Criminals will speculate on your feelings, promise mountains of gold, and disguise themselves as bank employees or government organizations to lure money out. Anyone can become a target of criminals, and it does not matter if he uses a bank card or chooses to pay in cash. Fraudsters know how to swindle money online, using calls and SMS, in social networks and offices.
Expert Opinions
Experts also advise – that when paying in cafes, restaurants, and supermarkets, do not give your card to the cashier or waiter but apply it to the payment terminal yourself. If you notice suspicious transactions, immediately block the card through the mobile application or the bank’s call center. Do not turn off SMS notifications about transactions in order not to miss suspicious charges. Card blocking is a reliable guarantee that suspicious transactions will not be repeated. And to understand how the suspicious write-off happened, you must immediately contact the law enforcement agencies and the security service of your bank.
How to avoid fraud on your credit cards?
- Before withdrawing money from an ATM, inspect it. There must be no foreign objects on the card capture reader. The keyboard must not wobble. It is enough to use such an ATM once and not cover the keyboard with your hand while entering the PIN code – and your money can be withdrawn, transferred to several accounts, and cashed out. Even in a cafe or shop, your card details can be stolen. An attacker could be a merchant who gets access to your card for at least five seconds. Having photographed your card, he will be able to use it for payments on the Internet.
- When typing the PIN code, cover the keypad with your hand. Do this even when paying with a card in a cafe. If you receive a Confirm Purchase notification and a code, and then a call is heard again from an absent-minded person who says that he has entered your phone number by mistake and questions to dictate the code to him, by no means do this. Fraudsters are trying to swindle your code to deduct money from your account or sign you up for an unnecessary paid service.
- Connect mobile banking and SMS notifications.
Let us say you still withdraw money only at the bank’s money desk and do not pay by card at all. You feel safe. Suddenly, you receive an SMS or a letter from a bank with a link, a request to call back an unknown number, or a notification of an unexpectedly big win. Or they call on behalf of the bank and ask for personal data, a PIN code from a card, or an SMS confirmation number. Or they report on social networks on behalf of relatives or friends who suddenly got into trouble (hit the police, got hit by a car, stole a bag) and ask to share a certain amount of money to an unidentified account. In 99.9% of cases, you are negotiating with scammers. - If you make purchases via the Internet, do not tell anyone the secret code to confirm transactions that come to you via SMS. If you receive an SMS about the crediting of funds (and the message looks like a familiar bank notification) and then a slacker who mistakenly credited you with money and asked for a return call, do not rush to return anything. This situation is more like a dishonest scheme: the money did not come, the SMS was not from your bank, but the attacker called you. Check your account status, order an online bank statement, or contact the bank before transferring money to someone.
- Do not give out personal data to anyone, and even more so, passwords and codes. Bank employees do not need them, and fraudsters will be given access to your money. Do not store card data on a computer or smartphone. Check the information. If they suggest that you won something or that money was accidentally debited from your card and you need to give your details to stop the operation, end the conversation and call the bank at the phone number revealed on the back of your card. Try never to lose sight of your card.
Conclusion
Many payment systems have developed contactless payment technologies to speed up and simplify cashless payments for purchases. When paying with such a card, you do not need to enter a PIN code as well as put a signature on the check if the amount does not exceed one thousand dollars. A particular POS terminal reads information from the card at a distance and makes it clear with a sound or visual signal that the required amount has been deducted from it. Often, fraudsters use psychological tricks to control a person’s actions to steal money from a card. They portray buyers of puppies, cars, land, garages, etc., on free classified sites or social networks.
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