The San Mateo County Times published a piece on start-up Community Trust CU in East Palo Alto, Calif., a low-income area in which there is just one other bank branch. The story offered insights from John Liotti, the president of Northern California Urban Development and an activist who helped found the CU, talked of how it has grown to 140 accounts since its December 2007 launch. Liotti noted the 2.5-square-mile East Palo Alto has 31,000 residents, who in turn have 14 check-cashing outlets to choose from.
The WashingtonPost used an example from Motorola Employees CU and Boulder Valley CU in a story on how vishing scams work, noting that scam “artists are growing more adept at fleecing consumers by exploiting security holes in seemingly unrelated Internet technologies.” The story explained text messages were used to “warn” consumers their accounts had been closed due to suspicious activity and directed them to call a 1-800 number. The story noted one scam involving MECU was sent only to Cingular mobile numbers assigned to consumers in the Schaumburg, Ill., area, where Motorola is headquartered. A similar scam targeted BVCU.
