Increases in Impersonation and Phishing Scams

Community First Bank has become aware to an increase in phishing and impersonation scams.

What are Phishing Scams?

The scammers use a sense of fear and urgency to encourage you to act quickly and use phrases such as ‘account compromised’, ‘unauthorised’, or ‘suspicious transactions’, or ‘you’ve been hacked’ to deceive you into granting scammers access to your account to steal your money.

What are Impersonation Scams?

Impersonation scams are where the scammer may send messages using the technology of ‘spoofing’ to make a message appear to be from a trusted source organisation to add legitimacy to the scam, meaning the scam message would appear with other legitimate messages in the thread.

These messages often include a link or a contact phone number which belongs to the scammer as a way in which to gain access to your personal information and ultimately your account.

Top Tips to Avoid Scams

• STOP. Do not click on any links in emails or text messages, even if they say there has been suspicious activity on your account. We will not include hyperlinks to our banking services in our correspondence with you and will direct you to our website.
• CHECK. Do not rush to act. If you ever think we are trying to contact you, go to our official website or app and log in there. Alternatively, contact us by phone or email using details you find on our website.
• PROTECT. Set up multi-factor authentication so you receive an email or text message every time someone tries to log in to your accounts. Never share these passcodes with anyone else over the phone. If you are ever unsure if correspondence from us is legitimate regarding transactions on your account that were not made by you, please contact us immediately by the contact information found on our website.