Identity Theft Through Email or Phone

At RCU we go out of our way to protect your non-public information from those who want to commit fraud against you. We employ firewalls, pass codes, security software, and shred all documents that may contain any Member information. This accomplishes half the battle against Identity Thieves.

In the pre-computer days identity thieves would simply call you on the telephone and coax you into giving them the information they wanted. Then came computers and it became even easier to contact people and retrieve their information just by asking for it.

Now consumers are getting more protective and they understand they should not give any personal information over the computer when it is solicited from them. They know that they should verify the validity of the request by calling the business.

We are seeing a resurgence of the telephone calls to gain information from consumers. The would-be thief pretends to be working with your trusted financial institution and ask you to respond with personal information. Most of the calls are being presented as solutions to an attempted fraud against you.

There are two very basic things you should always remember when dealing with either an email or phone call that you did not initiate:

Never give personal information to anyone who has called or
emailed you for that data

If you are not sure who is on the other end of the communication
tell them you will be contacting them back

At that point you should look up the phone number of the business calling and call them to verify it is a legitimate contact. A legitimate business will never call or email you to ask you for personal information.