Scam Alert (March 15, 2023)
Fraudulent text messages are being sent in our area! As a reminder, while we may contact members to verify suspicious activity or relay important updates—or ask a member their security questions when a member initiates contact—we will NEVER reach out asking for sensitive or personal information (account numbers, Social Security numbers, PINs, usernames, passwords, etc.).
Scammers are spoofing Fort Financial, as well as other financial institutions, phone numbers and texting members, stating that there is an important notice on their account and to call a number (not affiliated with Fort Financial in any manner) to take care of the notice.
If you receive a phone text like this, do not click on any links, reply back, call the number or otherwise engage with the scammers. Please call us directly at 260.432.1561 and select option 5 for Digital Services to report the scam. If you have received a text like this and gave away any personal information, please call us right away at 260.432.1561, option 5.
Fort Financial, and other financial institutions, may call or email you to discuss products, promotional offers or relay important information regarding your account/membership. Because of this, we may, at times, ask for sensitive information; however, if you feel the call is unwarranted or suspicious, please hang up and call your local office for verification.
Any phone call, text or email that may appear from Fort Financial and is seeking to get personal information (account numbers, credit/debit card numbers, PINs, etc.) is known as a phishing scam. If you are asked to provide personal information or asked to click on a web link to enter personal information, do not proceed; hang up or exit the email. Report this immediately if it involves your Fort Financial account.
Reporting Fraud
If you suspect that you have been a victim of fraud, as soon as the suspicion occurs, call us at 260.432.1561, visit any of our branches or write to us at 8815 Lima Road, Fort Wayne, IN 46818. Please give us as much detail as possible. If necessary, we will contact you to discuss the situation further.
How We Protect You
Keeping your online financial and personal information secure and confidential remains one of our top priorities. We employ several security measures to keep your information safe.
- Encryption: The privacy of communications between you (your browser) and our servers is ensured via encryption. Encryption scrambles messages exchanged between your browser and our online banking server.
- Password Complexity: It’s important to verify that only authorized persons log into online banking. We allow you to enter your password incorrectly a limited number of times before your online banking account is locked. We monitor and record “bad login” attempts to detect any suspicious activity (i.e. someone trying to guess your password).
- Secure Architecture: The computers storing your actual account information are not linked directly to the Internet. Transactions initiated through the Internet are received by online banking web servers, which route your transaction through firewall servers. This configuration isolates the publicly accessible web servers from data stored on our online banking servers and ensures only authorized requests are processed.
- Various access control mechanisms, including intrusion detection and anti-virus, monitor for and protect our systems from potential malicious activity. Additionally, our online banking servers are fault-tolerant and provide for uninterruptible access, even in the event of various types of failures.
- Online Banking Security Features: We provide additional security features in online banking to help protect you:
- Timeout: This prevents curious persons from continuing your online banking session if you leave your computer unattended without logging out. We recommend that you always sign off (log out) when done banking online.
- eStatements: eStatements are facsimiles of traditional financial statements packaged and delivered to you securely within online banking. By eliminating your paper statement, you help stop thieves from potentially stealing your information out of your mailbox.
- Check Images: View an exact facsimile of your check transactions online to help prevent fraud.
- Alerts: Create customized account and security alerts to help you to monitor your accounts more actively and to detect suspicious activity more easily.
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Multi-Factor Authentication: Any password, email or phone number change made in the mobile or web app requires you to provide Multi-Factor Authentication.
How You Can Protect Yourself
There are several steps that you can take to help protect yourself from fraud attempts:
- Change passwords frequently and use creative, non-obvious passwords. Select passwords that don’t lend themselves to be easily figured out by less-than-ethical characters. Do not store passwords where they can be easily found. Keeping them in your memory only is best.
- Use antivirus, firewall and anti-spyware software and keep them updated.
- Use spam filters on your email to reduce the amount of unsolicited material you may receive.
- DO NOT open unsolicited email attachments.
- NEVER give your personal information over the phone, text or email.
- NEVER email personal or financial information.
- Only conduct business with companies you know and trust.
- Review credit card and account statements regularly to quickly identify any unauthorized or suspicious transactions.
- Set up alerts within online or mobile banking to alert you when someone attempts to reset your password, access your username or change your account information.
- Check your credit report annually.
- NEVER write your account information/ATM PIN numbers on paper or carry that information with you.
- Be sure Fort Financial always has your most current personal information (address, phone number, email).
Identity Recovery Services
As a Fort Financial member, you and your family are automatically eligible for fully-managed identity fraud research, remediation and recovery, performed by certified, licensed recovery advocates, if identity fraud is known or even suspected.
Learn more about the Identity Restoration program.