Holiday Season Scam Alert. Picture Illustration: Canva
As the festive season goes into gear, consumers aren’t the only ones looking to take advantage; criminals, cyberattacks, and spam attacks are also starting to ramp up.
The festive season is a time for giving, but it’s also when fraudsters are on the prowl.
Criminals
Scammers are persistent and try to trick people in a variety of ways – malicious texts and emails, websites impersonating known brands, posts on social media, visual discovery platforms, discussion forums and more.
Standard Bank’s Head of Fraud Complaints Management and Awareness, Riyadh Mahomed, says South Africans need to stay alert as criminals exploit the rush and chaos of this period.
“They know we’re spending more and are often distracted, and they use panic and pressure to push customers into acting irrationally”
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Scams
Mahomed highlights several scams that typically increase at this time of year.
These include:
ATM scams
Fraudsters loiter near ATMs to shoulder-surf, stealing PINs, card details, or clone cards as customers withdraw extra holiday cash.
Card-Not-Present fraud
Criminals use stolen card numbers, CVV codes and expiry dates to make online purchases.
Change-of-banking-details scams
Fraudsters alter invoiced of legitimate companies, changing their banking details so payments are diverted to their accounts.
Vishing calls
Scammers impersonate the bank and pressure customers into revealing card numbers, CVVs or one-time-passwords (OTPs), all information the bank will never request.
Social media
People are also not safe from criminals wanting to hack into their social media account .
If someone you don’t know messages you or adds you to a group, you’ll now see a context card giving you more information about the user or the group.
If an account we suspect to be engaging in potentially scammy activities requests to follow you, we will remind you to be aware of potentially suspicious interactions.
Marketplace
Meta rolled out warnings to alert you if they detect messages that follow the patterns of known scam scenarios.
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