Very Sophisticated Phone Scam

Found this in the SJ Update mailbag…

Dear neighbors,

I was just duped by a very sophisticated scam that wrecked my bank account, so I wanted to get the word out there in hopes that this won’t happen to you. Here’s what happened:

I was called on my cell phone by someone claiming to be from the Chase Credit Card Fraud department. He sounded very professional and said that he was calling because they suspected fraudulent activity on my card ending in **** – (he recited the last 4 digits of my debit card).

He then read off two charges that were definitely not charges I had made, so I said no, I did not make those charges. He then acted very concerned and said they would make sure I wasn’t responsible for the charges. He just needed to verify my identity, so he was going to send a verification code to my phone. He sent the code and asked me to read it back to him, which I did.

So far, everything he did perfectly mimicked a real fraud alert call that one might get. I had no reason to be suspicious since he had my phone # and card number, and the code looked legit. After I read him the code, he said to hold while he made some notes on the account – and the the call was disconnected after a couple of minutes on hold.

When I got home, I tried to log on to my account to see the fake charges, etc., and I could not access my account online. I thought that was very strange, so I called Chase, and it turns out the whole thing was an elaborate scam to reset the password on my account and gain access!

Here’s the scam:
If you use Chase, you may know their main number is 1-800-935-9935. The call was from 1-800-935-9355. So close, but not legit. What the scammers do is go to chase.com and click on “Forgot user name/password.” They are then taken to the reset page where they enter some piece of your ID they have, such as social security number, tax id #, etc., and you debit card or account number. (So obviously I was compromised in some way before this happened, but I had no indication of it). Once they fill out that info, Chase sends a code to the phone number on file. This is the code he asked me to read back to him. Now that he had the code, he was able to change the password on my online account, lock me out, and do whatever he wanted with the account.

So, the moral of the story? If you get a call like that, NEVER give them anything or tell them anything. Tell them you’ll call back, hang up, and call the legitimate Chase number to see if it was real or not. Good luck out there.

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