Phone SCAM Alert

(OMAHA, Neb.) — The Omaha Police Department has issued a new scam alert. Scammers can mask themselves in many ways including their caller ID. Always be careful not to give them easy access.

BEWARE, This is a very sophisticated debit card scam. Here’s how it goes: my phone rings, the caller ID was my bank. The guy says he’s from my banks fraud dept, calling about my debit card ending in —-(the 4 correct numbers), and asks if i’d been traveling, he tells me there’s two suspicious charges that happened at out-of-state stores (Lowe’s and Walmart).

I said nope, wasn’t me. He says they’ll send me a new card. He knew my address. He knew all my phone numbers. He sends a verification code to my cell and asks me to read it back to him.

THEN HE ASKS FOR MY PIN NUMBER, so he can deactivate my old card. That’s where I said “no.” But he has an answer for my suspicions: he says: “look at the number I’m calling from, notice it matches the number on the back of your card.” I look and It does! But still, I said let me call you back and he hung up!

I reported this to my bank’s fraud dept, who said: WE WOULD NEVER ASK FOR YOUR PIN NUMBER, We already have access to your bank account. We don’t need your PIN. They cancelled my card. They also said this is a new scam, they’ve been hearing about it a lot.