If you’ve never received a call or text message telling you there’s been fraudulent activity detected on your bank account, then you are among the minority. People are receiving an ever-increasing number of phony banking texts and phone calls. These calls are not only annoying but persuasive. In many cases, these calls and text messages state that they’re coming from an actual financial institution, leading many to believe that they’re legitimate.
These calls and messages usually direct people to call an unfamiliar number to resolve the issue. When a person calls this number, they are asked to verify their identity by revealing personal financial information such as their account number, PIN, and social security number. And thus, the scammer can gain access to a person’s financial accounts and rob them blind.
Fortunately, you can do things to ensure that you don’t get taken in by one of these bogus texts or phone calls.
Investigate the Phone Number
When you receive a call or a phone number regarding fraudulent activity on your bank account, you need to verify that it’s coming from a legitimate source. The easiest way to do this is to investigate the phone number to uncover who it belongs to. Legitimate banking institutions will have phone numbers registered in their name.
The simplest way to verify a phone number is to use a reverse phone lookup service. A reverse phone lookup service, like Check People, allows you to look up any phone number to discover who it belongs to. In some cases, you can even find out details about the owner. Furthermore, if a number is suspected of belonging to a scam, performing a reverse phone lookup will usually reveal this.
Call your Financial Institution
Sometimes a reverse phone lookup search won’t turn up anything. In that case, you should phone your financial or banking institution to confirm that there’s an issue with your account.
When doing this, you want to ensure that you use the publicly advertised number of the institution. That is the number available on their website through the contact us section or the number listed on your banking statement.
Never Give Your Information to Unsolicited Callers
If you receive a call from your banking institution or utility company, you should not give out your personal information, even if it’s to verify your identity. If it’s really your bank or your utility company, they should already know who you are, and they should have a way to check your identity that doesn’t involve your personal information.
Verify all Links Sent Through Text Messages
A common scammer’s ploy is to text you a link that brings you to a site that looks like the site belonging to your financial institution. You will then receive a prompt to enter your login information. This will then give the scammers access to your accounts. Therefore, before you enter any information, you should check the URL of the site. You can do this by opening a second browser tab and doing a search for your bank. This should bring up the website belonging to your financial institution. Check the URL of the website you know to be legitimate against the URL of the link you received. You could also call your bank to verify whether the web address you’ve been sent is legitimate.
Don’t Respond to Text Messages from Unfamiliar Numbers
When scammers send out text messages, they don’t always know whether those numbers actually belong to people. One of the ways they can confirm that they have an active number is if you respond to their message. Therefore, you should check whether the number is from a legitimate institution through the reverse phone lookup. If it’s not legitimate, then you should block the number and delete the message.
Summary
Scammers are an unfortunate part of our reality. However, we don’t have to give them the means to swindle us. By taking precautions and being vigilant, we can prevent malicious people from gaining access to our personal information. So remember, always verify the provenance of any unknown numbers, and if you think your account may actually be in danger, call your bank to confirm. Furthermore, you should never give out any personal information to unsolicited callers, you should verify the legitimacy of any links you’re sent, and you shouldn’t respond to messages sent from unknown numbers.
