Article Courtesy of Kate Hyland-Mercer of Ferris Wheel Finance in Venice, FL
Hello!
With your security always being a top priority, we wanted to share a bulletin that Schwab posted regarding scammers calling or emailing clients posing as employees of the firm. Some clients have received a phishing email or phone call from a fraudster pretending to work for Schwab or another well-known company, like Microsoft, etc.
If anyone reaches out to you from Charles Schwab, through email or by telephone, please do not give them any information. Call us immediately and we will verify their credentials for you or hang up and call Schwab back yourself. The phone number to use is 800.515.2157. Do not respond to emails or text messages. If there is anything urgent about your account, Jessica or I will call you ourselves. Charles Schwab employees would not be calling you. We want you to protect yourself from falling victim to this scam.
How the impersonation scams work:
- Through a phone call, email, or other channel, the scammer makes contact and informs the client that there’s an urgent matter—a “refund” or “suspicious trades” that require the client to grant remote access to their systems or accounts in order to set up “test transactions” or “catch a criminal.”
- Sometimes, the impersonations involve multiple layers of deception—for example, someone who claims to represent “Microsoft” says they must connect the client to the “Schwab Fraud Department.”
- The scammers, posing as Schwab fraud employees, will convince the client not to tell anyone about the issue as “Schwab employees are possibly involved.”
- The scammers, posing as Schwab fraud employees, will also convince the client that all their money will be returned.
How to protect yourself, and what to do if contacted:
- Do NOT click on links or attachments included in unknown or suspicious emails and be on heightened alert when receiving any emails with Office, zip, or other common file types as attachments.
- Look for clues within the text of emails that may indicate they were sent by bad actors. These include errors in grammar, capitalization, or spelling.
- Listen for any voices in the background who are providing instructions to the person calling you—advice on what to say, or on the details of any proposed transactions.
- Do NOT provide any personal identifying information in an email or over the phone, even if they say they’re calling from Schwab.
- Do NOT to click on links or call based on instructions from a computer pop-up.
- NEVER grant remote access to your Schwab accounts to anyone.
- Please contact us immediately to report all suspicious or fraudulent activity. 941.483.3600
Courtesy of Kate Hyland Mercer / Financial Advisor / Ferris Wheel Finance, Inc.
941.483.3600 / [email protected]
