<p>D’s bank account (linked to her Mom’s account) uses our home address. Yesterday we received a letter from her bank. An “unusual transaction” had been detected on her account (“last 4 digits -1234”) and a “temporary” hold had been placed on her debit card. Gave us the number to call. Called D this a.m… Told her about the letter. She denied any problems with the account. Told her to check online account status for a “hold”. She said she would just call the 1-800 on the back of her card. She did. </p>
<p>Scam-o-rama. No “hold”. No problems. No letter sent from them.</p>
<p>Jeez. This was a good one. “Bank” letter-head. Computer generated. Bar-coded. </p>
<p>Glad you didn’t fall for it.
What we are seeing is lots of fraudulent checks purporting to be from the large company for which I work. People who are allegedly buying things on craigslist or renting apartments are trying to use these checks (not even on our company’s real bank) and tendering them to the seller through FedEx in an amount much larger than the transaction amount. The “buyer” then asks the seller to wire the excess funds back, after keeping extra for their trouble. This ring (involves many, many companies besides ours) is run out of Nigeria and people are hired to do the work out of internet cafes, etc.</p>
<p>Most people do not fall for it and call us to determine if it is a real check, but a few have actually wired the money back to the “buyer”.</p>
<p>Supposedly, legitimate websites have a lock depicted on the bottom of the site.</p>
<p>We constantly get emails about our bank accounts from banks we don’t bank at, notes about our paypal account, though we may be the only family in the USA without such an account and the like.</p>
<p>My husband listed an apartment for rent on CL and you wouldn’t believe how many people in Europe wanted to rent it for a year in advance but had no dollars and wanted him to cash their foreign checks and send them back the excess. The danger in this is that not only do you lose the amount of the check but you have now given them your bank account info and they try to drain it before you figure it out.</p>
<p>There is also the car scam on CL. It’s granny’s car that’s been in the garage for 2 years or the seller is off in the military or the car is on a transport so you have to buy it sight unseen and cash their check and send back the excess. My husband did a phone number search on one of these ads and found that there were at least a dozen different cars being sold by one number who, in each ad, claimed to be an individual seller.</p>
<p>You have recourses - report ads like that to CL. If you get the bank or company emails, notify the bank or the legitimate company and your internet provider. I learned to my interest that the Secret Service, through the Postal Police, investigate this type of scam.</p>
<p>I have to confess that my BS meter is fully engaged these days, and now I hardly even believe legitimate emails from banks. I don’t take calls from their customer service agents on the phone, either. </p>
<p>I used to be frustrated that my in laws wouldn’t get a computer. Now I am glad, because they would fall for everything that came down the pike and probably be financially ruined. </p>
<p>If I question an email I receive, I just log in to the computer site. I won’t do any of this from a smart phone, although I could, in theory.</p>
<p>When my banks have detected an unusual transaction they call me- now, true, I wasn’t sure that was actually the bank so I looked up online to see their number, before I called it- but I expect banks will contact someone by email or phone because it is so much faster than snail mail.</p>
<p>I had a situation almost two months ago where Amazon called us at home telling us that someone was trying to open up a new Amazon account with our credit card number. Man, if that didn’t set off the alarm bells. But they had the last four digits of our account number and did not ask for any information… just wanted to alert us. So I watched our Visa online that day and saw no suspicious activity. Then late afternoon I got an email from Amazon, basically stating what they’d told us on the phone. At that point, I called the number on the back of our Visa card and explained what we’d been told. The Visa people were skeptical that anyone from Amazon would call and suggested we close the account. We did, which is always a huge inconvenience. Visa suggested I email Amazon at an address that I got from their website, which I did, and explained that I’d received this phone call and email. Surprisingly, they emailed me back, saying the alerts were real, that someone from Amazon had actually called us and emailed us to alert us of suspicious activity. Well, that was a new one on me. The person at Visa was highly suspicious that Amazon would go out of their way to contact us like that, but I guess it happens. I guess I would have rather Amazon have called our credit card company and let them sort through it all, than to have called me, but I guess in the end I should be thankful that they were so alert to the situation.</p>
<p>I’m like SamuraiLandShark… I have failed to believe legitimate calls from my bank/financial institutions. </p>
<p>But I don’t see a problem with that. Received one a couple of years ago, didn’t believe it. Hung up and called my personal contact at our financial institution directly at the number I already have. Turned out the phone call had been legitimate, but I’d rather take this extra step every time (if there ever is another time).</p>
<p>The university from which I graduated, and to which I make a donation every year still has a student call me to try and get me to make my donation using a credit card on the phone. They are always surprised when I explain that, no, since they called me that I have no way of knowing that they are really ABC University, and I don’t give out my credit card number to people who call me. </p>
<p>I’m not sure why this is so hard to fathom. Yes, I’m pretty sure that it is a student at the other end of the line, but why in the world are they asking them to engage in behavior that they ought to be teaching them is a terrible idea from a security standpoint?</p>
<p>When the students from my alma mater call me- always during dinner- the caller ID proclaims that it is “Indiana University” or “Univ of Texas” or the various other places from which H and I have received degrees. I tend to believe it, and, occasionally even answer the call and reaffirm my desire to support such esteemed academic institutions!</p>
<p>Teriwtt- I got that same call/email from Amazon, but I didn’t check it and I didn’t close the credit card account. I just couldn’t face it. Nothing bad has happened yet…fortunately.</p>
<p>I got a phone call from my bank last week querying whether or not to pay a large check that had been “improperly endorsed.” They called at 10 am and gave me until 2pm to figure out whether the check had been deposited by the entity it was written to. </p>
<p>The office manager for that company is now quite embarrassed that she neglected to stamp the check properly. She forgot to stamp it, and then just wrote “for deposit only” on it. My bank got the check and said it was not the way things should be done and they were going to return it. </p>
<p>Since S2 goes to college in another state and sometimes buys things on-line, we occasionally get “suspicious” activity on the cc that he uses. I always call the number on the back of the card rather than using the # they leave or responding to the call itself. Just had it happen on our main cc. H will be traveling around Europe and we tried to purchase his tickets form a Website in the UK on various small European airlines–Easy Jet, Air Portugal, etc. The last of 3 charges was refused. I made the purchase with another cc but the next day had a message on our answering machine about a suspicious charge. I didn’t listen to the message until almost a week later, but had been using the card regularly all week with no pb. So I never called back.</p>
<p>A large group of friends from work (plus friends of friends) organizes an annual holiday Shopping Day, usually the first Friday of December. I’ve been able to join them a few times; it is a fun day. They start out meeting up for breakfast, shop (and visit) for a few hours, then meet up for lunch, and then - for those still not done shopping - shop some more. The champion Shopping Day shopper of all time is a woman who doesn’t even like to shop - one year her bank put a hold on her credit card by lunch time. She had done so much shopping that day - probabably more than she usually does in a month or more - that the bank algorithms for suspicious purchases figured her card must have been stolen. :D</p>
<p>Staying in a hotel for a college visit. Hotel phone rings at 4 AM. H answrs. Man on the other end tells H there is a problem with the computer. They need our credit card number. Can come down, or give it over phone. Since I am a super-hearer, ( and super-smeller, of full garbage cans), I yell out “don’t give our CC number over the phone!”. H goes down to front desk, and they has no idea what he’s talking about.</p>
<p>Cant caller ID displays be faked? I believe they can and that it’s not too difficult. I wouldn’t wholeheartedly trust what the caller ID says. </p>
<p>I know I there are websites you can send text messages from that make it look like the text messages were sent from any number you want. If it’s that easy to do it I’m sure faking phone caller Id can’t be much harder.</p>
<p>It really does get harder & harder to trust these days. I will NOT give info over the phone to anyone who calls. I will call back the number on my CC or similar. Will also try to get a phone number that they claim to be calling from.</p>
<p>I would be pretty upset being called at 4am! That’s really a nasty scammer! Have gotten calls at awful hours–often because folks forget HI is in a different time zone–they apologize profusely, but early AM calls are not appreciated.</p>
<p>Yes, you can spoof someone with a caller id.</p>
<p>I looked this up years ago when I got a phone call from a telemarketer, which I literally thought was a prank from a family member. The caller id showed up with the name of my long deceased grandmother. It was truly a coincidence and it was a telemarketer calling from their own phone (alarm bells, anyone?), but grandmother’s name was unusual and the weirdness factor made me do some checking.</p>
<p>I can’t link the site, but you can google fake caller id and find out that this is absolutely legal.</p>
<p>Last summer, my S was travelling abroad. I called the banks ahead of time and told them that he was going to be in those countries on some specific dates. I was surprised to get a phone call from one of the bank card customer service reps about unauthorized activity. I was able to get an email to my son asking him if everything okay on card. He said yeah, but he inadvertently put the wrong card in the bank atm and it was rejected.</p>
<p>Son realized mistake and used right card, but bank checked on us just under 45 minutes from when the situation happened. They left a message, checked phone number on customer service site and called back the number on credit card, not the one left on machine. Probably took longer to get through, but I am just leery after being duped in the past. All was well. Nice job, bank!</p>