Local law enforcement and financial institutions are warning about the latest scam trying to separate you from your money, this time through text messaging.
A rash of official looking texts have been hitting smartphones in recent days according to Scotts Bluff County Sheriff Mark Overman, who says there have been a few victims who have lost a significant amount of money to the criminals.
Overman tells KNEB News the scam involves a bogus ‘alert’ about a ‘problem’ transaction with an online link. “It takes you to a fraudulent website that looks kind of official, but if you fill out that information, you’ve just given away your banking information, and allowed them access to your bank accounts. And this is just a really recent thing, but obviously they’re targeting this area,” he said. The bogus alerts have come across with messages about various types of transactions, including “unverified charges” and supposed “e-deposit service attempted from a new device”.
Overman says it’s the latest version of a phishing scam, and the criminals really don’t have your phone number.
“They’re using some sort of software, and they’re targeting auto-dialers and auto text messages. And so they’ve got the area code and the prefix, and they’re just bombarding people in this area,” said Overman. “And there’s a lot of people that, and you could talk to virtually any bank, there’s a lot of account holders, so they’re just targeting this.”
He says banks don’t communicate fraud issues through text, and if you get one, the best thing to do is to call your financial institution, and then delete the message off your phone.
