Customer To Remember Mantra “Never Trust A Stranger” To Avoid Getting Defrauded
The advancement of technology, increased usage of digital platforms and mobile becoming a one stop device for various financial transactions, has eased the way of receiving and paying money and saving time in paying bills, making investments and also getting reward points. However, like each coin has two sides, this advantage comes with disadvantage of certain cyber threats, phishing, accounts getting hacked, bogus loan/ discount/ cash back offers. Apart from these there are various scams that are run by fraudsters such as credit limit updation, multi-level marketing, work from home, online shopping, social welfare schemes, etc to name a few.
With technological progress, the fraudsters have also come up with novel ideas to deceive customers. Last year RBI came out with an interesting and customer awareness booklet Raju and 40 thieves which has detailed out the various modus operandi of fraud that are being used to deceive the customers as well as the checks one should make before making transactions. The web series Jamtara told the story of how youngsters wanting to make easy money are running successful phishing rackets by duping the vulnerable citizens. Customers are cheated through telephone calls asking for OTPs for transactions, sim cloning wherein the fraudster poses as the representative of Telecom Company and sells the idea of sim card upgrades which require aadhaar details and unique SIM card number to be shared, transactions through payment links shared by unauthorized persons, easy loans on payment of advance fees, atm frauds using skimming devices in the ATM unit, etc. The other meaning of defrauding people are financial help messages on social media/ through emails, use of data filled in various personal forms filled, google forms circulated, e-mails or text messages appearing to be from a legitimate site but are actually part of a scam looking to gain access to one’s accounts or personal information and kyc details shared with third party getting mis-utilized.
It is essential that the Customer is Aware and understands that Government agencies DO NOT call one asking for payments and neither does banks call and ask for OTPs. As a precaution, one should shred all unwanted documents, cancelled checks or applications that contain personal or financial information. While checking messages on mobile/ email, one must be aware of short URLs used, spelling and grammatical mistakes made and likewise while receiving calls remember the details of relationship manager, if assigned to your accounts, name of the companies spouted during the call, schemes discussed during the call. All the prominent companies coming out with discounts/ offers/ schemes display these critical information on their official website. The key is not to click on suspicious links coming on the sms and emails. Customers should never leave their mobile numbers/ ID proofs/ address proofs on social media platforms or websites as they can be misused.
Apart from being aware, one could protect themselves by updating their devices frequently to deal with new security threats, using multi-factor authentications of using security questions along with passcode/ PIN and having data backup as well as install software for protecting internet connection. One should always shop from secured websites and secured Wifi networks. Last but not the least, don’t be embarrassed of getting cheated and report the matter to bank/financial institution/company, file a complaint on the Cyber Crime website at https://cybercrime.gov.in/ or call up their 24x7 Helpline 1930.
The fraudsters succeed on account of customer’s need for rewards or better returns, increased spending limits, saving while spending and most importantly, carelessness as we seem to have forgotten what our elders taught us that Never Trust Strangers and Greed causes great Disaster.
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