I just had an interesting conversation with the fraud department at my bank this afternoon. During our conversation the bank's fraud agent revealed some very interesting frightening information...
  • The perpetraters of internet fraud have gotten VERY sophisticated. One recent series even had a notice along with the Bank's logo that said, "If you think you have received a fraudulent text or email from us, report it immediately to our fraud department at..." and gave the actual email address and phone number of the Bank's fraud department. (There were, of course, other embedded links in the text to the fraudster's site.)
  • Fraudulent texts and emails have been found with embedded malware that can potentially be triggered by simply mousing over the text. The only safe action is DELETE or forward to the Bank's fraud department.
  • The bank is adding fraud support lines so fast they can't keep the internal list of phone numbers used by their own fraud department up to date.
I neglected to ask, but my impression is this increase in fraud activity corresponded with the onset of the Coronavirus Pandemic (and spectacular growth in online shopping?).


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein