NORTH COAST, Calif. — Savings Bank of Mendocino County is alerting the community about scam phone calls from fraudsters impersonating Bank employees.

The fraudsters are “spoofing” the bank’s phone number, in other words, the scammers are using deceptive technology that makes it seem like those calls are coming from the bank by deliberately falsifying the caller ID to disguise their identity.

This scam is targeting customers of many different financial institutions locally and coast to coast.

“We cannot emphasize enough how important it is to NOT give out your personal identifying information over the phone, by text, or email,” said Stacy Starkey, Savings Bank president and CEO. “The bank will never contact you to ask you for that information.”

In recent attempts, the fraudsters are informing the person that they are calling that their account has been the target of fraud and asking them to verify their debit card number, PIN and requests them to verify personal information.

The fraudster will use that information to contact the bank to attempt to impersonate the customer and attempt to gain access to the customer’s accounts to initiate large debit card transactions.

Remember, the bank will never contact customers and ask them to verify a debit card number, PIN or account information.

Savings Bank is advising that if you do receive an unsolicited phone call, text message or email from someone claiming to be from your bank, hang up and call your bank immediately using the phone number on your bank statement, not caller ID.

Your financial security is our top priority. To further protect our customers, Savings Bank has placed increased restrictions on debit card transactions. To reduce your risk, customers are urged to insert their chip card at the checkout terminal when making purchases.