Gate City Bank cautions public about phone scam

Gate City Bank is encouraging the public to beware of a phone scam as reports of fraudulent phone calls have been made in an attempt to obtain consumers’ confidential, personal information.

Gate City Bank Vice President of Deposit & Card Servicing, Jennifer Dirk, explains that these phone calls are part of a scam knows as “phishing” or “vishing”, which is an attempt by fraudsters to obtain sensitive information from individuals. The calls can seem convincing as the caller claims to be from your bank and the caller ID may falsely display the bank’s name and phone number.

“These fraudsters are persistent and have the ability to call the same phone numbers multiple times,” Dirk said. “They can ‘spoof’ phone numbers which make the phone call appear to come from a legitimate source.”

Gate City Bank has some tips on how people can avoid falling victim to a scam like this one.

• Do NOT respond to phone calls, emails, faxes or text messages asking you to provide sensitive information immediately.

• Do NOT provide personal information such as account numbers, debit or credit card numbers or passwords in response to an unsolicited phone call, email, fax or text message, no matter how legitimate it seems.

• DO contact your bank immediately if you have responded to what you believe may have been a scam.

• DO contact your bank at a local phone banking number if you are unsure about the legitimacy of any phone calls.

• DO review your account transactions regularly and contact your bank if you find any unauthorized transactions.

• DO keep your bank informed of your current home and cell phone numbers in the event the bank needs to verify if suspicious activity has occurred.

Dirk says that Gate City Bank constantly monitors their customers’ accounts to identify fraud. “Gate City Bank has a real-time fraud monitoring system that will identify unusual activity,” Dirk said. “While Gate City Bank may contact you to review suspicious activity, we will never ask for your full debit card number and will never request your pin number, or the security code on the back of the debit card.”

If a Gate City Bank customer has provided their confidential information or have become a victim of fraudulent activity on their Gate City Bank ATM & Check Card, they are protected by Gate City Bank and have zero liability. Customers are urged to contact us immediately if this has occurred.