Phone “vishing scam” to loot money from innocent people

Phone “vishing scam” is another way to plunder money from victims

08:30 16 November 2013

Many cyber criminals are actively involved in the phone ”vishing” scam by which they dupe people into divulging credit card details as well as financial information so as to get access to their bank accounts and rob money.  Research shows that they have robbed almost £7 million of money from many victims in the last year. 

 

The fact is, these criminals are great at convincing people to part with their financial information. They would pose as either a representative of a bank or police officer or a building society official, and call innocent people, and claim that their credit card had been cloned. They ask personal and financial details while the victims are struggling to digest the fact that someone is spending all the money with their credit card. As a result, they convey every important detail about their accounts right down to their password. 

 

Here are some of the tricks these smooth talking conmen use:

 

• They exploit the confidence of their victim by asking them to call back so the victim would think that they are the real authorities.

 

• They would send a courier to pick up the credit cards from the victim for investigation, having already duped their victim into divulging their PIN number.

 

• They would ask their victim to key the PIN number in the keypad so they can identify the numbers keyed in by means of monitoring software.  

 

• Some are even conned into transfer money from their bank accounts to the scammer’s account.

 

• Others withdraw money and hand it over to someone posing as a company representative. 

 

Yes, you guessed it right. These conmen are very smart. Therefore, it is important that you stay cautious. Whenever that call arrives, though you may see the caller’s number in your phone, never convey your credit card particulars and other financial details to anybody.