Feb 1, 2016
Initially unsure who was calling me from this number, I Googled it, and found this page. The responses from the good folks who concluded this was phishing based on the request for the last 4 of their social left me convinced it must not be legit.
But it turns out the call is legitimate. My mortgage payment had unexpectedly bounced. This was important for me to know, and by finally returning the call I was able to work it out. The calls ceased as soon as I followed through with the call back, even though my mortgage payment did not follow until almost a week later, as I agreed when I called back.
I didn't ever have to answer the calls to learn this. Their system leaves a message providing an 800 or 855 callback number, *not* the 636 number that shows up on our caller ID with their incoming call. The discrepancies in phone numbers cause us confusion (if anyone from Citi ever reads this, please take note).
When I called the toll free number provided, Citi's system did ask for the last 4 of my social to confirm my identity. But at that point I knew the number I was calling was Citi. It couldn't have been "spoofed," because I initiated the call back.
I agree with prior comments that we need to be very wary of providing any info on calls that we don't initiate--even if the number *does* appear legitimate. Why? Because scammers "spoof" (fake) their phone numbers. (Yes that's illegal. So is scamming. But many scammers are overseas, outside the reach of US laws and their enforcement.) When we initiate calls to numbers that we know (or research on Google to confirm), the "spoofing" concern is gone. Providing the last 4 of our social to confirm our identities on calls we initiate should not be cause for concern.