The Hawaii Bankers Association said eight of its members are joining efforts to alert the public about a rise in phishing scams from criminals posing as financial institutions.

The scams use email, text messages or phone calls to trick customers into disclosing their personal and financial information. Phishing texts and emails include malicious links to fraudulent websites made to look like banking sites.

Some ways to prevent phishing include never providing personal or financial information to those who contact you unsolicited. Banks will never call, e-mail or text customers for log-in credentials, passwords, a debit card PIN or Security Access Code, the association said.

Also, customers should regularly review their account statements for suspicious transactions. To verify the legitimacy of communications, they can call the customer service numbers on the back of their debit or credit cards.

“The Hawaii Bankers Association is committed to keeping customers’ financial information safe,” said Neal Okabayashi, executive director at Hawaii Bankers Association, in a news release. “Scammers are becoming increasingly sophisticated and are finding new ways to steal personal information. We ask for everyone’s help to remain vigilant and to avoid providing sensitive information in a text message or to someone who contacts you unexpectedly.”

Participating bank members include American Savings Bank, the Bank of Hawaii, Central Pacific Bank, Finance Factors, First Hawaiian Bank, Hawaii National Bank, HomeStreet Bank, and Territorial Savings Bank.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, consumers lost nearly $8.8 billion to fraud in 2022, a more than a 30% increase over the previous year. The FTC also received fraud reports from 2.4 million people.