This is a public service announcement
I’ve not been taken in by a scam – so far. But never say never. The crooks are getting more and more clever.
And so I’d like to warn you about this con game, in which the scammers manage somehow to phone their potential victims in such a way that caller ID identifies the call as coming from that person’s actual bank. They also seem to already have information about the target’s bank account.
Very sophisticated. Here’s an example of how it works:
[Noel Phillips] was bled dry earlier this year by a group of scammers who used phone number-spoofing technology — software used to misleadingly alter caller ID information — to empty his bank account, taking all of his life savings, totaling nearly $30,000. …
Just seconds before getting a phone call from would-be wrongdoers, he’d received an alert from his Chase app, claiming an unauthorized transaction of $500 had been withdrawn from his account.
“The timing of the call was immaculate,” said Phillips. “After they explained that my account had [been hacked], I immediately asked, ‘Well, how do I know you’re Chase Bank?’ Then I hung up, Googled the number for Chase, and it was the same number that had called me.”
But the thieves had spoofed the bank’s phone number and immediately called back from it. He answered — and that would ultimately change his life for the worse.
“They proceeded to tell me that my account was under attack, and that they suspected employees at my local branch had stolen my personal details,” he recalled. “They said they’d launched an investigation, and that I needed to move my money into a hidden or ‘decoy’ account that already had my name on it.”
Phillips began panicking.
There wasn’t just one voice scaring him into submission — there were at least five, even people posting as law enforcement and federal agents.
“There was the ambient sounds of a call center,” added Phillips, now realizing the background faux noise was likely an AI sound effect tool.
“And everyone had solid American accents,” remembered the Brit. “So I’m thinking, ‘OK, this is not the typical call from abroad. This is legitimate.’”
Don’t count on the banks making good on the money, either.
The lesson to be learned is that banks never call to ask you for information, or to ask you to withdraw money, or anything of the sort. And if anyone does call you with anything suspicious, hang up and call the actual bank to verify even if the call seems to have come from the bank’s phone number.
I’ve noticed that the amount of email scams (phishing), text message scams, and phone scams has increased to a fever pitch lately. I’ll second Neo’s advice and expand on it: Pretty much no major institution or company will call, email, or text message you in a completely unsolicited direct way about things like verifying account information or warnings that your account was hacked or whatever. Unless you are literally making changes or updating your account online at the moment you recieved the message/email/call, mostly it’s a safe bet that you should ignore such attempts to contact you. Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple, Banks and other such companies generally don’t send such “scare” messages for obvious reasons.
Well there’s scammers and hackers out there…
And then there’s Democratic Party governors!
“Kids recruited from foster care are for sale at LA’s sex-trafficking corridor ‘The Blade’ — and cops are powerless to stop it”—
https://nypost.com/2025/10/28/us-news/inside-las-notorious-kiddie-sex-trafficking-corridor-the-blade/
(At least the scammers and hackers don’t believe they really should be President….)
My husband got a call like this last week. Caller: “Don’t you want to protect your money?” Husband: “I don’t have any money.” Caller: click.
The two banks that I have credit cards with do send texts (now that I have a text-capable phone), alerting me to suspicious activity. I received one in the middle of the night saying someone was making multiple charges to Google Play (which I don’t have or use).
I never respond to the texts (which usually have just a weird non-phone number type number as the incoming), but rather call the 1-800 number on my bill and ask for the fraud dept. In all cases there was a dubious charge – a couple were me ordering from an online merchant, but most were charges made by someone not me.
Before I had a phone that could text, I would get messages on my answering machine from the bank saying there was suspected fraud, but usually the bank had already locked my card.
I never answer my phone to a number I don’t know, especially if it says it’s the bank. This is the second time I’ve heard about a scam involving the legit number of a bank or service, available at their website – the other one was the cable company, and the person got the number from the website and called it to ask about their bill. So even my practice of calling them may not protect me. I refuse to use their apps (and my phone is too old to use the app anyways). So I don’t know what the solution is.
Lab Rat, go to your bank site on your computer to check your accounts.
The FBI needs to be way more aggressive in this area and computer ransoming.
People need to be sent to jail for a long time.
A good website for advice on financial security is Bogleheads.org Helpful smart people.
Here’s a page with advice on securing your financial accounts.
https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/User:BanjoDonkey/Online_account_security
Another step not mentioned on that page is freezing your accounts at the online credit sites like Equifax, Experian, and Trans Union. This keeps people from opening credit cards and other accounts in your name. It is free and reversible if you actually want to open an account. Here’s a page on the Bogleheads with information on how to do it.
https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Credit_freeze
Of course, I’m just a random person on the Internet so cross check the information and make sure it’s correct before acting on it.
Here’s something that worked rather well for my late mother – I couldn’t get her to just hang up on callers she didn’t know (her mindset was that just hanging up was rude; and she didn’t want to be rude) – what I did convince her to say was “I don’t handle my finances, my sons do that for me.”
It always resulted in the caller hanging up.
Check your various accounts to see if you can lock cash transfers and other security options. Also check your county records department about locking your home file to reduce home title scams.
I ignore red-flag emails and texts. One thing my husband andn I are set against is giving anyone electronic access to our checking account. If I have a pressing need (temporary GoFundMe or something), I’ll open a separate account to drain donated funds into.
When my father got scam calls many decades, he used to resort to that old joke: “I spent half my money on wine, woman, and song–and the rest I just wasted.”
Funny neo should mention it ….
This morning I received emails that an account in the name of my email address had been opened at Chime.com and that someone had tried to access the account. If it was me, I was to ignore it. If not, I should change, my password … but I don’t have an account or a password.
I was also sent email with a Direct Deposit Form for the rest of my banking information.,
I called the support number and got a guy with a dodgy accent who kept pumping me for my date of birth. I refused. We went around that mulberry bush for a while before I hung up on him.
I called back later and the person again asked for personal information, while I kept saying, “I am not a Chime customer. I am calling to report identity theft — someone opened an account in my name. I request that you assign my case to your Fraud & Identity-Theft Team.”
The connection broke. So now I am in identity-theft mode. There have been reports of massive data breaches:
https://time.com/7296254/passwords-leaked-data-breach/
__________________________
The lesson to be learned is that banks never call to ask you for information, or to ask you to withdraw money, or anything of the sort. And if anyone does call you with anything suspicious, hang up and call the actual bank to verify even if the call seems to have come from the bank’s phone number.
–neo
Wendy K Laubach
One thing my husband and I are set against is giving anyone electronic access to our checking account.
Does that mean that you have no automatic payments set up?
Five-ten years ago there were some calls purporting to be from the IRS, informing you that if you didn’t pay up ASAP, there would be trouble in River City. (Anyone w IRS experience knows the IRS does mail, not phones.) I got some. An octogenarian friend got some. She also got some from someone claiming to be her grandson, in prison in Mexico, who needed to be bailed out. Except that her grandson was a high school student in Israel.
I can happily report that my Pixel’s built-in spam and scam detection blocks or screens these calls before i ever see them. Forwarding my landline to my cell phone extends the spam and scam detection to it as well. Before I did that I was inundated these calls no matter what I tried to do to stop or screen them. So as much as I despise giving Google access to all my call info I have to admit it’s been worth it to stop these calls in their tracks. Now if they’d only stop my Congressman from inviting me to tele-townhalls and polling…
True about the FBI, but the hardcore crooks aren’t deterred. They don’t have normal lives that could be disrupted by jail, and they regard normal lives as for suckers.
Is it just me, or does anyone else notice that an unusually large number of these scammers seem to have Indian accents?
I damn near got taken by one of these calls, about three years ago – my bank CC had been used for fraudulent charges by someone who wasn’t me a couple of times, so I was almost convinced when I assumed the caller was from my bank calling back to verify. These slimeballs are so very good at spoofing local numbers.
We’ve set up my phone now that it goes to the message if the caller is not among my list of contacts. I’m sure that I’ve missed a couple of genuine clients that way … but the spam calls were coming thick and fast – four in one morning alone.
I hope that Trump’s justice department gets around to really cracking down on these slimes, even if they are in foreign countries … and yes, Joe, we have noticed that an unusually large number of these scammers do have an Indian accent … and that most of them are really not adept in colloquial American English.
I’m a bit sorry for anyone with an Indian accent who is genuinely working a non-spam, non-scummy enterprise where they deal with the public, but I’m afraid most of us hearing that accent hang up even before they can get three words out.
There was the ambient sounds of a call center,…
That’s always a red flag. Dozens of people in the background yammering on phones.
Just a thought, when he saw that the number matched what the bank had on its website, instead of picking up the call, had he initiated a call to that number, wouldn’t it have gone to the actual bank?
About a year ago I received a voice mail msg (I never answer the phone if not a known contact) – said he was officer somebody with the county sheriff’s office. Asked for me by name, said he just had some questions. I looked up the sheriff’s # – was the same as shown on my phone. I dialed directly rather than redialing. The officer who answered had the same voice as the message – and said he had not called – this was a scam call, they’d had a number of them. Glad I didn’t just redial – clearly they spoofed the #, as well as sampling the voice —
Early this year I received a call late one night at work purporting to be from the Sheriff’s department. Supposedly I had ignored a jury duty notice and unless I paid now (I can’t recall the method, but it wasn’t gift cards heh) I would have a warrant out against me come morning. American accent for sure.
A couple years ago I got a call from “[major US bank which I have an account with] Security Department”. The caller had an Indian accent and asked me if a particular charge on my debit card was legit. [IIRC it was.] I happened to be not far from a branch of the bank, so I went there and the man who helped me checked my account and said it was OK, and the phone number from the call was legit. He also recommended using a credit card instead of a debit card for purchases, since it’s safer and you can earn points.
I blocked two numbers (one incoming and one outgoing) for the bank on my phone, and only accept calls from one number now (although they never call me.)
Hope this doesn’t muddy the water too much. 🙂 Thank you Neo for this heads-up!
In case my previous post was unclear, I do think the call from the Indian-sounding gent (sounded like a call center also, IIRC) was legit, although with number spoofing you never know. I didn’t give him any info (I’m quite suspicious) and IIRC he didn’t ask for any.
Also I remember the first time years ago when another south Asian left a message on my answering machine that I owed the IRS money and an “officer” was on his way to arrest me. One never wants to hear that, so I was initially concerned until I thought about it. Now I just laugh at email like that which I receive.
charles on October 28, 2025 at 3:58 pm:
“… what I did convince her to say was “I don’t handle my finances, my sons do that for me.” ”
That sounds like a pretty good solution.
But I had the thought that perhaps even better would be: “I don’t handle my finances anymore, my 12 year old computer savvy grandson does that for me”. The message being if you are a scammer you might fool me but you definitely would not fool him, and he is only 12, to boot!!
🙂
Catherine:
Wow.
Michael Riley:
Calling the bank number would contact the actual bank – but I’m not sure that doing a return call to the most recent call number would work. Just to be certain, it would probably be best to dial the bank phone number as a new number.