It was a busy morning getting ready for work and getting the kids ready for school when Tom received a text message from his bank stating there had been a suspicious purchase and they would be calling briefly to sort it out. In a few moments, the phone rang, and the caller I.D. indicated it was his bank. He answered the phone and was greeted by a common voice, jovial and friendly, who also indicated they were from his bank. The caller referenced the recent text message and the concern about a recent transaction. Tom thanked the caller for their diligence in keeping him safe, a comment Tom would soon learn was ironic. The caller told Tom she needed to confirm his identity and proceed to list his address, email, birthdate, and even social security number. Tom confirmed all of these were his. The caller then told Tom she needed to send Tom a one-time code to his phone to confirm his identity, which she did, and Tom read the number back to the caller. This he would later find out was the entire reason for the call.
A minute later the call ended, and Tom felt good about the service he had received from who he thought was his bank. The next day his wife Sally just happened to be looking at their bank accounts and realized something had changed. Their four accounts had been consolidated into one, and a transfer request had been made for the entire balance of the fourth. She immediately called her husband to ask if he had initiated the transactions, which he hadn’t, but he recounted to her the call he had with who he thought was their bank the day before. Sally called the bank to inquire and quickly learned that they had no record of the call with Tom and that the transfer was initiated online. It turned out that the scammer already had Tom’s username and password for his bank, all they needed was the two-factor authentication code, which they couldn’t get without Tom’s phone.
Fortunately for Tom and Sally, bank transfers take time, so notifying the bank of the fraud right away allowed the bank to stop the transfer and restore their account balances. However, what if Sally hadn’t happened to check their bank accounts the next day? The important lesson is to never confirm or provide information over the phone to any business calling you. Instead, Tom should have politely thanked the caller, hung up the phone, and called or visited the bank directly. Following this event, Tom and Sally filed a police report, reported the theft of their identity to the FTC, changed bank accounts, established new usernames and passwords, added fraud alerts to their credit profiles, and froze their credit.
If you have any questions, please contact your Francis financial planner or reach out to us via phone at 866.232.6457 or email at info@francisway.com.
