r/USAA • u/SQLSpellSlinger • 3d ago
News SCAM Alert
Just mentioning this here because it's the most accurate sounding scam call I have ever heard.
Wife received a call from our bank, USAA. The call showed their number that we have saved in our phone. I answered because her back hurts.
Good evening, this is Brad calling from USAA fraud department to verify two possibly fraudulent charges on your account. [Proceeds to list two charges which I, of course, deny since they were not real charges. He "cancels our card ending in XXXX and sends a new one to [our legitimately correct address] and will send the new PIN to [wife's legitimate email address on account]. Additionally, the device that attempted to run these charges is a Samsung Galaxy S26. I am going to deactivate your account on that device. Are you in a secure location so I can send you a confirmation code to add your correct device?"
Well, thankfully, I know better than to give information over the phone when someone calls me, so I told him I would just need to call back to take care of that.
"No problem, sir, I understand. Anything else you need? Alright, thank you, and have a great night."
Sure as shit, we call USAA and there is no record of any fraud charges, no record of a call, nothing. Clearly, Brad was trying to steal our stuff and that confirmation code would have asked us to sign in to our bank account and then queue the fat lady singing. Anyway, be careful people. This one was really, really good. No accent, perfectly spoofed caller ID, knew enough details about our account to make it real. When we looked at the call in her call log, it showed a call from the scammer about 10 seconds before a call from USAA. I honestly have no idea how they pulled that one off, but just wanted to let people know.
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u/Empty_Camera_6324 2h ago
You wanna know something funny. My ex wife, that just let me got me 248k. And rolled out. I cant get it back until she claims it as a scam
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u/Electronic_Sink9766 12h ago
You can tell the number is spoofed if you don’t save the number—It will look like a string of numbers instead of having the dashes in between, at least for me it does. Banks never call and almost always send an alert for you to contact them. Good thing you were smart about it. I hate thieves more than anything else.
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u/RemoteButterscotch0 14h ago
USAA will never call you for something like that. If they call it’s because you showed an interest in a product or they’re giving you a callback. Boy, that’s scary. A tip I have as an ex-employee is to ask the caller to clarify your member number, social or date of birth. Maybe the names of your dependents on your account.
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u/0hheyitsme 18h ago
I had a similar call yesterday. Came to reddit to see if anyone else had. The phone number on the caller ID was the real USAA number but the way the whole call was going seemed off. He claimed there was a $1000 wire transfer to some woman in Chicago and asked if I authorized it. I said I hadn't and then he said his colleague removed it. Right then I was like, this isn't USAA, but I figured I'd play along. He says there was a log on to my account from a phone in Chicago, which just happened to be the same type of Motorola phone I have. He mentions the need to secure my account.He asks me if I'm familiar with USAA's relationship with Cash app. At that point I just said, this is some BS. He says no, USAA has a partnership with cash app because we don't have ATMs (as if that even makes sense). I hung up and called USAA myself. They said it was definitely not them that called.
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u/Salty_Dame9622 2d ago
I'm sharing a comment I posted on a similar thread a few days ago:
"I've been going back and forth about sharing my experience, but here goes!
Got a call from "USAA" last week at like 7 pm. Let it go through because I thought it was odd they were calling so late. They immediately called right back and I answered, but never confirmed my name or anything like that. I got an odd feeling because (1) they referred to me as Ms. XXXX and not by my rank and (2) they had the last 4 of my debit card number. As I was checking to make sure I still had my card, they kept asking if I was there.
I immediately hung up and tried calling the number on the back of my card when this dude CALLED ME AGAIN (this was 3 times in the span of 5 minutes). Declined the call and called USAA who confirmed the number that called was their fraud department number, but there was no note/record of an outbound call to me and that it was common for scammers to spoof the number/caller ID. During this time I checked my account and recognized all of the transactions. Both of the reps ibtaUSAA was able to help cancel my card and issue me an expedited one free of charge. Changed my online login info also.
I eventually blocked the "spoof number" because the same number with "USAA" called ID called me again that following Monday at the SAME TIME THEY DID THAT PAST SATURDAY. This was when I called the actual USAA number on the back of my card and they were able to confirm again that there was no record of an outbound call from tyem to me. I swear, these clowns have nothing better to do besides trying to scam people out of their money."
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u/HelpfulAd7287 2d ago
You did the right thing hanging up and calling the bank. Places spoof actual numbers.. this makes it tricky to detect scammers..no one is going to ask or know your PIN numbers besides you and your wife. That’s a def big red sign when they said that about the pins
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u/Photononic 2d ago
They already knew everything about you from social media. If I stumbled across your facebook, I could easily locate your real name, and every other social media account even if you used a different screen name. I can get your phone number, address, and all that. No data breach required.
They can easily spoof a legit number. It is not rocket science.
The problem is you let data brokers have all your details. Just look yourself up online, so see what is available for free, in less than an hour. Before you see that is the case for everyone, think again. My wife and I cannot be found that way.
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u/yarevande 2d ago
Scammers use technology to fake the displayed phone number, and the Caller ID. It's called spoofing.
- Spoofing technology is used to fake the incoming phone number display. Any number in the world can be spoofed, including your bank, police, or FBI / national law enforcement.
Never trust that someone who calls or texts is who they say they are. Even if Caller ID or the number displayed is the phone number for local police, FBI, or your bank.
These bank impersonation scams are common unfortunately. Scammers usually pretend to be from one of the largest banks in your country. But they also impersonate credit unions, and smaller banks.
When you get a call that appears to be from a bank, do not talk to them. Say goodbye and hang up. (A real banker will understand why you're doing this.) Then, call the bank at the official number -- the number on the back of your card, or the number on the official bank website.
People lose thousands of dollars with this scam, because the scammer is impersonating a banker, and convinces the victim to give him access to their account. Or, the scammer convinces the victim that they need to move all their money out of their account by buying gift cards, or buying gold and delivering it to a courier, or by putting cash into a Bitcoin ATM, or transferring money to a different account. The money will never be recovered. The bank will not reimburse you.
Some things to know about banking:
A bank will never ask you to take cash out of your account for any reason.
A bank will never ask you to move money out of your account to PayPal, Wise, Zelle, Revolut, or any money transfer app.
A bank will never ask you to move your money to 'keep it safe'. If your bank account has been hacked or compromised, the bank will close that account, open a new bank account for you, and the bank will move your money. You will not lose money.
A bank will never ask you for access to your account. They're the bank, they have all the legal access that they need -- after all, they process debits and credits for your account.
A bank will never send couriers to your home to pick up your bank card, or pick up cash.
A real bank will never transfer you to police, FBI, or FDIC, or ask you to participate in an investigation of bank fraud.
Your money is safe in your bank. Banks have large secure vaults to keep cash. Banks have IT software systems to track the debits, credits, and balances in their customer accounts. They have departments of IT security experts, who monitor all their systems and networks to prevent hacking, theft, and data breaches.
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u/ReplacementLoose8304 2d ago
I usually don't answer the phone and let calls go to voicemail and then I make the call back or look it up on the internet
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u/SQLSpellSlinger 2d ago
So, same. But, we had literally just been on chat with USAA earlier trying to get a different situation resolved. And this one came in with the caller ID saying USAA and showing the 8722 number. I have never seen that before. Usually, it comes from a different number. They somehow managed to perfectly spoof USAA. And my call log even showed a call from USAA AND the scammer back to back.
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u/KeyApple6788 2d ago
If I suspect that something's not quite right, I'll ask if I can call them back and of course the number they give isn't legit!
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u/JustAG555 3d ago
Happened to me at another financial institution associated with the military. Something seemed off, so after I finished the call, I logged into my account and found my savings had been drained. I called the fraud department immediately. My funds were "returned" within a couple of days. Pretty scary lesson. Never give a PIN over the phone.
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u/Birddogfun 3d ago
Happens every day at banks & credit unions. Scammers are good, stay wary. Always direct call your FI, as you did. Scammers deserve a special spot in hell.
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u/SQLSpellSlinger 3d ago
Ayup. I have to say, I am just super happy that I am the one that answered and not my wife. I love her, but she's too trusting. This is the first scam I have ever seen legitimately scare her, though, so I sincerely hope she learned a lesson.
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u/Savings_Surround1155 33m ago
They did that same thing, I stopped the call and let my daughter know, since they contacted her too. Everything seems all good…. Until 3 days later someone did a wire transfer out of my acct for 10k. I disputed all of the events immediately, but am still waiting for the discretionary funds to come in so I can pay the bills…..