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Best protection is early detection |
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By Daniel McGonigle
Argus Managing Editor
“Check your statements often,” offers Nancy Schroeder, Customer Service Representative with Merchants Bank in Caledonia. “At least once a month.”
Those same sentiments were echoed by Mike Werner, president of Bank of the West in Caledonia.
“We just encourage people to watch their accounts closely,” said Werner. “It is an unfortunate part of today’s society. Our biggest concern is if a consumer does become a victim that they make sure and get a hold of their financial institutions immediately.”
The advice comes as bank customers are finding fraudulent charges on their accounts across the nation.
Often times the charges are as small as $10.
“I’m glad I check my account daily,” said Stephanie Schuldt a victim of recent fraudulent charges. “People might not notice amounts that small if they don’t check regularly.”
When Schuldt noticed the questionable charges she learned a phone number that went with them.
Anxious to get answers, Schuldt Googled the number. 1-877-261-7382. What she found was shocking.
“There were hundreds of people who had a similar experience to mine,” she said. “I was pretty surprised to see all of the other people it had happened to.”
Often times Schroeder hears of scams where a customer will receive a phone call asking to send money to claim a cash reward.
Another popular scam to watch out for is solicitors calling asking for personal banking information regarding the collection of the Bush rebate checks expected to be sent this spring.
According to published reports, the Federal Government will not contact you via phone or e-mail regarding your bank account information in regard to the issue of the rebate checks. They will use traditional mail for all correspondence and even then will not ask for any personal information.
“Scammers are getting more and more sophisticated,” said Craig Schroeder, president of Merchants Bank in Caledonia.
The targets are often the elderly.
Nancy Schroeder assures customers that the bank will work with their customers on a case-by-case basis.
Schuldt, who believes she fell victim to the fraudulent activity because of on-line transactions she did around Christmas, said she’ll be more aware in the future.
“It could have come from a number of places,” said Schuldt. “I was happy the bank resolved it.”
Several scams making the rounds
“It isn’t like it used to be when you only had to worry about having shopped at the Mall in La Crosse,” said Houston County Sheriff Doug Ely. “With computers, technology, the ease and convenience of credit cards, the problem can come from anywhere in the world.”
Ely’s office has had several reported incidents in recent weeks.
Some scams will send an official looking letter with some plight, pleading for the recipients assistance. For example, the reader might be told that a rich sheik in a foreign country has a sick parent and can’t release the money needed for medical expenses. Then the letter might ask for the recipient to send money in exchange for a large amount of money to be sent at a later time.
“There are all kinds,” said Ely.
The sheriff also received a complaint by someone who received a letter from Black and Decker saying they had won some money, and all they needed to do was provide a bank routing number.
“That one was sent to a former deputy,” said Ely.
Another scam making the rounds are checks being sent to area residents, which originate at an actual bank in Florida, and to the naked eye contain all of the markings of an authentic check.
“They have the watermarks and everything,” said Ely. “But the problem is when the teller cashes the check, and the charges come back as fraudulent, then the money is the responsibility of the party, not the bank.”
So the individual who gets duped by that scam is responsible for the charges.
Another popular scam making the rounds is that you won something, an amount of money, a prize, etc... and all you have to do is send some money to claim your prize.
“I’ve never heard of something like that,” said Ely. “Usually if you win a sweepstakes, you don’t have to pay for the honor of having won. However, there are a lot of people who fall for it. I guess everyone wants to believe it is real.”
Ely said that all of the things mentioned above are scams that he has seen in Houston county recently.
“If it is too good to be true then it probably is,” said Ely, and he wasn’t the only person to use that exact statement in the gathering of this information. “Contact local law enforcement if you’re experiencing any fraudulent activity.”
And as the people in the bank industry stated, check your accounts frequently to avoid falling victim to a scam.
You can contact Daniel McGonigle at
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