Have you noticed a big uptick in the number of spam calls you get? Have you seen a familiar name on caller ID and been surprised when it's spam instead? Do you wonder why hackers would steal passcodes from a major phone carrier? 

Scammers will often "spoof" a phone number when making calls to their potential victims. That means they take a phone number you know and trust -- like your boss, your best friend or even your bank -- and reassign it to a phone they control. 

Some Pinnacle clients have experienced this. Their caller ID shows the call is coming from Pinnacle, yet it's a scammer on the other end. That's why we want to remind you of some very important facts on how we communicate with you and what you should never do when talking to anyone who claims to be from Pinnacle. 

Pinnacle relies on the following channels to communicate with our clients:

• U.S. Mail – Examples: account statements, letters and notifications.
• Email – Examples: Pinnacle’s monthly eNewsletter, timely notices about office closures or changes to your service. All emails will come from an "@pnfp.com" email address.
• Phone – Examples: confirming recent debit card purchases as part of our fraud monitoring activities.

The above examples are in addition to normal communication with your financial advisor or another Pinnacle associate who helps manage your account(s).

Your personal information (e.g. Social Security number, address, online banking access ID, etc.) is very sensitive, and we take every precaution to ensure it is not shared with anyone. We also want to make sure you know what to expect from Pinnacle so you can be sure to never surrender your personal information to a fraudster.

That’s why Pinnacle will never contact you and ask you to provide sensitive information about yourself or your account.

This means a Pinnacle representative will never initiate contact with you outside of our offices – by phone, by mail or by email – to ask (or insist) you respond to us and provide sensitive personal information.

“Phishing” is a common scheme where fraudsters contact you and attempt to coerce you to divulge information or visit a fraudulent website. Learn more about how to detect and thwart phishing attacks in this article.