Watch out for the cellphone porting scam

There is a fairly new scam making the rounds.  It's known as a porting or port-out scam.  A fraudster finds out critical information about you such as your name, phone number, Social Security number, date of birth and more.  Much of this information is obtainable on the Dark Web thanks to the massive Equifax data breach that we learned about last year.

A criminal that has your name, phone number, SSN, date of birth and more will call your mobile phone service provider pretending to be you, and tell them that you're switching to another company but want to keep your phone number.  Transferring your number from say, Verizon to AT&T, is a process called porting.

The porting process takes up to 24 hours to complete.  During this time both phones will be functional.  Meaning, any text messages that you receive on your phone will also be seen by the scammer on the phone your number is being transferred to.   If you have two-factor authentication set up on your bank accounts, or any online sites for that matter, the scammer will be able to get the code needed to log into your account.   From there, you could become a victim of identity theft and even have money stolen from your bank accounts.

Now, don't let this turn you against two-factor authentication.  It's an important security feature that you should be using whenever possible.

The problem isn't two-factor, it's the criminals trying to rip you off.  There are ways to prevent falling victim to these types of scams, keep reading for suggestions.
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