Watch for the phishing scam

A reader sent me the following message this afternoon.

"I received a call from a 4 digit # -1009 on caller id. Informing me that my debit card with great lakes credit union was lost, press 1 to verify. I don't have an account with them. So to see where it goes i played along. More automation instead of a human. I called the CLPD to ask if they would put a warning out on NIXLE and I was asked what nixle is? hmmm. I talked to my brother and he received 3 calls like this over the weekend. He is a retired Cook county sheriff deputy. Can you get the word out about this scam?"

Kind of surprising that the Crystal Lake PD person didn't know what NIXLE was.

The best thing to do, when you get one of these calls, is just to hang up. I'm not sure how much risk there is by even just pressing "1". Even if "my bank" calls, I'm not talking to them until I call them back at a known number, such as calling the local branch or calling the customer service number that I know is for the bank.

The crooks are getting too clever these days.

Thanks to the reader for his interest in alerting the public.