Suffolk investigators are probing a scam involving attempts to steal card numbers and personal identification numbers from credit union debit card holders, Suffolk police said Friday.
Suffolk residents have told police they have received text or voice messages saying their debit card numbers had been deactivated, and they were instructed to contact their credit unions by phone to reactivate the accounts, police said.
The messages instructed cardholders to provide their credit union account numbers and PINs, police said.
The scam has targeted members of several different credit unions, police said.
Financial institutions do not contact customers by mail, phone or the Internet to request account information, police said.
The scam is under investigation by the Police Identity Theft Unit.
Residents who have received messages they believe are fraudulent should contact their financial institutions immediately, police said.
The text messages, sent to customers' cell phones, and calls to landline phones seem random. Scammers name a credit union in hopes of contacting a customer of that financial institution and tricking the customer into giving out account information, police said.
Cardholders who receive an inquiry via mail, telephone or e-mail from someone claiming to represent their financial institutions, and asking about bank, credit card or loan accounts, should not give out information about their card and personal ID numbers, police said.
Cardholders should contact their financial institutions directly and ask whether the inquiry is legitimate, police said.
Caller IDs displayed on the phone should not be trusted, even if they appear to identify the caller as a legitimate financial institution, because the display information can be "spoofed," or changed to display a fake number or identifier, police said.
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