If more people behaved like you, fewer scammers would be able to make a living…
They spoofed the number, but the fact that they knew that you had this credit union card is scary. Maybe call the company’s fraud unit so they can see where the scammers got the information.
That one is pretty easy to fall for if a person isn’t aware of how easy it is to spoof a number.
Saw my good friend yesterday. I’m not sure I’d believe #1 if it hadn’t happened to her daughter.
Scam #1: As her daughter left work, she was approached by a teenage boy claiming to be raising money for his travel basketball team. He had his laminated flyer describing their goal and said he’d be grateful if she could donate $5-10. He said he could take Venmo if she had no cash. I think she is a bit naive, but her mind was elsewhere as she finished work. She had no cash and said she could Venmo him. She put his number in her Venmo, typed in $10, at which point he snatched the phone out of her hand, added two zeros, and hit pay. Then he gave her back the phone and said thanks. She was stunned. Went straight to the police, who took a report. But her money is gone apparently. I am not sure of the follow up.
Scam #2: This same friend was at work on Valentine’s Day. She got an email from her boss. The boss needed seven Apple gift cards for clients. As a relative newcomer to the office, she didn’t think twice about the request. It was Valentine’s Day, and her boss was known to give gifts to clients. She emailed the “boss” back saying she would get them right away. The boss emailed back that she (the boss) needed the numbers on the backs of the cards as soon as she got them.
She went to a CVS, where they would only sell her 3 cards. Then she went to another store, but there were only 2 cards left. She purchased them. She texted her boss at that point, asking if she could get the other 2 cards the next day, as she had work to finish. She said “I can take a photo of the numbers on the cards and text it to you.” Her phone rang, and the boss, of course, had no idea what my friend was talking about.
A scammer had looked at the company website directly and chosen my friend as the target because, as a newer employee, there was no bio yet, just her email address. So the scammer simply took his chances, hoping to get lucky, and nearly did. The boss reimbursed my friend and actually kept the cards for client gifts.
As a member of several boards, I get that scam regularly. All our information is public, so someone can impersonate the President and ask the Treasurer to buy gift cards or wire money. I almost fell for it the first time it happened.
The first scam (Venmo) is crazy! Wow.
I’ve experienced a variation of the second scam. I got a call from someone claiming to be from my credit card company’s fraud monitoring department. Now, I’ve had a couple of cases over the years where I genuinely had fraudulent charges that they altered me to, so I didn’t dismiss this right away.
The “fraud department employee” read out some outlandish charges and asked if I recognized them. I said no, and he asked if maybe my card had been stolen? Did I still have it in my possession? I said yes I did. He thanked me for confirming (!) and said they would open a fraud investigation, but I would have to first prove I had my card with me. I would need to send them a photo of both sides of my credit card via a link he was going to text me. Of course, I figured out at this point that this was a scam call. I laughed loudly at him, said “nice try!” and hung up.
I logged in to my account just to check, and as I expected there were no unusual charges.
On the Venmo scam, doesn’t the victim have the scammer’s Venmo ID/username, whatever.
My daughter lost $1000 in an almost identical scam (scam 2) shortly after she started a new job. “Boss” told her he was meeting with a client and would be unreachable for several hours. Please warn your kids!
Yes. I don’t know why she isn’t able to get it back. Venmo seems weirdly quiet on scams, but other websites have information about the various ruses. How To Avoid the 14 Latest Venmo Scams [2024 Update].
My husband fell for your DD’s scam #2. The president of an organization asked him, the secretary of the organization, to purchase 7 $100 gift cards from Walmart to give to other people on the board. He went straight away to Walmart and purchased them. While he was gone, I got really suspicious as they wanted to have him send the gift card numbers. I told him to double check with the president before he sent them. The president said that he didn’t ask for them. Fortunately, he didn’t send the numbers to the guy. We were taking a driving trip from the mid west to California. We used the gift cards to purchase gas along the way at Sam’s Club. He learned his lesson. So naive some times.
Well, the scammers have gotten very very good. Sometimes we’re naive, but sometimes they’re very very good.
I’ve gotten really annoyed sometimes when a doctor’s office calls me – and I know it’s legit; they’re calling about changing an appointment or something – and they want me to tell them what my birthday is. Uh – no. You tell me what my birthday is, and I’ll let you know if it’s correct.
Scary article.
And now some are using deep fakes or AI enabled voice cloning. Scariest thing I’ve seen.
That is scary. Just how does one do a bank withdrawal in another name? Seems like there would need to be charges for ID fraud too.
Definitely the in person withdrawals had some ID theft. 
Venmo isn’t insured and they don’t stand behind transactions. You send the money, you authorize it, it’s gone. My daughter was scammed buying tickets from someone online. She sent the money, asked for the tickets and they guy ‘haha lol’ return email. She immediately contacted Venmo and they could put a hold on the transfer and she was saved. If she had waited more than about 10 minutes, the money would have been gone. Never Venmo someone you don’t know, for girl scout cookies, for splitting a restaurant tab (new ‘friend’?). As a former FDIC employee, I don’t venmo. Ever. It’s not insured and there are very few protections (not like a credit card).
I got a call a few weeks ago from a contractor of my insurer. I don’t think it was a scam, because they wanted to tell me about benefits (OTC drugs, a nurse to come to my house) but I wasn’t really interested. Then the conversation went like this:
Her: I need your phone number to verify it is you
Me: YOU called me at this number
Her: but I need to verify it is you. HIPAA requirements
Me: But you called me on this phone, so I could give you this number and it still wouldn’t be the insured person, and I’m not going to give you any other information because YOU called ME
And then she hung up.
Same when I go to the doctor. They ask me my birth date. Lots of people know my birth date, and I know lots of people’s birth dates, like my brothers when I pick up his prescriptions, How is that satisfying HIPAA?
I don’t have venmo at all D and nearly all her friends do. so far she hasn’t mentioned losing $ on it and is careful about whom she sends money to using it (relatives and close friends).
I have Venmo (mainly because husband has asked me to send friends his share of stuff a few times) but I set up and delete my checking account info each time I need it. So it sits with no bank info. A bit more trouble to use but I feel safer not having my info out on the interwebs.
I have a Venmo tied to my debit card mostly just used with a few relatives. The first payment to a person is always a small amount, just to make sure I have the right connection.
Venmo note: The default setting is not-private. I’ve changed mine, but lol get to see evidence of my contacts doing Venmo payment to their friends because I guess they have not changed their settings.
I had a call from someone at my insurance company and she asked me to verify my PIN. I said “you called me, I’m not going to do that.” But then she said she was calling me to follow up with about an issue with my sons that we’d spoken about at length the week before. And I did recognize her voice. But still. I think there needs to be a PIN on both sides. I’m suspicious of everything these days.
I’m not sure my niece knows I can see all of her payments! She can’t see mine. 