Stay Protected & Fight Fraud

Business Email Compromise (BEC) is a scam that targets businesses and individuals who can send checks, wire transfers, and ACH transfers. BEC fraudsters impersonate vendors and ask for payment outside the normal course of business. In a typical BEC scheme, the victim receives a message supposedly from a company the victim normally conducts business with. The message requests that standard payment practices be altered in some way, such as by sending money to a new account. 

Scammers often create fake profiles on dating apps or social media sites and start conversations with their targets to build trust. Once they have gained the victim's confidence through an online relationship, they claim to have knowledge of cryptocurrency investment or trading opportunities that will result in profit. Other times, they make up a story and ask for money.

"Phishing" is when a fraudster sends emails to a user that appear to be from a reputable company, organization, or even a friend to entice them to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers. When victims receive these emails, and believe they are legitimate, it leads them to open a malicious attachment that will cause malware to infect their system or prompts the victim to enter their login credentials and expose personal and confidential information. This type of fraud can lead to financial crimes such as business email compromise, personal information theft, ransomware, and account takeovers.  

“Vishing” is when a fraudster uses the telephone to scam a user into providing private or confidential information such as online banking credentials. Users report that they are receiving a phone call from an imposter “Security Officer of a Bank” asking them to confirm suspicious transactions on their account. Once they confirm the transactions are not valid, the imposter proceeds to “verify” the end user by asking them to provide their Online Banking credentials including Out of Band Authentication codes. The fraudster then gains access to the user's accounts and can complete fraudulent transactions. American Bank will never ask you for your login credentials.

Tech Support Fraud involves a criminal claiming to provide customer, security, or technical support to defraud unwitting individuals.

Criminals may pose as a security, customer, or technical support representative offering to resolve such issues as a compromised e-mail or bank account, a virus on a computer, or to assist with a software license renewal. Examples include criminals posing as technical support representatives for computer or printer companies, cable companies, or government agents, even offering to recover supposed losses related to tech support fraud schemes or to request financial assistance with “apprehending” criminals.

Tech support fraud can occur through the telephone, search engine advertising, pop-up messages, locked device screens and phishing emails.

Email phishing campaigns where malicious actors are impersonating the Small Business Administration (SBA) to collect personally identifiable information (PII) for fraudulent purposes have surfaced. The SBA is particularly concerned about scam emails targeting applicants of the SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program asking them to verify their accounts using a third-party online platform to collect PII.

It should be noted that any email communication from the SBA will only come from email accounts ending in sba.gov. Applicants are advised to help protect their identity and privacy by never providing PII in public-facing comments or responses to third-party emails.

The SBA will not use a third-party platform to:

• Actively seek PII
• Search a third-party platform for or by PII
• “Follow” public users proactively without a waiver

Additionally, federal agencies that provide disaster recovery assistance will never ask for a fee or payment to apply for financial assistance. Loan applicants and borrowers should be vigilant in protecting their personal information and data assets. Visit sba.gov/COVIDfraudalert to learn more about scams and fraud schemes. 

Scammers often use SMS text links and phone calls to pose as American Bank bankers. These scams are meant to persuade clients to share personal identification information and account information. 

American Bank will never call or text you to ask for sensitive information. You should only provide this information if you have reached out to our bankers or client services team for support. 

Many websites and apps increase security by using the Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) method that prompts you to enter a One Time Passcode (OTP) sent to you by text message or email. Fraudsters will call you and pretend to be a legitimate organization to ask you for the OTP that was just delivered to your phone or email. 

Remember to never share a OTP with anyone over the phone, text or email.