How easy is it to fall for a financial scam? Just listen to what happened to Pieter Gunst, a Twitter user. He said he faced “the most believable scam I’ve ever seen.” He shared how the scam almost tricked him. This shows that even careful people can be fooled by smart scammers.
Here’s what happened: Gunst received a phone call from someone who said they were from his bank. They asked if he had used his card in a city far away. When Gunst said no, the caller claimed to block the transaction and then asked for Gunst’s member number, which is a customer number, not a bank account number.
The caller told Gunst they were sending him a “verification PIN” to his phone, which he thought was from his bank. Gunst read the PIN back to them.
Later, he realized the scammer used that PIN to try to reset his password. The scammer then mentioned some other charges, and Gunst confirmed he made those. Finally, the scammer asked for Gunst’s PIN to “block” it for security, which was another part of the scam.
When Gunst realized something was wrong, he quickly hung up and called his bank’s fraud department. He knew that giving out his PIN would have let the scammer take money from his account.
Scams like this happen often. In 2018, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) received over 535,000 complaints about imposter scams, where the scammer pretends to be someone trustworthy, like someone from your bank. The FTC says 69% of fraud attempts that year were by phone, and nearly one in five people targeted by these scams lost money.
The FTC advises never to give out any account or personal numbers over the phone. If someone asks for these numbers, don’t give them—it’s likely a scam.
Sometimes, scammers try to get money from your account using a cardless ATM. Once they have your information, they could do more harm, like stealing your identity. If you think a scammer is targeting you, hang up, and report it to the FTC online.
Gunst took action by resetting all his passwords, filing a police report, and adding extra fraud protection.