Banks reporting Increase in financial scams by text

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) - Verify any message or call you receive before providing any sort of personal information. It’s simple advice, but something security experts are repeating, as victims continue to fall prey.

There has been a recent uptick in text messages that appear to be sent from a bank or credit union, but are fraudulent.

City Bank in Lubbock is among the institutions seeing this trend. It sent a reminder to its clients, which is applicable to any bank, credit union or business:

As a reminder, City Bank will never call, text, or email you asking for personally identifiable information such as social security numbers, secure access codes, passwords, or account numbers. If you are unsure if an email, phone call, or text message is from City Bank, please call us directly to verify the authenticity of the person requesting that information.

Security experts say if you receive a text message, take steps to validate that it’s from a trusted source. An easy step is to go to that company’s website and check for warnings about fraudulent messages or other scams.

The Federal Trade Commission reports consumers reported losing nearly $8.8 billion to fraud last year, an increase of 30 percent over 2021. The amount lost specifically to investment scams more than doubled the amount of 2021.

In 2022, losses of $2.6 billion were reported from “imposter scams”. More information here:

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