Telephone scam targeting early risers
Posted May 17, 2015 9:28 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – There’s a new telephone scam that’s making the rounds, targeting those of you who wake up early in the morning.
People are being called between 5 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. by a person claiming to be from a bank, telling them their credit card was compromised the night before.
The fraudster hopes the person volunteers personal information because they’re so tired.
“Obviously banks are certainly allowed to contact you, but they should have all the information on you that they need, they shouldn’t be requiring you to put in any other information over the phone first thing in the morning. That’s a big red flag,” says Evan Kelly with the Better Business Bureau.
He explains how you should handle a call like this.
“They’re really hard to prevent, of course. If you don’t recognize the number on your phone then don’t answer it. They can leave a message. If it’s a scammer, they’ll be less likely to leave a message on your phone. Or say, ‘Thank you very much and I’ll get in touch with my bank.'”
He suggests if you’re unsure about any possible banking issues, then you should be phoning them and remember to always check your statements on a regular basis.
“You can do that all online too, you can do it on your smartphone, so if there’s anything untold or any transactions you haven’t approved then you can certainly red flag it with your bank as well.”
Kelly says it’s tough to say whether we’re seeing more of these types of scams.
“The thing about these things is people have a phone-list, it doesn’t really cost very much money for them to get these scams going. It’s a numbers game, so if they call 100 people and they get one person to get them to give them their personal information then their workday is done.”
Various forms of fraud make up the multi-billion dollar industry in Canada.
