You get a random call, and the caller ID says it’s your bank, so you decide to answer it — but is it REALLY your bank, or is it a scammer?
Citi Bank is sounding the alarm on the latest bank fraud scam, convincing customers to readily turn over their secret account information only to be scammed.
According to Citi, if you get an incoming call from your bank — suspect something is off and hang up. They advise anyone who receives a call from someone claiming to work for their bank to find your financial institution’s direct customer service line and then call them back directly.
The bank also warns that you could be liable for getting tricked, no matter how convincing the scam since you willingly shared the secret information that led to your money being stolen.
“Scammers can fake phone numbers, email addresses, and URLs,” Citi wrote to customers in a recent alert notification. “The person on your caller ID may not be who they say they are. You shouldn’t use an incoming number to call a company back because you may be calling the impostor’s number instead of a legitimate company. Don’t believe everything you see.”
Go through your official banking app to retrieve the customer service number and call them back directly. That way, when you share critical account information over the phone, the person on the other end is trustworthy.
The bank also warned customers to be weary if callers ask for payments or any incoming requests for information, such as account balances, debit PIN, One-Time Passcodes, or online credentials – especially about your financial institution. They give the same advice in those scenarios: hang up and call the bank directly.
To read the full alert from Citi, visit https://www.citi.com/scam-alert
