News & Media

Through Account Takeover schemes (ATO) fraudsters target individuals by impersonating financial institutions or someone you trust to steal money or information. These fraudsters access payroll, health savings, personal information and your money. The FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center has received over 5,100 complaints of ATO fraud, with more than $262 million dollars lost. View the entire public service announcement from the Federal Bureau of Investigations here.

How it Works

Fraudsters will use social engineering through fraudulent texts, calls, or emails to impersonate a bank employee to steal personal information to access your account. In addition to contacting their targets, fraudsters may even create fake websites that look like real financial institution websites to gather logins.

After stealing your information, they often lock you out of all accounts and quickly move the money into other accounts they have access to that are difficult to trace and/or recover.

How to Stay Safe

• Be careful about information that you put out online
• Monitor your financial accounts regularly
• Always use unique password and set up two-factor authentication
• Use Bookmarks or Favorites to access your login websites
• Stay vigilant against phishing attempts

If a Blue Ridge Bank employee calls you, we will not ask you to provide items such as: 

• Your full social security number
• Online banking user ID
• Online banking password
• Answers to your security questions

What to do if you experience an ATO Incident

1. Contact Blue Ridge Bank at (888) 331-6521 and provide all details of the incident, including exactly what information you provided the fraudster.
   
   
2. Reset all credentials you provided the fraudster. (online banking, PIN numbers, email password, etc.)
   
   
3. File an Internet Crime Complaint to the FBI via Home Page - Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)
   
   
4. Monitor your accounts for an unusual, unexpected, or unauthorized activity and report any fraudulent charges to BRB immediately.

At Blue Ridge Bank, we work to keep your accounts safe and secure, whether you're accessing them online, through an ATM, mobile device, or in one of our branches. For more information on how to keep your personal information secure, visit our Identity Protection page.