IN THE past few days, several unsuspecting bank clients have been the victims of unscrupulous ‘phishers’, causing police to issue an official warning urging the public to exercise considerable caution when conducting online transactions.
The term ‘phishing’ refers to the fraudulent procedure of attempting to acquire sensitive personal information by disguising as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.
A police statement issued yesterday outlined that the unfortunate bank clients had received a misleading email, supposedly from their online bank, prompting them to follow links to phony websites which look very much like the real bank websites. On the pretext that the bank is in the process of improving or changing its safety systems, the fraudsters prompted the clients to follow a sequence of step by step instructions, where they were asked to enter personal information, including account numbers and PINs to bank cards and online accounts.
This way, the online criminals acquired direct access to online bank accounts and proceeded to transfer large amounts of money from the victims’ accounts into other bank accounts.
These other bank accounts usually belonged to persons who were advertising online that they wanted to sell their cars. The phishers would take advantage of this fact and would approach them and lead them to believe that they were interested in purchasing their car and informing them that they had sent them an amount as a down-payment. Using a variety of pretences, they would then request that the bank account holders send the largest part of the amount to Nigeria, through a specific money transferring company.
The police are advising the public to report any suspicious goings-on to their banks and if necessary, to request that their access codes be changed. Furthermore, if they are advertising their car online and they receive money in their account and are later requested to send an amount of this money abroad via a specific money transferring company, they should immediately contact their banks. It is also strongly recommended that account holders check their bank balance daily so that any fraudulent behaviour can be caught early.
