Don’t let fraudsters steal your holiday fun this season

Add a layer of security to your wish list

Much like the Grinch, financial thieves are mean-spirited through and through. Their greatest wish is to steal your money and your holiday spirit, too.

Fortunately, there are ways to combat these crooks.

First, some background, so you know of their hooks.

‘Tis the season for increased fraud. Financial institutions are seeing a growing number of incidents involving debit card misuse. Financial thieves are becoming more sophisticated in their attacks using advanced technology and deceptive phishing techniques.

Your card information can be compromised in various ways. Here are some recent changes in criminal behavior you should be aware of.

Financial Fraud Scams
Fraudsters aren’t targeting entire institutions as much anymore. They’ve shifted their focus to you, the cardholder. Often, cardholders wind up communicating with crooks via email, text message or phone, which has been easier to manipulate and monetize as consumer behavior evolved during the pandemic. Criminals will contact cardholders and impersonate a financial institution representative. This often leads to the cardholder sharing their account information which the criminal can leverage to attack. One-time passwords are a prime example of account-related security information that legitimate account holders are conned into sharing with the criminal.

Here's the good news … financial fraud scams can be avoided, when you know what to look for.

Be wary of any unusual contact from a company or individual that reaches out to you via phone, text or email. Watch out for red flags such as misspelled email addresses, suspicious money requests, or random messages sent through social media from imposters claiming to represent a financial institution.

Most important, know that at VeraBank, we will never contact you and ask for your full account number, full debit card number, or PIN. Repeat, we will never contact you and request such information.

For your security, please do not give this information out to anyone, whether online, by email, by phone, by text, or in person. When in doubt, check with us and we can help determine if it is a scam or phishing attempt.

If you contact us, our call center’s protocol is to ask for your personal information (last four digits of account number, last four digits of Social Security number, etc.). If you’re contacted by anyone who claims to be a VeraBank representative, you should immediately report the incident to our call center at 877-566-2621.

How can you add a layer of security when making holiday purchases this season?

First, if you’re using a debit card, add it to your digital wallet. VeraBank’s digital wallet uses multiple forms of security to ensure that your card information remains hidden during transactions.

Another tip: When using your debit card at a payment terminal, opt for the “credit” option instead of using your PIN. Why? If a thief physically steals your debit card and learns your PIN, they can have authorization to unlimited purchases since they’re confirming “ownership” of the card by correctly typing your PIN. And, since they confirmed the purchase with a PIN, it’s harder to prove the purchase was fraudulent.

So, don’t let a financial thief steal your holiday fun. Protect yourself and add a layer of security this season!

Add your card(s) to your digital wallet.

Still have questions about scams? Please let us know.