BBB Warns Of Possible Text Message Scam

A national scam has made its way to Tulsa, tricking thousands of people and causing major headaches for a local credit union. The Better Business Bureau says the scam has been shut down, but there's worry some people may have been victims of identity theft.

Wednesday was a busy day at Tulsa Teachers Credit Union. The Better Business Bureau says the financial institution was in the bulls-eye of a cross-country scam.

"It kind of shocked me," said TTCU member Jesika Piearcy.

"I thought somebody had gone crazy," said TTCU member Kathryn Brownfield.

The scam came by way of text message and e-mail, starting around 9 a.m. Wednesday. The text warned that an account at TTCU had been closed due to unusual activity and told the target to call a number with a 704 area code to re-activate the account.

"It said, 'this is an account verification service, please enter your credit number or your debit card number.'" said Heather Johnson.

Johnson is a TTCU member who was doing online banking when she got the text message. She thought it was odd, but called anyway and entered her credit card number.

"As I was doing it, I realized I shouldn't have been doing it," said Johnson.

She was able to cancel the card soon after and never lost any money. Less than two hours after the first text, TTCU was able to get the phone number shut down.

The Better Business Bureau says TTCU was an innocent player in the scam and did everything necessary to get control.

Officials at the credit union want members to know their accounts are safe and remind everyone that a bank or credit union will never ask for credit card numbers as verification.

"If you do have a problem with your financial institution and they do call you, they already have all the information they need sitting in front of them," said Kristi Brooks Cohea of TTCU.

The Better Business Bureau says anyone who called the number and gave out personal information should contact their bank or credit card company as soon as possible.

Most of the text messages were to U.S. Cellular customers.

Late Wednesday afternoon, the Chicago-based company released a statement saying it's confident there was no breach of the network and all customer information is safe.

Consumers who have fallen victim to this scam need to immediately contact their credit card company and notify all three credit reporting agencies of a possible identity theft.

The credit reporting agencies may be contacted as follows:

Equifax: 1-800-525-6285; www.equifax.com; P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374-0241

Experian: 1-888-EXPERIAN (397-3742); www.experian.com; P.O. Box 9532, Allen, TX 75013

TransUnion: 1-800-680-7289; www.transunion.com; Fraud Victim Assistance Division, P.O. Box 6790, Fullerton, CA 92834-6790