According to the Federal Trade Commission, bogus banking fraud warnings are the most reported text message scam. Insiders at Fifth Third Bank in Chicago shared their expert insight into how to protect yourself from that and other scams.
Scams can come to your phone as fake warning about fraud, or stories criminals fabricate to convince you to give up your passwords. There are also romance and financial scams designed to convince you to wire money to crooks. Now there are AI scams to worry about as well.
"Fraudsters, whether it's email or text or even phone calls, can simulate almost any institution, any party at a very high fidelity, which places more and more of a burden on financial institutions like fifth third as well as customers," said Ben Hoffman, chief strategy officer at Fifth Third Bank.
Hoffman, who is also the head of consumer products for the bank, said AI scammers are even targeting customer services at the banks they are trying to imitate.
"New technology comes out like artificial intelligence and malicious actors will use that to impersonate customers. And we have to use it as well to distinguish between who is a real customer and who isn't," he said.
There are also rising threats of criminals convincing people to send money via the internet payment system Zelle, which major banks including Fifth Third Bank use
"We are looking at patterns of transactions and in many cases directly asking customers about the nature of that transaction," Hoffman said. "We can detect and prevent many of those, but ultimately, it's the customer's responsibility for understanding who the recipient is of a payment prior to making those transactions."
Hoffman said it's important to know that that banks are not likely to refund victims of banking scams.
"If the customer actively participates in the scam by either moving money themselves and sending that money to a malicious actor or providing their credentials to a third party, then we cannot guarantee the recovery of losses, although we'll always attempt to do it. Will contact the receiving banks. We'll work with law enforcement," he said.
Consumers are always covered if they are the victim of fraud, like if your card is stolen or skimmed at a gas pump.
The biggest vulnerability consumers could address directly is that many still have not enabled two-factor authentication, which sends you a one time code to get into your account if someone signs in on a new device.