In the UK as well as other countries around the world, banks that offer online services are suffering from an increase in fraud. The perpetrators of fraud make millions by taking advantage of telephone swindles that trick bank customers into thinking they are speaking to bank employees. In addition, these fraudsters are so good at what they do that they convince customers to believe that the legitimate number they put on the person’s caller ID display belongs to the bank.
As hacking fraud increases intensively, scammers are trying to learn new ways to swindle people out of their hard-earned cash. Not only do humans clone other human beings, but also dishonest persons who are robbing people on a daily basis are now cloning telephone numbers of large corporations and misdirecting customer lodgement funds to themselves.
In recent weeks, many customers have lost so much money through fraud trickery that Financial Fraud Action, the UK authorities responsible for investigating financial fraud in the country, are taking the problem more seriously. While business organizations are most targeted by these thieves, the FFA believes that customers that use online banking facilities are being targeted as well. The FFA advises the public that they should make sure to prove persons who claim that they are bank officers and not to just take their word for it because he or she produces the same number that the bank carries. They further warn that if the person on the other end of the phone should try to draw any unnecessary attention to the caller ID display the customer should become aware of dishonesty and back away from any interaction.
The UK’s latest fraud statistics for 2013 show that 450.4 million pounds were lost to fraudulent actions. Online banking fraud went up by 3% in the same year and card fraud went up by 16% when compared to 2012.
“Fraudsters are not only using banks for their scams, but also some swindlers portray themselves as the representatives of a loan company and collect credit card information as a means of credit check verification and the poor victim loses his money, says the CEO of Buddy Loans. That is the reason why one must be very careful when trying to conduct any form of online transactions in order not to end up getting the wrong end of the stick.
Some types of fraud are vishing, card theft information or a fraudster posing as a police officer or bank employee and illegally gathering information from the bank customer in the hope of using the information to drain the customer’s bank account.
In regards to vishing, the fraudster uses trickery to make the customer give him or her his or her bank information on the phone and then using the same information to gain access to the customer’s bank account, thus, removing money from the account. Card theft information happens when the fraudster steals a bank customer’s card or when the fraudster learns the card’s pin number by stationing themselves at advantageous positions near the ATM machine.
To hinder online bank theft one should be very careful not to give out important bank information such as the pin number and should be very careful and attentive not to give away any valuable card information to unscrupulous watchers when using the ATM.
Stopping online bank fraud from happening should be a top priority for all who do online banking. While the practice of fraud grows in online banking, many savers are sometimes left with nothing in their bank account; so therefore, all concerned should try to work together to plug the gap of dishonesty that is happening against innocent persons.
