E-Paper
Stay alert, stay safe from online fraud
Phishing scams are not new. For years, scammers have tricked consumers into revealing crucial information pertaining to their credit cards, debit cards and bank
Phishing scams are not new. For years, scammers have tricked consumers into revealing crucial information pertaining to their credit cards, debit cards and bank accounts. So much so that financial institutions now routinely send out alerts to consumers, warning them about these fraudsters. Yet, a friend almost fell prey to a phishing fraud last week.
He had only recently got a mail –a genuine one- from one of his credit card companies, saying he is going to lose all the reward points earned by him through spending on his credit card, if he failed to redeem them within a fortnight.
So when he got a text message from his other credit card company saying that his points will expire in 24 hours and he should take immediate action to convert the points into cash to be credited to his card account, he did not initially suspect anything.
He even clicked on the link (never make that mistake!) given at the end of the message and it opened up a form to be filled by him – that looked authentic enough with the logo of the bank, but the particulars asked for, got him suspicious. The form required him to provide not just his name and mobile number, but also his date of birth, credit card number, including the Card Verification Value (CVV) on the back of the card. So he went back to the message to check it again and this time, he noticed several grammatical errors that confirmed that it was a ‘smishing’ or a phishing via text messaging scam.
This of course is a pre-Covid -19 fraud, which obviously works even now because scammers are still resorting to it! In fact another old trick -- about a friend who is terribly sick and urgently needs financial help -- has now been modified to link it to Covid. Many consumers have received e-mails from friends whose e-mails have obviously been hacked, asking for money for Covid treatment.
The new version of this is a phone call or an e-mail informing the recipient that one of his or her contacts has been found to be Covid positive and so the recipient has to undergo a Covid test and needs to immediately fill up a form for the test and the payment for the test and also self-quarantine. People succumb to it, on account of the sheer panic created by the possibility of having contracted the disease. Such callers may also resort to ‘ID spoofing’ or fake caller ID information, to make you believe that it’s from an authentic source!
Imposters basically try to play on consumers’ vulnerabilities to create confusion and fear that would cloud their judgement and prompt them to take a step that would help the hoaxer. For example, they will send a message saying someone has tried to log into your account using a wrong login, so you need to immediately verify your account or else your email account will be disabled. Clicking on the link provided for verification will introduce a malware.
Similarly, there could be an e-mail , informing that your credit score has plummeted and asking you to click on the link provided to check your score, understand how it had gone down and how to improve on it. You click the link and you are in the impostor’s trap.
Fake websites offering ‘authentic’ medicines at low rates are another not- so- new form of fraud that has now gained ‘popularity’ in these Covid times, when consumers, particularly senior citizens, prefer to get their medicines home-delivered. Consumers often receive emails with a link to such portals that rob them of their money as well as credit or debit card details. In March this year, the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) urged consumers to exercise utmost caution while buying medical supplies online and said criminals often used web addresses that were almost identical to the legitimate ones.
So stay alert, stay safe!
