Area residents have become the targets of a telephone and e-mail scam that invokes the name of the Monroe County Community Credit Union as well as some other area financial institutions and warns that customer accounts or debit cards have been deactiviated.
Both customers and non-customers of MCCCU have reported receiving the pre-recorded calls that instruct them to call an out-of-state number to reactivate the account. The phone calls are being made at all hours to both homes and businesses.
It follows a pattern typical of phishing scams, which attempt to trick customers into revealing account numbers and other personal information so their accounts can be drawn down or their identities stolen.
MCCCU officials advise customers with questions about the status of their accounts to visit or call the credit union directly.
Some of the scam calls seem to be originating from New York and North Carolina, said MCCCU’s Michael Newman. The phone calls are being routed to an automated system. These call are going beyond home phones and are also being attempted at people’s place of employment.
He said the credit union also has been notified of two separate scam e-mails. One e-mail refers to a billing failure and is signed by “Associated Bank Customer Service”. The e-mail site is coming out of Canada. The other e-mail is a fake request that people verify account information. The e-mail tells them that the credit union will deposit $70 into their account for verifying the information.
“At this time, we are attempting to have all originating phone numbers and e-mail origination sites for these scams to be shut down,” Mr. Newman said. “We are also advising our membership and the general public that the credit union or any legitimate financial institution would never share account information with anyone. Also we would never request account information by phone or e-mail. Thanks to good public education regarding these type of scams, no one to our knowledge has been affected.”
Here’s a sample of one of the bogus e-mails circulating:
Dear Member,
Monroe County Community Credit Union temporarily suspended your account.
Reason: Billing Failure
We need you to complete an account update so we can unlock your account.
To start the update process, please Login to your account and follow the steps.
Once you have completed the process, we will send you an email notifying that your account is available again.
After that you can access your account at any time. The information provided will be treated in confidence and stored in our secure database.
If you fail to provide required information your account will be automatically deleted from MCCCU database.
Sincerely,
Monroe County Community Credit Union Member Service
