The phone rings from a concealed number and you pick up:
Hello?
Silence.
More silence.
Eventually a foreign voice enters:
Hi, this is your bank, we need you to verify some details.
This is the point where you should be disclosing absolutely nothing, at least nothing that is not known already which is probably just your phone number and perhaps your name if they’ve greeted you with it. No, I’m not revealing my address or my account numbers or my password because frankly, I don’t trust you. Don’t get me wrong – it’s not because of your foreign accent – but it’s because it’s part of a larger tapestry of suspicious attributes of the call.
This is precisely what happened to me this week and it’s worth explaining why this is worrying, how you should respond and what the bank did wrong. Yes, the bank, the call was actually legit.
