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2026 V1 Article - Security Spotlight

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Many local financial institutions (including UMassFive) and federal law enforcement agencies are seeing a recent rise in fraud attempts targeting consumers. 

Over the past year, scammers have increasingly relied on impersonation—often posing as a bank, credit union, or government agency—to trick individuals into sharing login information or one-time passcodes. These schemes frequently begin with an unexpected call, text, or email claiming that there is an urgent issue with your account, like a pending transaction for a large dollar amount, followed by pressure to verify personal information, such as your Digital Banking login, so that you can take “quick action.”

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As fraud tactics continue to evolve, being informed and taking simple precautions can make a significant difference. 
 

  • Use My Cards in Online & Mobile Banking to set spending limits and turn on purchase alerts. When you set transaction limits, any purchase above your chosen amount will be declined. Enabling notifications lets us send you email and/or push alerts to your phone, so you can stay on top of your account activity in real time.
     
  • Even if you’re not using My Cards to add an additional layer of monitoring and security to your card usage, remember to take a close look at the messages you’re receiving. Our name is unique as an institution, and fraudsters regularly misspell UMassFive as two words or capitalize incorrectly, and frequently use poor grammar.
     
  • The most foolproof way to avoid a scam? Don’t panic. Scammers most of all want you to act immediately before you can think critically on the information you’re reading or hearing. Don’t answer the text, hang up the phone, check to see if transactions actually are pending in your account, and then call us directly at 800.852.5886 where our fraud team can confirm any unauthorized activity and put a stop to it.

One of the ways you can help others not fall for these attacks is to report them to us. Take a screenshot on your phone of any scam texts you might receive impersonating UMassFive, and send it to us. 

You can do so by heading to the Online and Mobile Banking secure message center, and using the topic “Fraudulent Text / Email Screen Shot” so that we can report the number involved in the scam attempt.

 

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