Con artists who use the telephone to perpetrate the fraud of pretending to be a representative of a person’s bank or financial institute continues to rise, but some intuitions are hoping to help their customers fight back.
Law enforcement from federal to state and local agencies have repeatedly warned the public of this scam and the numerous other scams that continued to find victims.
And many businesses where people bank or save their money are also attempting to warn their customers through inhouse warnings on their websites.
Recently, a couple in Athens, Georgia, who are members of Vystar Credit Union, which has offices across Georgia and Florida, lost $20,000.
The victim believed – wrongly – that a caller was from the credit union. The scammer then began directing her on a pathway that he said would keep her account from being frozen.
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Unfortunately, she became another victim of an increasingly common fraud.
Vystar said it has an educational program that it hopes will prevent customers from falling victims to these scams.
Vystar, like many banking institutions, now post links to warn customers about fraud on their websites. Wells Fargo posts notices like “actions to avoid” and “five steps to avoid phishing scams.” Bank of America has a dedicated page about “scenarios that can help you spot fraud,” while Synovus directs people to a fraud page compiled by the American Bankers Association.
Carl Scaffidi, the chief information security officer for Vystar in its Atlanta office, said he wasn’t allowed to comment on the ongoing investigation into the Athens case, where the victim removed her money and deposited it into a bitcoin machine.
Calls like the woman received could have come from a domestic criminal or one overseas.
“We work closely with our law enforcement partners, the FBI, Department of Justice and Secret Service to combat these,” he said.
If a person has fallen for a scam or becomes suspicious of a call, then reporting it to the institution quickly becomes important if there is any chance of stopping the fraud, according to Scaffidi.
“The quicker someone notifies us, the quicker we can use our internal controls to stop any transfer,” he said. Sometimes, he said, this also allows them time to reach out to the law enforcement partners to join in an investigation.
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Athens-Clarke County police Lt. Jody Thompson said financial institutions must comply with different federal mandates when it comes to their customers. He noted there are rules under such programs as the Bank Secrecy Act and the Know Your Customer.
“Even if it’s your money, and you start moving that money around, it could create a SAR or Suspicious Activity Report,” he said.
“Some banks have policies regarding senior citizens and they will make reports to Adult Protective Services and we’d get the report of any suspicious transactions,” he said. “The problem is by the time we get those reports, the transactions are done. They’ve already got the money or moved the money.”
Like Scaffidi said, Thompson also noted the quicker the scam is reported the greater the chance the transaction can be reversed.
“That’s one of the challenges,” Thompson said.
“It is sad,” Scaffidi said about a crime that can wipe out a person’s account. “You never want to see anyone become a victim, but unfortunately it happens. One of the things I tell everybody is you don’t choose your threats, your threats choose you. Someone is always looking to take advantage of someone else.”
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Often victims can supply telephone numbers from the caller to police when they make a theft report, but this information often does not provide help in identifying the criminal.
Scammers can change their numbers in hours, Scaffidi said.
“We work with the telecommunications companies like Sprint, Verizon, AT&T and they are doing the best they can to identify these numbers and that’s why the numbers change so often,” he said.
Charlene Shirk, who is with Vystar’s public relations office in Jacksonville, Florida said a company will never call and ask customers for debit or credit card information or account security.
You should hang up on the caller if someone calls and asks for such information, she said.
“Call the number of your financial institution if someone called you. There will be a record of the call,” she said.
