I was happy to read this story today about Vishing, a subject I have been pushing our nations banks to become more aware of.
Late last year I contacted representative of American Express, Citibank, Wells Fargo and one other bank to ask what they were doing to prevent vishing and to educate their customer base about the threat it poses and how to combat it.
Only American Express’ Privacy Officer acknowledged knowing what it was and was appreciative of my insight as to how it could affect the cardmember based financial services company. Both Wells Fargo and Citibank representatives expressed total ignorance about the subject and promised to get back to me after talking to their technical folks. Neither did.
Bottom line. if someone calls you asking for details about your financial information simply offer to call them back via the number you normally contact them by. In cases of where you have a local bank to walk into, simply discuss it there with a banker. It’s the safest way to stop it and to combat it until the banks and regulators come up with a better solution.