You may be a member’s last line of defense against a COVID-19 scam

For every shining light of humanity COVID-19 has revealed, there’s the equally glaring dark side of opportunistic crooks. Scammers delight in upheaval, and likely began strategizing their callous crimes long before the pandemic was classified as such.

Credit union staff are in a unique position. Often standing between a thief and his or her mark, they are the frontline soldiers in a fast-evolving, often digital, war on fraudsters. Awareness of COVID-19 crimes du jour is one of the most effective weapons in a credit union’s arsenal.

Although there are many different ways cyber and IRL scoundrels will attempt to get their fists around your members’ money in the coming weeks and months, two threats in particular seem to be popping up in the CU space: financial elder abuse and charitable donation scams.

Financial Elder Abuse: As recently reported by the NCUA, older adult victims lose $2.9 billion to financial exploitation annually. COVID-19, and all the dominoes falling in response to it, is likely to up this number in a big way.

 

continue reading »