PORT ANGELES — Port Angeles police and officials with Strait View Credit Union and Sound Community Bank are just as baffled by the ongoing credit/debit card scam targeting the Port Angeles area as the intended victims.
Thousands of Clallam County residents — most of them in Port Angeles but also in Sequim and the West End — have received phone calls, mostly automated, in which they are told that their credit or debit cards are being suspended by their financial institution.
They are asked to provide personal information like credit card numbers in a hard-to-track “vishing” scam that is now into its second week.
Many of those contacted in the phone scam don’t bank at Strait View Credit Union or Sound Community Bank, both of which are mentioned in the scam messages.
“It’s frustrating,” said Kandy Peterson, vice president of Strait View Credit Union, which is being flooded by hundreds of calls every day.
“I think most people are understanding that we have noting to do with this.”
Those who receive scam messages are reminded to keep their private information private. The scam doesn’t work if people who receive the calls say nothing.
Anyone who has provided the scam callers with a bank account number should phone their financial institution immediately to stop use of the credit/debit card, and contact police.
But anyone who has not given out private information is asked not to add to the flood of telephone calls to banking institutions and police.
“Please do not call your bank or the police department unless you have given out information, suffered a loss or compromised your identity,” said Port Angeles Police Officer Duane Benedict.
No financial institution would ask for such information over the phone, bank officials said.
Benedict said police and local banks are simply overwhelmed by calls by the largest phone scam he’s encountered in 23 years in Port Angeles.
“It seems like they go out in waves,” Benedict said.
“It’s like the computer is picking a number and changing it one digit at a time.”
Instead of receiving a “phishing” e-mail seeking personal information, a “vishing” scam uses the telephone.
The scam began on Feb. 18 on cell phones and has spread to land lines and text messages.
Complicating matters are the random numbers of origin. The scam uses “masked” numbers, some of which appear on caller IDs.
Calls returned to the masked numbers lead to legitimate individuals or businesses, some of which are being flooded with calls themselves.
“These poor people are in the same situation we are in,” Peterson said.
The masked numbers are originating from all over the map.
“Everything from Quebec to Florida to Tennessee to Georgia,” Peterson said.
Some masked numbers are originating locally. Benedict said one originated at Wave Broadband. Peterson said another originated at Olympic Medical Center.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Peterson said.
Fred Gutt, an FBI agent in Seattle, said the targets of these scams are picked at random.
“There is equipment out there that can make calls appear from certain places,” Gutt said.
“It may actually be coming from overseas, across the country or across town.”
Gutt compared the phone scam to spam in an e-mail or junk in a mailbox. He said the scams are common and tend to move from one area to the next.
“I’m not aware of an active investigation [in Clallam County],” Gutt said.
“I doubt it’s based out there. Eventually they’ll run out numbers there and move on.”
No such reports have been made in Port Townsend, Officer Ryan Smith has said.
Peterson said the calls, which tend to come in 12-hour spurts, are making it difficult for Strait View to conduct business.
“We can’t take care of anything else,” she said.
Like Benedict, Peterson reminds the public to keep their personal information safe and only report the scam if they have already given out personal information.
Likewise, Sound Community Bank spokesman Scott Boyer said the Port Angeles and Sequim branches have been inundated with waves of calls this week.
The complaints slowed down early Thursday before picking up “very significantly” later in the day, he said.
Only had a small handful of Sound Community Bank customers have given out their credit card information, Boyer said.
“The source of at least some of these calls has been from the country of Romania,” he said.
“And so, what we’ve been able to do is block transactions from our customers’ cards to that country at this point.”
Boyer and Peterson said bank records have not been compromised.
Sound Community Bank has offices in Seattle, Tacoma and Mountlake Terrace, as well as Port Angeles and Sequim.
Benedict has heard of one unconfirmed report of a scam phone message telling someone to call a U.S. Bank. He said he is unaware of no other local banks being used in the ongoing scam.
Benedict said the perpetrators are most likely operating outside of the area.
“We don’t have the ability to track something like this,” he said.
“We don’t have the training or technology.”
A Michigan man who grew tired of calls from people in Clallam County who saw his number on his caller ID reported the scam to the FBI.
“The FBI has seen similar stuff happen in the past elsewhere across the U.S.,” Benedict said.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.