Sheldon, Iowa — It’s not only Christmas season, unfortunately, it’s also scam season. But this year, some of the scammers seem to be going high-tech.
We talked with Citizen’s State Bank Vice President Heidi Brown, who tells us the scams appear to have a new audience.
(as said:) “Typically, honestly, a lot of our scams are targeted at our seniors or population that’s less likely to be using necessarily mobile but might be using email or they’re just getting calls on the phone. But now what we’re finding is P2P or person to person or peer-to-peer payments becoming more of the target. So with so many people using Zelle and cash applications… Venmo is another one. Brella through Shazam is another one. Some of those have better security built-in than others and some of those applications have plenty of security that the user… you as the user can set up but people aren’t taking the time to do that.”
And therein lies one of the problems, says Brown.
(as said:) “Someone posing as a seller requesting payment from you through the app contacts you or someone calling you and posing as customer support from a popular… Amazon is a popular one that’s being used… you know something that’s fairly popular for people who are using mobile payments, then we’ll call and say oh we had an issue. So if you’ll send your payment again, but you know what the last you for credentials. And they’ll ask you for information that you should just never, never, never, never give to someone who contacts you. If you are spending the money you would know and you should have initiated the transaction on your end. If they have to call you or contact you that should raise every red flag in the book.”
She says another scam that they’ve seen usually involves younger people who have met someone only online and have become what they would consider good friends.
(as said:) “For reasons, I can’t understand people… our customers… our victims are being convinced to give them… to give up their online banking credentials. I don’t care how much you know someone or you think you know someone through… that you’ve only met online. I don’t care if you’ve bonded with them in person. You just don’t give up your online banking credentials to somebody else because once you do that, and once you send payment we cannot get it back for you and that’s what people aren’t understanding.”
Brown tells us the P-to-P apps are great and since they are contactless, they seem more COVID-safe. She says just because it’s easy and COVID-safe, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily scam-safe. She says you should only transfer money with someone you actually know and never give out your login information or personal information to someone who contacts you.
If something seems fishy at all, she says you should call your bank or law enforcement.
