OAKLAND, Maine — Police and officials with the Maine State Credit Union are warning customers of a scam in which someone tries to pry personal information from them so they can raid the customer’s account.
In the so-called “phishing” scam, cellphone users from Portland to Waterville reported receiving an automated message Tuesday telling them their credit union-issued debit card had been frozen and they should call back and enter their 16-digit personal identification number to solve the problem.
The credit union’s president told the Kennebec Journal about a half-dozen of the 25,000 Maine State Credit Union members fell for the scam, but they didn’t lose any money.
Their accounts were immediately closed and they were issued new cards.
Police say the lesson is never give out personal information over the phone.
Everyone should watch out, I received a text Wednesday night saying my card had been deactivated. I have Maine University Credit Union. It was an out of state number, pretty much knew it was a scam, but I googled the number. It said it was a scam.
I had the same text message on Wednesday night and Im with EMMC Credit Union. Looks like it stretches a little further north than Waterville…
Doesn’t this indicate that there has been some sort of data leak? How are these scammers able to only target the credit union customers?
Edit: Whoops, just read the original article in the KJ that states the calls are random.