Text Message Scammers

You recieve a text message that appears to be from your bank, telling you there has been suspicious activity on your account. You call the return telephone number to see what's going on, and before you know it, you are a victim.

For quite some time now, scammers have been using text messages to prey on financial institutions and their customers.

Here is how it works. The criminals pick a financial institution, then bombard every cell phone in that area code with a phishing (criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, etc) message. the message tells the victims to call a fake 800 number that looks like it is from a local financial institution. Because they are targeting a bank in the region, the bad guys have a pretty good chance of hitting real financial institution customers who may not have heard about the scam.

The scammers use open-source asterisk software to set up a fake voice-operated system and steal information when people enter their account numbers, passwords, and other sensitive information to authenticate themselves on the system.

We ask that you never respond to any request asking you to confirm or validate personal or account information, no matter how legitimate the request appears. If you have any doubts, contact your bank.