January 28th is National Data Privacy Day, and Tompkins would like to use this as an opportunity to share one of the top scams we expect to continue in 2025, and ways you can protect yourself from it
Victims are being convinced their accounts have been hacked, with scammers using that fear and confusion to steal their money.
The premise of "The Phantom Hacker" is that a victim will receive a message (call, email, pop-up) from a scammer impersonating a representative of the victim's bank. The scammer will convince the victim that their financial accounts have been compromised and strongly urge them to move their money quickly to another account to protect it. In truth, there never was any fraudulent account activity, but the scammer now has control of the money that the victim transferred away for protection.
Scammers may attempt variations of this including, impersonating an IT administrator or government official. They may attempt to give you a fake number to call claiming it to be for your bank or in some cases they may ask you to download a 3rd party app or software, using it to gain access to the financial accounts stored on your phone.
If you are contacted by someone claiming to be a representative of Tompkins, call our customer care center at: 1-888-273-3210. If someone calls you from Tompkins and you are suspicious you should hang up and call the customer care center to ensure it is a legitimate call.
For more information on "The Phantom Hacker" scam you can view the FBI's official alert here: https://www.ic3.gov/PSA/2023/PSA230929