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Updated: September 30, 2023 @ 1:00 am
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser has advised “constant vigilance” when it comes to protecting yourself from phishing scams, and other types of fraud, as text-based scams become more popular. Learn more at stopfraudcolorado.gov. (Courtesy photo)
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser has advised “constant vigilance” when it comes to protecting yourself from phishing scams, and other types of fraud, as text-based scams become more popular. Learn more at stopfraudcolorado.gov. (Courtesy photo)
The spooky season has arrived, and it did seem a little scary.
I’m not talking about Halloween — I’m talking about an unsettling text my husband abruptly received from his bank last week, warning his account may have been hacked.
“ALERT: 2 debit charges for $780.99 are pending at Amazon,” it read, proffering a link to click on (with its name in the link) “to deny or approve.”
“Don’t click! It’s a scam!” I warned.
“They know what bank I use. Sons of ***!” my mate replied.
That was the truly scary part: Random hacking warnings from really big institutions, like Wells Fargo and Chase, have become commonplace (I see them in my email now and then).
But a text feels personal, and one with your local bank’s name on it seems downright weird.
Text-based phishing scams citing JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Bank of America — the four largest banks in the US, with nearly $10 trillion in assets — “are low-hanging fruit,” Mark Fetterhoff, the program manager for AARP ElderWatch, a partnership between the nonprofit coalition for seniors and the Colorado Attorney General’s office, said.
There’s a very good chance a randomly generated text, or an email, by a scammer will reach someone who uses one of these banks.
Unfortunately, scams are becoming more sophisticated, and as Fetterhoff pointed out, striking where we’re the most vulnerable.
“When you’re talking about text messages, you’re hitting the nail on the head,” he said. “A lot of the victims of scams these days are responding to text messages.” Texts are what we use “when we’re corresponding regularly with friends, family” and colleagues. “We’re less accustomed” to perceiving texts as places where somebody could try to steal from us.
Targeting a local bank makes a lot of sense to a certain type of scammer. On the eastern plains of Colorado, “there’s essentially one bank, called High Plains,” Fetterhoff said. “You can easily imagine a spear-phishing scam” — meaning, a more-sophisticated, targeted spam that uses personal information — invoking the name of High Plains in such a place, where there are few people, and essentially one financial institution.
The fraud might involve trolling for phone numbers in a certain area code, linking those numbers to the bank’s name, and firing off thousands of spear-phishing texts virtually instantly, all with the push of a computer key.
(Fetterhoff emphasized that his mention of High Plains Bank is a hypothetical example.)
In fact, at least one local institution in the lightly populated San Juans, Alpine Bank, recently emailed customers to warn of a “scam text and phone alert.”
“Financial institutions will never ask you for your password or login information via text or phone call,” the email said. “If you receive a questionable text message or email claiming to be from Alpine Bank, please send a copy to [email protected].”
Earlier this year, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser’s office released a list of the top 10 consumer complaints from 2022. Number eight was “imposter scams,” meaning fraudulent attempts to impersonate a business (such as a bank).
(The top consumer complaints in San Miguel County, according to Weiser’s office, involved automotive sales and service, retail sales and imposter scams.)
“Your bank might text you if you have a fraud alert set up on your phone,” an official from Weiser’s office told the Planet. “But you can always verify that: find the real number of the bank on their website, or through your banking app, and contact them.”
“Scammers and fraudsters send out millions of texts. It’s really cheap for them to do, and there’s not a good way to stop it,” the official said. “There are information technology pros working night and day trying to fend these things off.”
Attorney General Weiser has warned consumers to be constantly vigilant when it comes to fraud. Visit StopFraudColorado.gov, to learn about identity theft, download an identity-theft repair kit, learn about smartphone security and much more. Call AARP/Elder Watch’s helpline (available for all ages) at 800-222-4444 for assistance if you think you’ve been a victim of fraud.
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