ve been targeted by overseas phishers. If you aren’t a customer of that bank, you probably just hang up and forget it.
If you follow the scammers’ instructions, you’ll give them your card number, pin, and all the other juicy data they need to rack up the charges.
So the tired old reminder worth repeating is this: If you suspect a problem with your bank account or debit card, etc., call your bank’s main number. Call the number on the back of your card or on your bank statement. Especially don’t call a number given to you by the bearer of the news.
4 Comments
@Rick – Calling people stupid for falling for these scams is wrong, they are merely too trusting of the info they have (caller’s claims, caller ID) and unaware of common scam techniques.
Because some of us have been the target of scams like this via postal mail, email, and telephone calls for years we tend to forget that somewhere, someone is experiencing it for the first time.
Of course, one recent credit card letter (legit) I received had a typo… the number was a psychic hotline.
You don’t trust me?
What I’ll never get is how people that stupid can amass the funds to hold debit and credit cards in the first place. I’m starting to think the one irrefutable requisite for being a cog in the wheel in this greatest of all human eras is that you are congenitally stupid (and do what the man says). Go along with that and they’ll keep you in enough green. Until the smart but disenfranchised come along to take it away.
The Chinese wish people to ‘live in interesting times’. This can’t be what anyone was really wishing for. Time to get back into the hills. 😉