Police Department

Bank SCAM

Sgt. Terry Preuninger, PIO

Thursday, April 9, 2020 at 5:10 p.m.

The Spokane Police Department wants the public to be aware of a scam where criminals are using fictitious phone numbers, in calls and texts that show to a local bank in order to trick un-suspecting people out of their PIN numbers.

On April 2, the victim received a text from someone claiming to be a representative from the victim’s bank, and informed her a fraudulent charge had been made on her account.  The text instructed her to wait for a phone call and moments later she received a call which the caller ID on her phone showed as her bank.
The caller claimed they were with the fraud department from the victim’s bank and asked her several standard questions; if she was traveling, if she had made the charges in question, etc.

The caller then asked her to verify her PIN number on the account, which she did.
The caller stated they were sending the victim a verification code and asked her to read it back to them, which she did, believing this was truly an employee of her bank.

The caller then told the victim her account would be locked for 24 hours and that she should not try to login to her account in the meantime.

After the call ended, the victim got an alert that their debit card had been added to a Samsung Pay account.  Shortly after, the victim logged into her account to see around $2000 in fraudulent charges made to the account.

The victim was then locked out of her account shortly after due to suspected fraud activity and realized that the text and call from her bank were probably from a spoofed number.

SPD would like to remind everyone to never give their PIN out over the phone.  Banks do not ask you for your PIN or Passwords.  If you receive a call that seems out of the ordinary, please hang up and call the institution back with a number you know to be a real phone number.  Ask them about the call you received.

If you have been the victim of or have been called with similar circumstances, please call Crime Check at 456-2233 to report it.

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