SELCO's Your Big Break--Winners!

The voting is over and the winners have been named!
The three grand prizes were selected through online voting at the selco.org website. SELCO members and the community at large were invited to participate in voting. More than 2,500 votes were received by the end of the voting period on June 6, 2008. The first place $5,000 went to SELCO members Marshall and Haley Roemen with their video entitled “Grow With Us,” which depicted a young girl earning her first dollars at a lemonade stand.

The second place $3,500 award went to Elliot Heine for his untitled video that compared credit unions and banks. The third place $1,500 prize went to Dustin Dybevik of Dedo De Luna Productions for his “Can You Thank Your Bank?” video, featuring a preschooler with a guitar rapping the various differences between banks and credit unions.

In addition to the winners selected by community voting, the SELCO Marketing Team gave additional recognition to five videos that they felt warranted special attention. Those five “Director’s Choice Award” winners received $200 cash prizes.

Just visit selco.org/yourbigbreak to see the winners and an online photo gallery of the premier event. Stay tuned as the winning commercials will be broadcast on local tv stations!

See all the commercials here.

Safety-Savvy SELCO Members Thwart Vishing Attempt

In early June, SELCO learned of a “vishing” (automated telephone) scam that mentioned SELCO Community Credit Union by name, and instructed callers to phone a special toll-free number to “update” their account information. Callers who dialed the number were asked to provide their 16-digit debit or credit-card number and PIN.

SELCO members were quick to identify this as attempted account fraud, and took appropriate action. At least 300 members receiving the calls telephoned the SELCO Service Center using the standard telephone number to report the calls, and fewer than 25 members actually surrendered information and needed to block their SELCO cards. To date, we are not aware of any fraudulent transactions experienced by SELCO members as a result of this call. By later that day, the number no longer identified itself as coming from SELCO, but had moved on to another credit union in California to look for more victims.

Scams like this are an unfortunate reality of today’s high-tech landscape. Fraudsters prey on consumers by using names of financial institutions that they know and trust, like SELCO or other local credit unions, and hope that they will be misled into providing confidential information.

No one is immune from these calls. The most important thing to remember is to NEVER provide confidential financial information to anyone who calls, emails, or sends text messages to you. When in doubt, ALWAYS contact your financial institution using the telephone numbers provided on your credit or debit cards, or printed on your checks.

We are very proud of the safety-savvy SELCO members who successfully thwarted these fraudsters and kept their account information private. To learn more about protecting yourself from fraud, visit the SELCO Safe Squad website at selco.org/safe for helpful tips, fraud alerts, and more!