Red Flags for Banking Fraud

The following guidance and information is provided to help protect yourself against fraud. 

Suspicious Situations to be Concerned About:

• You receive a negotiable item (i.e., official check, money order, business check, personal check, etc.), or item, in response to something you sold over the internet
• You are asked to send a negotiable instrument in response to something you purchased over the internet
• You are asked to send a wire transfer, gift card, or money order or otherwise return any portion of a negotiable item proceeds to a third party
• You have any reason to suspect that a negotiable item you receive is not valid
• The negotiable item is drawn on a business or individual account other than the person buying your item or product
• The amount of the negotiable item is more than the item price
• You received a negotiable item via an overnight delivery service
• The negotiable item is connected to communicating with someone by email or text
• You have been informed that you were the winner of a lottery that you did not enter
• You are receiving pay or commission for facilitating money transfers through your account 
• You have been instructed to either wire, send, or ship money, ASAP, to a large U.S. city or to another country, such as Canada, England, or Nigeria
• You have been asked to pay money to receive a deposit from another country such as Canada, England, or Nigeria
• You responded to an email requesting you to confirm, update, or provide your account information
• You are being asked to open an account as a result of a job offer you received online

Other RED FLAG “Fraud May Have Occurred” Type Identifiers

• Unusual credit activity such as new credit cards in your name
• Unexpected and unwarranted calls from debt collectors
• Random and unexpected transactions 
• Unrecognized withdrawals 
• FICO Score decline 
• Social Security notifications to your attention
• Heath insurance change of address requests or alerts noted
• Car warranty expiration or not applicable topics to your attention warrant internal vigilance

We Can All Fight Fraud and Identify Theft Attempts

• Don’t open files from unknown sources and senders
• Never ever share passwords
• Protect your PIN, one time pass codes, and security questions
• Click carefully – avoid visiting unknown websites or downloading software from untrusted sources
• Contact HVCU to speak about the situation! Sometimes these topics are confusing and we want to help protect you