Alliant Credit Union

Anyone have any info or opinions on how the scammer got a hold of Alliant’s member contact info? Received this email this evening from Alliant.

A scam has recently been identified in which a caller, pretending to be from Alliant’s Member Care Center, is calling Alliant members and attempting to obtain debit card PINs.

If you receive a call from someone saying they are an Alliant Member Care representative who needs your debit card number or PIN, hang up and do not provide the information.

The caller, who appears to be calling from our phone number, will give you a reason why your PIN is needed. For example, the person may tell you that Alliant needs to reissue your debit card, but to do so you must provide your debit card number and PIN.

They may just be calling random numbers hoping to hit an Alliant CU member. Just like when the calls threaten you owe money to the IRS and you are going to jail. They don’t know you owe money, they are just hoping to hit someone who does or at least is scared they might.

That seems like a long shot. Everyone deals with the IRS, I’d guess that a vast majority of randomly called people wouldnt even know what Alliant CU even was.

Remember, any merchant data breech likely exposes your name and phone number along with the credit card info. And if you know the card number, you know who issued it.

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I am a bit surprised that Alliant hasn’t gotten out in front of this question. It seems so obvious. I may call and see what they say.

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Perhaps someone hacked into the system of one of those affiliates that send out junk mail.

If that happened, we’ll probably never find out. But there are ways to protect yourself before it happens :slight_smile:.

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For new cardholders only that don’t have an Alliant credit card:

Alliant’s VISA Platinum Rewards offers 5000 points bonus for $500 spend in the first 90 days, That’s $50. It’s a no annual fee 2% rewards card with a possible 0% APR for 12 months for new cardholders.

Alliant is the only institution I’ve encountered that approves you for the card and sets the introductory APR rate based on their view of your credit, i.e. you might get 0% for 12 months, or they might approve the card and give you 3.99% for the first 12 months.

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Does anyone have good information RE the minimum age for an authorized user at Alliant? TIA

  1. Maximum of 2 authorized users.

Thanks Argyll. Interesting, didn’t know they’d only do 2 AUs…

For what it’s worth, I’m seeing these warnings from a dozen different banks I have accounts with. It really isnt an Alliant specific issue.

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For those who care about such things, and who are on the same Alliant CC statement cycle as myself (I think Alliant offers two different statement cycles, actually), here are the next three upcoming statement closing dates:

March 13

April 12

May 13

My card is the Alliant Visa Signature card.

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You sure about that?

Yes, they do offer two due dates – the 8th and IIRC the 22nd. If your due date is the 8th, then the dates you listed are off by 1 – the next three statement closing dates will be 3/14, 4/13, and 5/14.

The due date is the same every month and the statement closing date is exactly 25 days before the following due date. This doesn’t need to be announced as it can be easily calculated.

Example:
March due date: 03/08. February statement date = 03/08 - 25 = 02/11.
April due date: 04/08. March statement date = 04/08 - 25= 03/14.
etc.

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A good and very fair question:

I am sure that is what the rep told me when I telephoned Alliant. I wrote down the date information in real time.

However

We all know one too often must make multiple calls and speak with multiple reps, then use a voting procedure to arrive at an answer on such matters as this. I made only a single call, and I admit it.

Is your due date the 8th of the month? If so, then it’ll be the dates I provided, not the dates the rep gave you. You can verify my math by looking at all the previous statement dates.

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You’ve got me on that one, scripta! I candidly have no clue whatsoever, regarding any of my MANY very active credit cards and surely including Alliant, what the due date is. Due dates on credit cards have zero impact on my operation or on my life. All that is of importance to me is the various statement closing dates . . . which I watch like a hawk.

I am a true student, and disciple, of Argyll. :grinning:

ETA

Respectful of scripta’s post, I decided to telephone Alliant once again and make the very same inquiry. This time I reached a different rep, one who said she has a LOT of experience. Here is the statement closing day data this new rep provided for 2019:

Mar 14

Apr 12

May 14

Jun 13

Jul 14

Aug 14

Sep 13

Oct 14

Nov 13

Dec 13

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CD interest rates at Alliant have just fallen ever so slightly.

This is regarding the Alliant Visa Signature card which offers a 2.5% reward after the first year at 3% reward (with no annual fee for that first year).

It appears the annual fee, following the first year, has increased from $59 to $99.

Q: Appears? What does that mean, Shin?

It is not clear to me whether or not existing cardholders will be impacted. They might be grandfathered . . or not. I simply do not know. However, new applicants will pay the new $99 fee after the first year.

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My card was just charged the $59 annual fee 3 days ago. I was told I’ll have to pay the $99 fee next year.

The Signature is still worth getting for a year with no fee and 3%, but now cardholders need to spend $19,800 to make it a 2% card the second year.

Otherwise, it might be more worthwhile to get the no-fee 2% Platinum rewards card.

Frequent travelers should know the Platinum Rewards card has a foreign transaction fee of 2% whereas the Signature has no foreign transaction fee.

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So the latest statement closed, but it’s not available for download yet and from my transactions I can’t tell when it actually closed. I think that this rep may have been correct and my calculations were incomplete, as I found an exception in the past (last July) that may explain why the April statement may have closed on the 12th (not the 13th I expected). I suspect that the statements never close on a Saturday, but are instead accelerated one day to Friday, and we get a 26 day grace period instead of the usual 25.

Another way to calculate it, is if the 8th of next month is a Wednesday, subtract 26 to get the closing date, otherwise subtract 25.