As we celebrate International Fraud Awareness Week, Yoco prepared a guide to help small businesses, customers and individuals stay safe.
The different types of card and banking fraud and how to beat them:
- Card Not Present (CNP) fraud
Fraudsters can memorise or copy your card number, expiry date, and 3-digit card validation code (on the back of your card) when you’re using your card to pay. Your card information could then be used for fraudulent transactions online, even though your card is still in your possession.
How to prevent CNP fraud:
- Stay alert when using your cards and making payments.
- Don’t let your card out of your sight when making payments.
- Check that you’ve received your own card back after every purchase.
- Sign your card on the signature panel as soon as you receive it.
- Review your account details and transactions on a regular basis.
- Card skimming
Fraudsters can duplicate your card, by ‘skimming’ or copying your card details with a device that they’ve placed in an ATM or POS card slot. To get your PIN, they’ll either set up a hidden camera, or watch you type it in.
While you can’t prevent your card from being skimmed, you can prevent fraudsters from learning your PIN.
How to keep your PIN safe at ATMs:
- Always cover the ATM keypad when entering your PIN.
- Always be careful and alert when using an ATM.
- If, for any reason, you become suspicious, cancel the transaction and remove your card.
- Never let your card out of your sight when using an ATM.
- Card swapping
Fraudsters can offer assistance at ATMs to distract you, so they can see your PIN. Then they either swap your card (you get another card, thinking it’s yours) or your card gets ‘swallowed’ by the ATM via a trapping device installed by the fraudster.
One of the most recent scams is that fraudsters offer to sanitise the ATM or your card, in order to distract you.
How to prevent card swapping:
- Never accept help from strangers at an ATM.
- If someone interrupts you, cancel the transaction, remove your card and leave immediately.
- Always check that the card you receive is your card.
- Lost or stolen cards
If you misplace or lose your card, contact your bank or credit card issuer right away. They can block your card and account number so no one else can use them and give you a new card and account number.
Fraudsters will try to use any cards that are lost or stolen in order to get as much money as possible.
Steps to take if your card is lost or stolen:
- Immediately contact and report the card to the bank.
- Make sure your cards are in your possession or in a safe place at all times.
- Account takeover
Account takeovers fall under cybercrime. A cardholder unwittingly gives personal information (such as their home address, mother’s maiden name, etc) to a fraudster.
The fraudster then contacts the cardholder’s bank, reports a lost card and change of address, and obtains a new card in the victim’s name.
Steps to prevent an account takeover:
- Have a strong password for any access to important information.
- Have strong security questions for any access to important information.
- Enable two-factor authentication for any access to important information.
- Remote Access
This tactic is used to install malicious software in order to access your banking information. You may get a request to install software on your smart device.
If you suspect you’re a victim of a remote access scam:
- Block your banking profiles immediately.
- Contact your bank for further assistance.
- SMS Scam
This scam involves fraudsters contacting you via SMS – called smishing – requesting that you share your banking login details, (like username or password) in order to deactivate your online banking profile.
Banks will never ask you to share your banking credentials with them.
- Vishing
This is when fraudsters pose as employees of financial institutions, in an attempt to persuade you to share your personal banking information over the phone.
Once they get the information, they’ll have access to your personal bank account and withdraw/spend your money.
Please take note:
- Financial institutions will never ask you to share personal information, such as a pin or password for your bank account, over the phone or any other channel.
- Financial institutions will never ask a customer to perform a transaction or reverse a transaction, over the phone or any other channel.
- If you receive such calls, end the call immediately and block the caller’s number.
- Phishing
This is the most common scam out there. This is when a fraudster sends you a link, which will direct you to a fake website that requests your personal and financial information.
Never click on a suspicious link, rather type the web address of the company into your search engine.
