I have been partnering with the Florence Bank marketing team for many years as a PR specialist. I develop and craft press releases to send to the media and also provide occasional blogs that appear on the bank’s website.

This recent blog takes a look at What To Do If You Think You’ve Fallen Victim to Fraud.

If you are a Florence Bank customer and suspect your account with us has been comprised by online crime, please—even if you have only the slightest suspicion—make your first call to our customer service team at 413-586-1300.

We want you to call us because there are things we can do to help, and we can also guide the next steps you take.

More and more, people around the world are being hacked and attacked by fraudulent activity. Make sure you learn how to protect yourself from scams and know what to do if you are inadvertently fooled.

When you call customer service, you can expect to be transferred to a representative who is familiar with cybercrime and knows the proper steps to take to counter any transactions you may have initiated. We can attempt to recover your funds.

It’s critical that when you call or visit one of our branches, you extend your full trust to the team member who is assigned to help. We are your neighborhood bank, and we are here to protect you and your money and serve as your advocate.

Sometimes, when customers have been scammed, because the person who contacted them and the scenario itself felt so believable, they are uncertain as to whether they have fallen victim and hesitate to let us get involved. But we can’t help you if we don’t know what happened.

So, please do not be embarrassed or ashamed. Thousands of very intelligent people are duped by online crime every day. Simply let us help you.

Tell your bank representative exactly what happened. Did someone call, text, or email you? What did they ask you to do? How did they gain access to your account? How did your communication end? Did you buy gift cards or otherwise send them money?

Once we understand the details, it is possible we can terminate or reverse a transaction—but again, our chance of success is highly dependent on you walking us through the scenario as it happened in a clear and thorough way.

If we confirm that money has actually been removed from one of your accounts, your next call should be to the police department in your community. They will take the information and, if possible, initiate an investigation.

It is also very wise to report the incident to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) using its online reporting mechanism.

Here are some other steps you might wish to take:

Update your antivirus software. If you allowed someone to have remote access to your computer, update your security software, run a scan, and delete anything that is flagged as a risk.

Change your username and password. If you gave out usernames or passwords to your Florence Bank online accounts—or to any accounts—you should change your passwords immediately.

Protect your Social Security number (SSN) and identity. If you gave a scammer your SSN, report it at IdentityTheft.gov. Someone will ask you to explain the situation and help you create a recovery plan.

Contact any companies that are involved. If you paid a scammer with a store gift card, prepaid card, or cash reload card, contact the company you purchased the card from right away. Tell them what happened and request a refund. The sooner you call, the better the chance they can help.

Try to reverse a wire transfer. If you paid a scammer by wiring money, call the company you used immediately. Firms like Western Union or MoneyGram have a complaint department and can possibly reverse the transfer.

Contact the app you used. If you paid a scammer using an app like PayPal, Venmo, or Zelle, contact the company you used to see if the payment can be reversed.

To further protect yourself from future fraud, you can contact the major credit bureaus—Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian—and ask for advice. They may suggest you lock your credit so no one can open accounts using your personal information.

Consider investing in a phone that has a call-blocking or call-labeling feature. You can also learn more about unwanted calls and what to do about them on the FTC’s website.

Please remember that, at Florence Bank, we are your biggest asset in times of distress. We are here to help you navigate the frightening fallout from fraud. Given the information we need, we will guide you through the steps you need to take and do all we can to recover any lost funds.

You can also call us at 413-586-1300 if you have questions, need advice, or—of course—need to report an incident.

We’re always here to help.

The post What To Do If You Think You’ve Fallen Victim to Fraud appeared first on Beetle Press.

I have been partnering with the Florence Bank marketing team for many years as a PR specialist. I develop and craft press releases to send to the media and also provide occasional blogs that appear on the bank’s website.

This recent blog takes a look how to Get Ahead of Fraud.

Fraud keeps finding unsuspecting victims.

At least three to five times a day, we get calls from customers who have been tricked into giving out their private account information, and money has been stolen from them—sometimes thousands of dollars. They are often stunned because what happened to them happened quickly—without raising an eyebrow in distrust.

Sometimes, we can track the funds successfully or reverse a transaction that was started, but in other cases, the losses are permanent and traumatic.

All of our customers are intelligent people, and many even have a healthy awareness of the dangers, yet the sheer genuine nature of many scams disarms them. So, in the spirit of prevention and protection, we want to educate you as best we can so that you do not fall prey to the fraudsters who continually imagine and execute online crime with devious and seemingly believable scenarios.

Fraudsters may reach you by calling, texting, or emailing. And there are thousands of ways they might hook you in. They may suggest your child or grandchild is in jail and needs bail money. They may offer you a cash prize. Or you may visit a website that looks authentic but is not, and so the “purchase” you make is really a theft.

We offer up here a handful of stories of actual incidents customers experienced in hopes that, if a fraudster reaches you, you will recognize some aspect of the crime in progress before it’s too late.

Sadly, these stories are true.

One customer who uses Norton Antivirus software in her computer received a telephone call from someone purporting to be from the software company. She was told she was entitled to a rebate and that Norton wanted to deposit the $200 into her account. The customer provided her online banking credentials—meaning, user name and password. The scammer then told her that he accidentally deposited $20,000 into her account and asked her to return $19,800. Because that scammer had access to the customer’s account, he was able to make it appear that he had made such a deposit. The customer came to the branch to withdraw the cash to return it to Norton. Staff at the branch she visited recognized the red flags of fraud and stopped the transaction. However, the scammer still has the customer’s entire account profile—and possibly other personal information that could be used to steal her identity.

Another customer applied for a loan through a bogus company after receiving a telephone call. The customer was convinced to supply his online banking credentials and other confidential information, and the scammer deposited a counterfeit $5,000 check into our customer’s account via mobile deposit. The customer was then told that the company needed $2,500 returned to activate the fraudulent loan and the customer was directed to set up a payment via online banking. The bank noticed that the transaction for this customer was unusual and was able to cancel it.

Yet another customer was told over the phone that he owed money to the IRS. The caller threatened him with arrest if he did not pay. The customer then received a text message from someone pretending to be in law enforcement, indicating an arrest was imminent. The customer came to the bank, withdrew the requested amount in cash, purchased gift cards at CVS and Target to make the payment—as directed by the scammer—and provided that gift card information to the scammer over the phone. Unfortunately, in this case, the money was not recovered.

In yet another scenario, a customer trying to change her address online paid $199 to complete a change-of-address form, thinking she was on the website for the US Post Office. The money was removed from her account by the scammers. She eventually realized the postal service does not charge for a change of address, and she contacted Florence Bank customer service. While we were not able to refund her money, we were able to find that customer a phone number to call, and the fraudulent firm issued a full refund.

These situations have become more commonplace.

“Online fraud has ramped up significantly,” says Michele Bennett, Florence Bank’s longtime security officer. “There are a myriad of versions of these stories—so many variations of scams. It all comes back to social engineering and believing a stranger contacting them through a text, email, or on the phone. These scammers are extremely skilled.”

Michele says customers need to develop a healthy dose of skepticism and consider who they might be speaking to or communicating with via text or email. She offers up some basic facts:

• No company that is trustworthy would call you and ask for your online banking information.
• The IRS will never call you and ask for money.
• These days, there are no cash “prizes” given out over the phone.
• Real law enforcement and federal agencies will never call, text, or email threats to you.
• No one at Florence Bank will ever call you and ask for account information.

When someone you do not know and cannot see asks you for personal or financial information, take that as a warning and hang up, refuse to reply to the email, close your browser, or otherwise end the communication before it’s too late.

If someone calls and claims they are calling from any online or brick-and-mortar business and asks to remote into your laptop for any reason, hang up. Then, reassure yourself that the problem they raised was an invented one; make your own independent phone call to the business at which they claimed to work.

“Don’t take any caller’s word for it,” Michele says. “Any legitimate business is not going to ask for your login credentials or ask to access your computer or online banking profile.”

We can’t stress enough that fraud will try to find you and that you must be attuned and aware to protect yourself.

If you fear you have fallen victim to cybercrime, reach out to us immediately.

Also, look for a second post in this series on fraud so you know what to do if you are scammed. If you act quickly after you suspect you’ve been scammed, there are steps you can take—and steps we can take for you—that might allow you to recover some, or all, of your hard-earned funds.

Trust us. We’ll do our best to protect you.

The post Getting Ahead of Fraud appeared first on Beetle Press.