Compliance Blog

News reports are circulating today regarding law enforcement efforts in arresting and prosecuting criminals involved with an international identity theft ring that targeted credit unions.  Read the news story here. 

The members of both rings searched publicly available records or used fee-based Web databases to search for potential victims with large home equity lines of credit. Once they located potential victims, they used sophisticated social engineering techniques to get information from bank tellers and to get them to transfer money out of victims' accounts.

NCUA issued a fraud alert earlier this year to warn of this threat.  Access the fraud alert here

Here's how I'd handle this.  First, read the story.  If the threat seems possible for your shop, I'd then read the NCUA fraud alert.  It is yet another example of how compliance and security lines can blur.

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 I get text messages all the time from unknown third parties.  I find it annoying, as I pay per text.  But those texts may annoy me, but they can land a business in hot water.  Just ask Timberland, who was hit with a $7 million dollar fine after companies it hired to do a texting campaign violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.  If you want to read a good post on what happened, go here.

If your credit union uses text messages, or works with outside parties to do so, give it a read.  But it is also something you may want to share with your marketing team.  Working with third parties on promotional campaigns can be a great way to get the message out.  But only if the third parties comply with consumer protection laws.