RELATED: If You Hear This When You Answer the Phone, Hang Up Immediately. Bank of America customers have recently been targeted in a new phone scam, local news outlet ABC 7 reports. The fraud begins with customers receiving a text that appears to be from Bank of America, which asks them to verify a recent purchase. When customers deny having made the purchase, they receive a phone call from someone claiming to be a representative for Bank of America, who asks them questions related to their account. Thanks to the perpetrators’ caller ID spoofing, the call appears to be coming from a legitimate Bank of America phone number, which makes it easy to fall for. For the latest safety news delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter. After callers provide their information to the alleged “Bank of America” representative, they’re told that a large sum of money—frequently $3,500—is being sent to Zelle, a mobile payment app, and that the transaction is still pending, thus enabling the customer to reverse it.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb To correct the fraud, Bank of America customers are then told to send that exact amount of money back to themselves through the Zelle app. Unfortunately, the scammers have coopted the customers’ profiles with the information they provided, meaning the cash goes to them instead. Ensuring that you know who you’re sending money to before conducting any online transactions is always a good rule of thumb, but Bank of America also has another recommendation for anyone who receives a call that’s supposedly from the bank. “We remind clients that they should not provide confidential account information to unidentified individuals. Bank of America and other legitimate companies would not ask for sensitive account information, such as passcodes or authentication codes,” the bank said in a statement to ABC 7. “We have a number of measures in place to proactively warn clients about scams, and we periodically reach out to customers with information about how to stay safe and avoid scams.” In general, if you happen to receive a call that seems to be from your bank, the safest bet is to hang up and look up the bank’s number online. Call that number and ask if the call you’ve just received is legitimate or not before providing any of your information. In the case of Bank of America and this particular scam, you can also visit the bank’s security center to report suspicious activity on your account, phishing scams, and identity theft. RELATED: If You Get an Email From the IRS With These 3 Words, Don’t Click on It.
