Video: Credit Card Fraud & Email Scams: How You Can Prevent Them

[bitsontherun LCq3MlCj]

NORTHEAST Miss. (WCBI)- She didn’t want her face shown but this golden triangle woman wants to get the word out about being a victim of credit card fraud.

“It happened about 2 weeks ago. I was trying to check my online banking, which I check every day and it wouldn’t let me log in. It said dial this 1-800 number for the verification. So I called that number and they asked me if I had a western union transaction the night before. I said I don’t even know what Western Union is,” said Scam Victim.

Western Union told her to call her bank and that’s when she found out someone stole $980 out of her savings. But her problems didn’t end there.

“In the last 2 weeks, I’ve been getting emails from a company called ‘Zoom.’ And it’s a money transfer company. They’re trying to transfer money from Michigan to the Philippines through my account. The first one was about a week ago. It was $400 and then I got one Sunday that was for $50,” said Scam Victim.

She had to once again call her bank but this time, they had good news.

“I spoke with my bank about this company and nothing’s coming out of my account. But it says that it is through Zoom. So the bank is wondering if it’s a fake account, said Scam Victim.

John O’Hara, CEO of the Mississippi Better Business Bureau says never trust an email that asks for personal information.

“Once you get hacked, there are other scammers that will piggyback off of that or the scammer will use two different ways to get the money out of your account. Financial institutions still do business the old fashioned way, they send letters in the mail. They’re not big on sending emails telling you to update account information,” said O’Hara.

And never trust an email asking you to transfer funds.

” If somebody is asking you to transfer money overseas, or we even have a lottery scam where people have been told they won an international lottery. We’re not eligible to win an international lottery. Any money going overseas, that’s a definite scam you just need to delete that email, hang up that phone call if it comes via phone, throw out that letter if it comes via your mail,” said O’Hara.

The woman says she’s happy she caught it early before the scammers emptied out her entire account.

” Make sure you have the online banking app because it really did save me. I know if they only got $980.00 they were going to go back and try to get more,” said Scam Victim.

Another tip: Don’t believe what you see. It’s easy to steal the colors, logos, and header of an organization or bank. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites, and make emails appear to come from a different sender.