In my last few posts, I’ve talked about some nasty scams out there that people have fallen for. My last post talked about bank spoof calls and how scammers have gotten really good at pretending they are your bank and stealing money from your actual account at your true bank. This is a disturbing and growing trend and worries me at how easily they are able to spoof your bank’s number on your phone when they call.
In other posts of mine, I’ve also talked about cryptocurrency scams of which a couple of them have affected me, to Pig Butchering scams where a CEO caused his bank to collapse because he fell for one, and dating scams where the scammer convinces a person that they are in love with them and after a time, will ask to do something involving money.
With all these scams happening on a daily basis and people, especially seniors, losing money nearly every single day, is there anything at all that can be done to minimize the risk of being scammed? The answer is definitely yes, I’m here to help anyone to prevent losing money or personal information to a scammer. I’ve developed some things that will help stop scams in their tracks and more importantly, what to do if you or a loved one has become a victim of a scam. It’s time to talk about scam prevention tools created from a Bank Teller.
Senior Shield: Protect & Recover
In order to protect yourself and others against scammers, the best offense is a good defense. I’ve developed a few things to help with that which include making it as hard as possible for scammers to access your checking account and take money out of it. I’ve also came up with an action plan of what to do if the worst case scenario happens and a scammer or multiple scammers are able to access your checking or savings account.
In this instance, you’ll want to act quickly to minimize as much damage as possible and report to as many places as possible, meaning your bank, and even the authorities. There are even places online you can report this to certain areas of the Federal Government which are designed to deal with situations such as this.
It may seem ironic that you want to move fast in this situation since scammers try to get people to move fast on a supposedly “serious” situation on your account which 99% of the time is false. Scammers don’t want you to think and want you to act fast so they can access acount information as quickly as possible and drain an account. This is why you truly do need to act quickly if they do gain access because time is of the essence here as money can disappear from your account quickly.
I remember an instance at the bank where I had a customer call me over the branch’s phone line and told me he more than likely gave a scammer all of his account information over the phone. I quickly told him that it is good that he called and informed us of that, but I told him he needs to get to the bank as soon as possible so we can shut down the accounts and open a new one and move the money over. I told him in the meantime that I would place an alert on both accounts to be aware of immediate suspicious activity and do not transfer money out of the account.
Not long after that, I received an internal call from one of my bank’s internal departments (digital department for online banking) asking about the alert I put on the account. I told them that yes I put it on there and he thanked me for that as there had been multiple attempts to access the customer’s online banking to try and transfer money out of the accounts. They had immediately shut down online banking to keep the scammers from accessing them. The customer here did the right thing and because of his fast actions, the scammers were not able to take a single penny out this person’s account. He was able to get to my branch, talk to my manager and shut down both accounts and open new ones, keeping his money safe.
I’ve put these two special lists/action plans together as a bundle you can get on Gumroad for $10. The good thing about this is that you can download and print these off to give to anyone who could easily be susceptible to scams so that way they know what to do in case they are targetted by scammers. This can help give peace of mind and a list of actions to take in order to protect ones self from scams or immediately after being scammed.
Now I do have something really cool I’m going to talk about next that includes a free phone checklist of what to do if a scammer is on the phone. That is also just the beginning of what I’m creating as it will be an even bigger way to help and reach others that dealt with scams, fallen victim to scams, or know someone who can easily be swayed by a scam. The best thing about this is that it is free to join.
Talking About Scams at Skool
The heading up above seem odd especially since it seems I have misspelled the word school. I can asure you I did not misspell anything as there is a place online that is called and spelled Skool. It is a place where you can build communities that can either be free or paid, it is up to you, but there are a lot of communities on there that are free to join.
My Skool community is also called Teller Defender, just like this website. It is pretty new so not a lot of people there right now, but I’m building the foundations of it as I want to see a thriving community where we talk about all kinds of scams and ways to avoid them as well as helping others that may have been victims of a scam.
My community is free and as I mentioned earlier, if you join, you will have free access to a free phone defense script that can be printed out and even put on a refrigerator so that it will be readily available to help anyone that may have a suspected scammer on the phone. This will tell you exactly what to do and how to get them off the phone as quickly as possible.
In order to access this free defense script, all you have to do is click on the courses section once you join for free and you’ll see the name of it as well as a link to download it. I highly encourage you or anyone else you know to join the free Teller Defender community on Skool as this will be another useful and helpful way learn about and defend yourself against scams. I will post a link directly to the community below. I will be adding new stuff soon to it, so you’ll definintely want to join and check back as well.