“My Bank” Fraud:
We declined $536.34 with card ending in 1961 at STAYBRIDGE SUITES. Was this you? Reply YES or No. If yes, you will not be charged unless you try again. If no, we will close your current card and send you a new one. Msg & data rates may apply.
I’m confused because that’s not my card. The message looks entirely legit, so I got scared and immediately texted back “NO” it said it was canceling my card and sending me a new one. I called the bank and the woman I spoke to said she thought it was a phishing scam and wants me to forward it to their phishing department. My question is… how could this possible be a phishing scam? I’ve had alerts like this from my bank that are identical and after I responded “NO” I got an immediate text back like you’d expect. I thought maybe someone else at my bank might have had my cellphone number before me, but I’ve had my phone number for a very long time and I’d be surprised if someone never bothered to change their cell phone number for their bank and credit cards, and I’ve never had a wrong alert like this before either.
It’ s a phishing scam, one of a variety of similar ones. There is the Amazon account purchase one too. The your social security number is getting cancelled one. The you have a warrant one (often for a place you’ve never even been). The bank one is simply another flavor of scam that I wish the perpetrators of would take a long walk off a tall object for perpetrating.
Yeah, but in the case of those, the scammer tries to get you to call back so they can get your info. In this case they were just trying to get you to text 'yes or ‘no’. So unless there’s a follow-up call, I’m not sure what this is.
Possibly someone just typo’d their phone number and put your number by mistake?
Rule of thumb for these kinds of texts. Never reply to them, ever. Immediately contact your bank on a number you know is legit and verify it. The same applies to emails.
As far as the typo scenario, it also possible that someone used your number to get a credit card. It could be random, it could be from a data breach, who knows? What I do know is that fraud of this nature has become a multi billion dollar industry and it happens all of the time. That is why I always use the rule. Never ever reply to a text or mail, verify it through a clean contact number. Also one more thing, By texting “No” you may have just sent a fresh new credit card to a scammer, who will then use it online where verification is very loose.
Well, the base is that now they know that the phone number is a real person. What happens after that would most likely escalate. As I said block the number.
Dude. While I understand the logic, I still block numbers all the time. Think of it like knocking on wood. Or wearing a plague doctor mask with nice smelling herbs in the beak.
