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Oregon & Washington CUs Warn of Imposter Text Scam Uptick

Fraudsters impersonate local credit unions via text in an attempt to steal victims’ personal information.

woman reading text on smartphone Credit/Shutterstock

Four Oregon- and Washington State-based credit unions have been sounding the alarm about an onslaught of scam text messages targeting consumers in their membership service areas, in which fraudsters impersonate one of the local credit unions in a ploy to snag personal information.

Wendy Smith, SVP, chief risk officer for the $2.3 billion, Vancouver, Wash.-based Columbia Credit Union, said her credit union along with Oregon Community Credit Union (OCCU, $3.4 billion, Eugene, Ore.), iQ Credit Union ($2 billion, Vancouver, Wash.) and Rivermark Community Credit Union ($1.3 billion, Beaverton, Ore.), as well as other credit unions in the Northwest region, began noticing an increase in calls about text scams – also known as smishing – in July. OCCU, for example, reported receiving between 200 and 400 calls from smishing targets daily, Smith said.

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Natasha Chilingerian

Natasha Chilingerian

Natasha Chilingerian has been immersed in the credit union industry for over a decade. She first joined CU Times in 2011 as a freelance writer, and following a two-year hiatus from 2013-2015, during which time she served as a communications specialist for Xceed Financial Credit Union (now Kinecta Federal Credit Union), she re-joined the CU Times team full-time as managing editor. She was promoted to executive editor in 2019. In the earlier days of her career, Chilingerian focused on news and lifestyle journalism, serving as a writer and editor for numerous regional publications in Oregon, Louisiana, South Carolina and the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition, she holds experience in marketing copywriting for companies in the finance and technology space. At CU Times, she covers People and Community news, cybersecurity, fintech partnerships, marketing, workplace culture, leadership, DEI, branch strategies, digital banking and more. She currently works remotely and splits her time between Southern California and Portland, Ore.

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