When we are in trouble and need help, of course we will be grateful if someone directly calls, listens and is willing to help. But instead of being helped, we fall victim to fraud and face new problems such as theft of funds and takeover of accounts.
Unfortunately, service providers such as bank call centers that are the target of counterfeiting seem to turn a blind eye and are not proactive in taking precautionary measures that target the general public.
There has been little effort to educate and tell the public to be careful not to fall victim to this call center forgery. In fact, this scam is done in front of the eyes of the service provider by monitoring the social media accounts of the financial services in question.
As a user of services in the digital age, care is needed not to release data such as phone numbers which can lead to fatal consequences. Fraudsters are already good at extracting data from social media and falsifying themselves as if a bank call center is ready to help you.
But the main purpose is to drain the contents of your bank account by asking for an OTP number that should not be given to anyone.
Scammers are also very clever and use some simple tricks to get their victims to immediately believe that they have been contacted by the call center in question.
Then after uncovering the problem, you will be instructed to provide data such as account number, ATM card number which will then be instructed to prepare an OTP to drain the funds in the account.
To convince the victim, the scammer will fake his profile photo on WhatsApp with his forged bank logo and some even create a business account so that when clicking on his profile, “Official Business Account” information will appear which will further boost the victim’s confidence.
The main way scammers catch their victims is by monitoring the official accounts of the institutions they target. When a bank customer needs help and sends a quote to an account, the victim will immediately enter the radar to be the target of fraud. It seems that this action is done in a fairly orderly manner with a high level of success as it is seen that many fraudulent accounts compete to respond immediately when an official account is mentioned by a customer in trouble.
Fraudsters have high skills to obtain victim data. If the mentioned social media account has provided the phone number information, the phone number will be immediately contacted by the WhatsApp account complete with the bank logo and instructing the victim to enter confidential data.
Phsing websites designed in such a way have also been set up by scammers and made as if they came from the Bank. If clicked, a page will be displayed asking for the ATM card number and Mobile Banking PIN.
Storing sensitive data on a mobile phone is indeed dangerous
Technically, token -protected internet banking accounts will be more difficult to exploit because the token’s one -time password (OTP) is only owned by the account owner. Meanwhile, m-banking accounts that rely only on passwords and PINs are quite vulnerable to becoming victims of exploitation.
To overcome this, there are a few things that must be done. First, institutions that are the target of fraud should actively provide information and provide information to customers or clients in order to be wary of fraud.
If necessary, set up a special team to deal with these fake accounts as they have disrupted and damaged the reputation of the institution. There is indeed a blue check on the account that can distinguish between an official account and a fake account on Twitter. However, only certain groups know this and many ordinary people do not understand, so they easily fall victim to scams.
In addition, the scammers also tried to carry out their actions by contacting their victims via WhatsApp, armed with profile photos and WhatsApp business accounts that were quite convincing in appearance.
Institutions that are victims of counterfeiting also cannot remain silent and only report to block fake accounts because fraudsters only need to create new accounts with other names each time their account is blocked.
It is better if institutions whose call centers are often abused for fraud proactively create joint forums and work with the authorities to identify and arrest the perpetrators of these frauds, so that there is a preventive effect and do not do illegal things.
Meanwhile, bank account owners are advised to always be careful and never release data such as phone numbers on social media, as it can be used as a database to be exploited. Never provide sensitive data such as ATM card numbers let alone OTP PIN sent to your SMS for any reason.
If you are the victim of a scam, the bank will not reimburse your money as this is your fault as a customer and the OTP code, PIN and ATM card number cannot be given to anyone. Although he claimed to be a bank officer.
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TIPS & TRICKS
