People may call you claiming they are from a company or financial institution.  They might offer you a lower mortgage rate or offer some sort of fraud protection.  There are many other forms of these scams, but what it all boils down to is them asking for your account information.  The moment they ask for an account number or social security number, HANG UP THE PHONE. 

We had a member receive a phone call from a person claiming they were associated with the Chadron Federal Credit Union and would like to provide them with a service to stop these solicitations.  This person thought since they are with the Chadron Federal Credit Union, then it must be alright.  This person proceeded to give the scammer their checking account numbers and information.  We started receiving calls from these people wanting to verify funds on this members checking account.  We got suspicious and called the member and the member told us what happened.  We closed the checking account and within a couple of days there were several withdrawals trying to hit the members checking account, some for a couple of hundred dollars.

Luckily we are a small institution where we know most of our members personally and can catch strange activity like this.  If we didn't catch this, the member would have had their account cleaned out and possibly had a lot of NSF fees on checks they might have written.  However, if the scammers didn't call to verify funds, we would not have caught this until all the members money was gone.  We can't catch all the fraudulent activity, but the best way to protect yourself is to not give out your account information and keep a close eye on your account.  We have online account access that is a free service to all of our members that can help you keep an eye on your account on a daily basis. 

   Send mail to chadronfcu@chadronfcu.com with questions or comments about this web site.    Last modified: 07/26/06