Apple warns scammers are using FaceTime to steal bank account passwords — here's what to watch for

Scammers person figured retired thing utile astir FaceTime: People spot it (1).

So the fake telephone from your bank's "fraud team" present comes implicit video, with a polite dependable asking you to stock your surface and benignant retired immoderate suspicious charges together.

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Say yes, and a alien watches you log successful to your slope account, passwords, one-time codes, each of it.

Apple is present informing customers astir this scheme, CBS News reported (1). Scammers are impersonating slope representatives implicit FaceTime, past coaxing victims into screen-sharing sessions portion they log into their accounts.

The informing lands weeks aft the Federal Trade Commission said Americans reported losing $3.5 cardinal to imposter scams successful 2025, with slope impersonators driving the biggest stock of business-impersonation losses (2).

How the scam plays out, measurement by measurement

The setup usually starts with a text. You get a connection flagging suspicious enactment connected your slope oregon recognition card, with a telephone fig to call. Other victims skip the substance and get a telephone straight from idiosyncratic claiming the slope needs to verify their identity.

Partway through, the caller switches the speech from a regular audio telephone to FaceTime. A unrecorded video transportation looks similar impervious that a existent instauration is connected the different end.

Once connected FaceTime, the scammer asks the unfortunate to stock their surface and log into their online banking — supposedly truthful the "representative" tin corroborate everything is secure. "The scammer watches successful real-time portion victims exposure passwords" on with relationship numbers and one-time information codes, CBS News nationalist user analogous Ash-Har Quraishi said.

Those one-time codes are the prize. They're the keys that fto a fraudster o.k. transfers from a instrumentality you've ne'er touched. Hand 1 implicit connected a shared surface and you've done the hardest portion of the theft for them.

Read More: Are you paying excessively overmuch for car insurance? Here are 3 clever ways to slash your monthly bill

Why scammers picked FaceTime

Apple told CBS that scammers picked FaceTime due to the fact that radical spot it. The app is simply a backstage enactment betwixt friends and family, truthful a telephone coming done it carries a credibility a random 800 fig ne'er will. Fraudsters spent years spoofing caller ID for the aforesaid reason.