Columbia Credit Union will never ask you to confirm or validate transactions or regain online/mobile banking access by verbally sharing or inputting your online banking credentials, PINs, and one-time passcodes.
HANG UP – If at any point you are uncertain about questions you’re being asked or the legitimacy of the call itself, hang up and call us directly at Columbia Credit Union: 360-891-4000, 503-285-4521, or 800-699-4009.
DO NOT CLICK – If you are ever sent a link via text or email to “verify” your account or the validity of a transaction, do not click.
Protecting You Against Fraud
Columbia Credit Union is dedicated to protecting you against account fraud and keeping you informed about identity theft. With identity theft on the rise and so many new techniques for thieves to steal identities, Columbia CU is committed to ensuring your account and identity information stay secure.
4 Ways to Protect Yourself from Phishing
Protect your computer by using security software. Set the software to update automatically so it will deal with any new security threats.
Protect your cell phone by setting software to update automatically. These updates could give you critical protection against security threats.
Protect your accounts by using multifactor authentication. Some accounts offer extra security by requiring two or more credentials to log in to your account which makes it harder for scammers to access if they do get your username or password.
Protect your data by backing it up. Back up the data on your computer to an external hard drive or in the cloud. Back up the data on your phone, too.
What to Do if You Responded to a Phishing Email
If you think a scammer has your information, like your social security, credit card, or bank account number, go to IdentityTheft.com. There you’ll see the specific steps to take based on the information that you lost.
If you think you clicked on a link or opened an attachment that downloaded harmful software, update your computer’s security software. Then run a scan and remove anything it identifies as a problem.
Keeping Your Information Safe
Our website is secured through strong encryption, server firewalls, the latest anti-virus software, and our internal voluntary and regulatory audits. If you provide information to Columbia CU through our website including loan applications, account openings, live chat or email, be confident your information is safe.
As stated in our Privacy Pledge, we are committed to maintaining the privacy of our website’s visitors. Visitors of Columbia Credit Union’s website will remain anonymous unless you volunteer your identifying information by using secure third party tools such as online banking or applying for a loan. We do not collect personal identifying information about our visitors to our website. Our servers collect standard non-identifying information about visitors to the site, such as date, time, and pages visited. This information is used to compile standard statistics on site use.
Our website has several links to third party sites. These links are offered as a courtesy and convenience to you. By accessing these external links you leave Columbia Credit Union’s website and enter a website hosted by another party which may offer a different privacy policy and level of security. To help your decision making, we notify you when you leave our site for another party’s when we haven’t performed due diligence on their policies, security and the products offered through a joint marketing or other partnership agreement.
We are diligent about monitoring suspicious activity on member accounts to detect and deter fraud as quickly as possible. The last time you visited a branch, did we ask you for identifying information? If so, you experienced another system we use to protect your information.