Identity Fraud

Identity Theft

Identity Theft is when someone else uses your personal information without permission to make illegal purchases, withdrawals, or open accounts. They may use your personal information such as your social security number, credit card numbers, date of birth and mother's maiden name to perform fraudulent activity using your identity.

April 29, 2011- New Telephone Debit Card Phishing Scam

Rockland Trust is aware and wanted to alert customers of a new automated telephone scam that has been reported by both customers of the bank and other financial institutions in the area.  In this scam, an automated telephone message is randomly dialing telephone numbers in the local area and asking the customer to press "1" to reactivate or deactivate the card. If the recipient continues through the telephone menu system, they will be prompted to enter debit or credit card information, including the card number, PIN, and expiration dates.

These telephone calls are not from Rockland Trust and are a fraudulent attempt to obtain account information. Rockland Trust does not use automated telephone systems to contact customers, and we do not call customers to ask for their debit cards and PIN numbers. We also do not ask for credit or debit card information via email or through our website.

If you receive a call from this automated telephone system, please hang up and do not enter any information. 

If you have entered any personal account or debit or credit card information, please contact Rockland Trust Customer Support at 800.222.2299 immediately so that we can take steps to prevent illegal use of this information.

Learn More about E-mail Fraud

How does Phishing work?
In a typical case, you will receive an e-mail that appears to come from a reputable company that you recognize and do business with regularly, such as your bank, credit card issuer, AOL, or eBay. Most often the email threatens termination of accounts unless consumers update their billing information. The e-mail may say that because of technical problems, billing Information and social security numbers for their accounts must be resubmitted. Thieves have the ability to make the sites that they e-mail look authentic and could easily fool consumers.

How do I protect myself?

1. Never provide your personal information in response to an unsolicited request.
2. If you believe the contact may be legitimate, contact them yourself.
3. Never provide your password over the phone or in response to an unsolicited Internet request.
4. Never reply to an e-mail that ask for personal information and tells you to access the link provided in the e-mail.
5. Change your password frequently. It is recommended that you change your password at least every 60 days.
6. Watch out for e-mails that say "urgent" or "time sensitive". This is generally a scam to obtain your financial information.
7. Review account statements regularly to ensure all charges are correct and make sure that they are arriving in a timely manner.
8. Never provide personal financial information, including your Social Security number, account numbers or passwords, over the phone or the Internet if you did not initiate the contact.
9. Never click on the link provided in an e-mail you believe is fraudulent. It may contain a virus that can contaminate your computer.

What do I do if I think I have been a victim?
You should report all suspicious e-mails to the Federal Trade Commission through the Internet at www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/idtheft/, or by calling 1-877-IDTheft.
To learn more about "Phishing", please visit www.fdic.gov/consumers/consumer/alerts/index.html.

Beware of fraudulent phone messages

Fraud can come in the form of a phone call claiming to be from your bank or financial institution - or any other type of company. The scammer will usually tell you that your credit card or account has been cancelled because it was involved in criminal activity, or because they suspect your card or account details have been stolen. This is a trick to get you to give them your account details.

You may be told that a suspicious transaction has recently occurred on your account, perhaps a large purchase in a foreign country. You will be told that if you did not authorize the transaction, you need to take immediate action as your credit card details have been stolen.

The caller will ask you to confirm your credit card or account details so the 'bank' can 'investigate.' If you receive an email, it may ask you to visit a website to confirm your credit card details or to find out more information on the supposed 'fraud' to your account.

Important: Rockland Trust may call you to verify account transactions, but will never ask you to verify personal account information such as your account number or personal identification number (PIN). If you receive a call asking to verify any personal account information, please do not respond and contact us immediately at 800.222.2299, or your local branch to report the incident.

Who should I notify if I think I have been a victim of Identity Fraud?

Important Contact Information

If you think you have been a victim of fraud, below are important numbers you should know.

Rockland Trust or any of your other financial institutions
800-222-2299

Attorney General Consumer Hotline
Visit www.ago.state.ma.us or call 617-727-8400

Federal Trade Commission Hotline
Visit www.ftc.gov or call 1-877-IDTheft

Massachusetts Bankers Association
Visit www.massbankers.org or call 617-523-7595

Office of Consumer Affairs Hotline
Visit www.state.ma.us/dob or call 617-727-7780 or 888-283-63757

The Credit Reporting Bureaus/Fraud Departments

Equifax
P.O. Box 15069
Atlanta, GA 30348
888.766.0008

Experian (formerly TRW)
P.O. Box 9532
Allen, TX 75013
888.397.3742

Transunion
P.O. Box 679
Fullerton, CA 92634
800.680.7289

MasterCard SecureCode^TM

For your protection, Rockland Trust is a participant in MasterCard SecureCode. MasterCard SecureCode provides added protection when you buy online at participating merchants. You choose your own personal SecureCode that provides added protection against unauthorized use of your MasterCard when shopping online. Just like using your PIN at the ATM, all you do is enter your private SecureCode during checkout at participating online merchants when prompted. Once your identity is confirmed, your purchase is complete! Enrollment is quick and easy, and once you've established your SecureCode, you can use it for future transactions at participating online merchants. To signup for this free service, go to https://secure4.arcot.com/vpas/icpt0950/i18n/en_US/index.html

Rockland Trust Privacy Policy

Rockland Trust - Guardian Of Your Privacy
Rockland Trust Company is devoted to protecting your privacy. We have prepared this notice to outline the measures we take to protect your privacy.

The Information We Have About You
In the normal course of business we receive information about you ("Your Information"), some of which may not be publicly available. Your Information may include:

• your name and address, Social Security number, and information about your job, income, other debt, credit references, and other information which we receive from you on applications, forms, in person, by telephone, electronically, or by other means;
• information about your transactions, including information about your account balances with us and other institutions, payment history, and account usage;
• information we receive from consumer reporting agencies, including information about your creditworthiness; and
• information from public sources, such as real estate records and telephone numbers.

What We Do With Your Information
We use Your Information to protect you by, for example, confirming your identity at the time of a transaction. We may also use Your Information to serve you better by identifying products or services that may be of interest to you. As a consequence, we may disclose all of Your Information, as described above, to service providers that perform marketing services on our behalf or to other financial institutions with whom we have joint marketing agreements.

We do not otherwise disclose Your Information, or nonpublic information about our former customers, to anyone, except as required or permitted by law, such as when responding to a subpoena or other court order, complying with regulatory requests, or providing information to consumer reporting agencies.

The Steps We Take To Protect Your Privacy
We restrict access to Your Information to only those employees who need to know it to provide products or services to you. All of our employees must adhere to strict policies designed to prevent any misuse of Your Information. We maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to guard Your Information.

Website Privacy

We invite you to review this statement so you'll know exactly how we handle any information we learn about you as a result of your visit to our Web site:

• We will not collect identifying information about visitors to our site unless they volunteer that information. We may use standard usage-tracking software to collect non-identifying information about our visitors, such as date and time our site was accessed, IP address of dial-up servers (the numeric address given to servers connected to the Internet), web browser used, as well as city, state, and country. Rockland Trust uses this information to create summary statistics and to determine the level of interest in information available on our site.
• Visitors to our Web site may elect to provide us with personal information via e-mail, on-line application forms, or our guest book. This information is used internally, as appropriate, to handle the sender's request. It is never disseminated or sold to other organizations.

We thank you for visiting our Web site and assure you we are committed to protecting your privacy.