Reports of fraud are on the rise in Washington state, and Spokane-area credit unions are taking notice. 

“There has been an increase,” says Mark Fox, senior vice president of payments and operations at Spokane Valley-based Numerica Credit Union. “We’re seeing a trend that is happening industrywide that more and more people are trying to compromise accounts.” 

Washington residents lost about $250 million to fraud in 2023, up from about $225 million the year prior, according to a Federal Trade Commission report. The total number of fraud reports also grew by about 1,000, following a nationwide trend. 

Jana Farace, vice president of risk management at Canopy Credit Union, says she also has seen an increase in scams and fraudulent activity over the past couple of years, to the point that the Spokane-based credit union has had to grow its fraud prevention team from one person to eight people. 

“We’ve had to build our resources as far as manpower,” Farace says. “I was dealing with it on my own and needed some help, so I recruited a team of people here that crosses through all of our departments.” 

At STCU, Brian Scott, chief risk officer for the Liberty Lake-based credit union, says the organization hasn’t noticed a substantial increase in fraud recently. He notes, however, that the scams continue to become more sophisticated. 

“It just continues to evolve,” Scott says. “We have a team of people who are constantly trying to stay ahead of it.”

While text phishing—scammers using fake or deceptive messages to try and gain sensitive data from people—remains prevalent and often happens in waves, Scott also has noticed scammers targeting businesses and their customers to commit fraud.

When scammers successfully hack into a business’s email, for example, they are then able to monitor customer activity and reach out to customers via that email, encouraging them to send money to different accounts, he says.

At Numerica, one of the types of fraud being attempted lately involves the use of text messages with fake reports of suspicious activity, Fox says.

Many credit unions send out text messages to their members when they notice suspicious transaction activity—unusually high-priced purchases or out-of-town transactions, for example—and ask those members to confirm that they are the ones making those transactions.

Now, however, Fox says scammers are pretending to be credit unions and messaging members saying, “Did you make this transaction?”

Once they get a member to engage, scammers ask them for confidential information, like a social security number or login credentials, so they can access the member's accounts, Fox explains.

“Most people have that little nagging doubt in the back of their mind,” says Fox. “My advice would be to listen to that voice. If you have any doubt, ask for help.”

Another common type of fraud is in the form of fake job listings that enlist unsuspecting applicants as “money mules."

Scammers list job openings through credible employment sites for “money transfer agent” positions, for example. The scammers then send funds from already compromised accounts to these people who think they have legitimate jobs, tell them they can keep a percentage of the funds, and then have them send the funds to other accounts, essentially having them launder the money without knowing, Fox says.

“I think it’s moving more away from that, and more towards trying to get people to give away their login credentials,” says Fox. “Scammers are always trying to find new ways, repetitive ways to find a way to scam members.”

At Canopy, the types of scams Farace is noticing are changing constantly.

One newer type of scam she’s noticed is also an employment opportunity scam, similar to what Numerica has seen. 

Scammers post fake job listings, and when someone applies and accepts the fake job, scammers send them a check to buy office equipment. They are then asked to send back the remainder of the money, only to find out that the job never existed, and the check was bad, leaving them without the money that they sent back from their account, Farace explains.

In addition to numerous other types of scams and fraudulent activity, the most recent one Farace has noticed is caller ID spoofing—when a scammer falsifies the information that is sent to an individual’s caller ID. A call will come in to a Canopy member, for example, and show on the caller ID that Canopy Credit Union is making the call.

Once on the phone with a member, scammers will then pretend to be a Canopy employee and attempt to get sensitive information from members that could compromise their accounts, Farace says.

Canopy has a multitude of systems in place to help protect members’ information and money, Farace says.

The credit union monitors member behavior, looking for abnormalities in transactions. The system alerts Canopy staff when it notices something unusual, and the credit union then contacts the member.

Canopy also has a text message system in place that asks members about suspicious activity.

If an account has been compromised, the credit union’s first response is to freeze the account. Members are then given new cards and new account numbers, and Canopy works on getting the money back.

Getting the money back can be difficult in certain situations, but Farace says Canopy has protections in place for members, depending on how the fraudulent activity happened.

Canopy also sends out email blasts warning of new scams and uses multifactor authentication systems for its members. It also makes educational resources available.

“We have resources on our website about some of the current scams and how to prevent falling victim to them,” Farace says.

STCU also has numerous strategies to help protect its members, Scott says. On top of these strategies, however, he says that vigilance and skepticism are the best protections and if something doesn’t seem right, members should reach out to STCU via a known channel.

“Anytime someone reaches out to you with any kind of financial information via email or text, you should be suspicious about that,” Scott says.

Like Canopy, STCU has software in place to monitor transactions and suspicious behavior. 

Scott says STCU encourages its members to take advantage of multifactor authentication for their logins, and also encourages them to set up alerts for any transaction over a certain dollar threshold. The credit union is constantly adding and updating different prevention strategies as scams and fraud continue to evolve, Scott says.

As STCU’s membership continues to grow and fraud becomes more elaborate, the credit union has to invest more resources toward fraud prevention over time.

STCU currently has eight people on its fraud prevention team, although more employees get involved when there’s an uptick in fraudulent activity.

Numerica also has a system in place to monitor unusual transaction activity, Fox says.

“We have a partnership with Visa to help mitigate suspicious activity,” he says.

Through that partnership, Numerica members will receive calls and messages when their cards are compromised, Fox says.

Numerica advises its members to regularly check their transactions.

Fox says, when people receive suspicious payment notices from their financial institution, they should call that institution using the phone number from that institution’s website, and not the phone number on the payment notice they received.

Fox adds that people shouldn’t click on random links or dial random phone numbers, as it could expose them to fraudulent activity.

“We really want to help people avoid being taken advantage of by these scammers,” Fox says.

Similar to Scott’s advice, Fox says reaching out to Numerica is the right thing to do if someone suspects they’ve been impacted by a scam.

Numerica is continually evaluating its fraud defense strategies, Fox says. Numerica employees are trained on how to spot and report fraud or fraud attempts immediately, he adds.

“We have a pretty deep financial investigations team,” says Fox.