Recently customers of St. Anne’s Credit Union, BankFive, Bristol County Savings Bank, Mechanics Cooperative Bank, Taunton Federal Credit Union and Bridgewater Savings Bank in Massachusetts have been receiving telephone calls purportedly from their banks in which the caller tells the person answering the call that the caller works for his or her bank and that there has been a security breach of the customer’s account at the bank and that the account has been frozen for security purposes.  The customer is then told that in order to resolve the situation and make the account available to the customer again, the customer must confirm their debit card number and PIN.  Of course, the calls are not coming from the customers’ banks.  They are coming from scammers seeking this information in order to access the accounts of the people receiving the calls.  In truth, not only are the calls not coming from the banks, many of them are coming from scammers who are not even located in the United States.  Although this scam has recently been reported in Massachusetts, you can expect it to spread rapidly around the country.

TIPS

Your real bank will not ask for your debit card number of PIN on the phone.  Whenever you get a telephone call, text message or email requesting such information, you should refuse to provide it because you can never be sure that the communication is legitimate.  In fact, in all circumstances, this will merely be a scam attempting to get your personal information in order to make you a victim of identity theft.  If you have any thought that the communication might be legitimate, call your bank at a number that you know is legitimate to inquire as to the status of your account.