Just because a phone number or email may look legitimate, it does not mean it is.
That was a major piece of advice from Emporia State Federal Credit Union IT Specialist Victor Ibarra in a recent interview with KVOE News regarding “spoofing” efforts, which remain a major concern for local banking institutions. Ibarra explains that spoofing is deceiving someone by disguising one’s identity to make it appear as though they are a representative of a trusted establishment or entity.
In reality, they are a scammer trying to gather your sensitive information and their efforts can take on many forms, according to Ibarra.
Ibarra also says that when it comes to spoofing, scammers are typically playing the long game.
Ibarra tells members the Credit Union will never contact them asking for information they should already have such as your social security number, debit/credit card number, address etc… Additionally, Ibarra says that there are several safeguards in place to not only protect your information, but to verify that a correspondence is legitimate.
If you receive a call you believe to be a scam, you are asked to hang up and call ESFCU immediately at 620-342-2336.
