Loan pre-approval hustle targeting area credit union
First Financial Credit Union is warning of a loan pre-approval scam that it fears could be related to the gigantic Equifax breach.
The Albuquerque-based credit union is concerned because one of the people targeted said the scammer had his date of birth, Social Security number and some information about his past loans, said Greg Shaver, senior vice president of lending.
That kind of information was among the trove of details stolen when the credit reporting agency’s records were hacked.
“We’re not 100 percent sure this is tied to Equifax, but … it’s concerning that this is happening right after the Equifax breach,” he said. “It raises the level of urgency.”
So far, those who have contacted First Financial about the scheme have not been among the credit union’s 72,000 members, Shaver said.
The plot has been arriving in email form, although Shaver said the credit union believes it could also start arriving in postal boxes.
The scammers are using the credit union’s official logo and telling people to call a California number: 818-514-9645. The person who answers the phone will ask for your online banking information so a $6,000 loan can be directly deposited on your behalf.
First, though, you will have to make a trial deposit of $1,000 to make sure “the transaction works,” Shaver said.
What will really happen is this: you will lose the $1,000, and the scammers will have your online banking details.
In hopes of snaring more victims, “we think they may go after some of the people with lower credit scores,” Shaver said.
A few things the credit union wants people to know:
If you're not a member, you won't be getting a pre-approved loan offer from First Financial.
The credit union’s emails come with @ ffnm.org at the end of the address. “If it is a Gmail, Yahoo, or a Hotmail account, we did not send the letter.”
Never give out personal information, including your mobile or online banking user name or password.
Contact the credit union if you’ve given out personal information or if you think you’ve been targeted by a scam at 505-7665600 or 800-342-8298.
jury duty scam that previously surfaced in parts of the state is now claiming victims in the Santa Fe area, the Attorney General’s Office says.
Several people already have fallen for the costly hoax, in which a caller tells people they have skipped out on jury duty and therefore owe a fine of up to $2,000, the office said. The fine, the callers say, is for failure to appear and for contempt of court.
Making the nefarious plot more believable is the fact that some of those called had actually received a jury summons in the recent past, AG spokesman James Hallinan said.
When they protested that they had been officially excused from duty, the scammers said the paperwork had not been processed properly and the fine had to be paid immediately, regardless.
If you refuse? The scammers describe your fate this way: You will be “booked, fingerprinted, photographed and detained for up to 24 hours,” the AG news release says.
Similar scams have been reported previously in Bernalillo and Doña Ana counties.
The AG’s office wants you to know that the courts don’t call people on the phone. Instead, they issue formal paperwork for jury summonses, fines or warrants.
Since about 10 percent of the population gets a jury summons every year, “callers can easily persuade residents that they may be out of compliance,” the AG warning says.
An interesting side note: administrators in charge of the state’s court system are assuring the public that there has not been a data breach of voter rolls.
A sign of the times. With Equifax and other cases of hijacked IDs, “New Mexicans should be very sensitive to data breaches,” Hallinan said.