December 24, 2008
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News: Scam Scum Hit Reno.
It's always somethin'. Latest news from Reno.. police there are investigating the latest sleaze technique of an auto-broadcast recording requesting Reno residents assist in resolving problems with their credit card accounts. The calls are actually nervy enough to ask those people to enter their full credit card numbers on the telephone keypad. Related or not, another scam just began in the form of text messaging Sprint and T-Mobile customers with a warning that they must provide sensitive ID information in response to the message or their services would be cut off. The message actually had the gall to demand social security numbers. Due to the blatancy of these demands, no one yet has been reported as falling for it, though. As far as the credit cards, the culprits were identifying themselves as the "Frontier Financial Credit Union".
Frontier Financial Credit Union is a legitimate financial institution, however, and their response was of course, that they would never do a thing like that. They would never request full credit card numbers either through voice correspondence, keypad or text messaging over the phone. Their advice to anyone belonging to their institution that has surrender their credit card numbers or social security numbers is to contact them for assistance immediately. Compromised members should either call 877.852.2481 or 775.829.2070 to initiate protection procedures right away.
Speaking for the banking industry, a US Bank representative advised that neither legitimate and reputable banks nor credit card lending institutions should ever request full card numbers. The secondary method of authentication is just as secret and is usually required when making purchases remotely (when the merchant doesn't get to physically see the card). So the PID or CVV2 codes should be just as closely guarded. The banks and lenders already have this information and would not want to convey this security-risk over an unsecured phone call. Last four digits, however, are a standard practice.