When The Claim Of Fraud Is The Fraud

I'd gotten the warning just a couple days ago. Apparently there's an increase in fraudsters spending our money out there. But even worse, there's an increase in people pretending to be your financial system's safeguards - under whatever terms they use to fool you - claiming you've had possible fraudulent activity on your account and you need to verify if expenditures on your account are real or not.

Of course, in the process of finding out, you'd have to give them your pertinent data like account numbers, birth date, maybe social security number, even sometimes passwords. No problem, lots of people think, because they're the real good guys, right? 

Steve just got one of those calls. Supposedly there were two charges on his account that didn't seem to be his. Could he verify? Luckily, I'd remembered the warning, and stopped him. In turn, he called the REAL people connected with his financial institution, talked to them, and found out the bogus charges did in fact exist, and took care of them. 

Safely!

They even had an idea of what online activity may have precipitated the fraud. He'd tried to buy something that was a REALLY good deal, found his card was mysteriously "rejected", but now the information was in somebody else's hands. They've been stopped on their end. We're going in person to get him a new card in a few minutes so it won't happen again.

When I read the warning, it was in the context of mistrust of the unvetted DOGE youngsters who'd helped themselves to access of all our Social Security information. It coincides with an uptick in fraudulent charges in our financial systems. (We do have those mostly direct deposited, after all.) So far the two have not been connected, but it was time to send out warnings. Steve's financial institution believes they've got the culprits for this time. But who else might they have shared it with? Thus, new card, new number, ASAP.

What it boils down to, should you get a "possible fraud alert" of any kind, hang up. Then call the number on your card or in your phone directory that you know is genuine, and go from there.