Suburban Man Avoids Bank Account Scam From Phone Hackers
ST. CHARLES, Ill. (CBS) -- A St. Charles man has avoided being scammed by hackers who apparently commandeered an Alabama telephone number to try to raid bank accounts nationwide.
The phone rang and Ron Doodaman of St. Charles answered it.
It was a robo-call telling him his debit card account had been deactivated. Closed.
"Then it asked me if I wanted it to remain closed to press 1 or if I wanted it reopened, press 2. So I pressed 2, then they asked me to enter my 16-digit account number."
Suburban Man Avoids Bank Account Scam From Phone Hackers
And then he hung up and called the number that had registered on his phone as the incoming call.
An Alabama-based trucking company answered.
And when we talked to the company, they told us they'd gotten calls from people in Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Texas and Illinois - all complaining about the scam.
The trucking company, CRST Malone, says they've been getting those calls for more than a month - and that AT&T has told the company the only thing it can do to get away from the phone number hacker is change its number.
But the company says that's not practical.
Ron Doodaman is just glad he didn't fall for it.
"I think it's terrible. These kinds of things happen all the time."
An AT&T spokeswoman says this may be a case of "spoofing," where scammers can falsify the number that's on your caller I-D.
"We do take the issue of spoofing very seriously," AT&T Spokeswoman Erin McGrath said in an email, which provided a link to the FCC website.
From that website: "Please let the FCC know about ID spoofers by calling 1-888-CALL-FCC or filing a complaint at www.fcc.gov/complaints.
