Sunday Tribune

How to spot an online scammer and scam quickly

JAMES BROWNING james.browning@inl.co.za

THE last year has seen continuing incidents of data leaks and ransom attacks and increased reporting of scamming attempts.

This includes two reports in the past month of data leaks from local online platform Averly and pharmacy chain Dis-chem.

While these leaks may not reveal much individually, bad actors can buy and collect personal information from all kinds of sources such as illicit data leaks and legal data brokers who know pretty much everything you do online.

This leaves us vulnerable to scammers and spear-phishers, who use this information to convince you they are trustworthy or legitimate entities.

They try to get you to do something or share details which give them access – the target is often your bank account. This comes on top of the mountains of general spam and phishing attempts people have to wade through in the digital world.

The generic press release after data leaks urges people to be safe and gives advice like: not clicking on suspicious links; not sharing passwords or PINS via text, email, or phone call; changing passwords often; having regular anti-virus and malware scans on their devices; and providing personal information only when there is a legitimate reason.

While these are all correct and do cover most cases, they are quite general and leave people unsure when there is a “legitimate reason” to share information, or when a link is “suspicious”.

Step 1: Relax

There is practically no issue you could have with a service that needs to be fixed right here and right now, even suspected bank fraud.

Scammers will try to fluster you and make it seem that they need to get something done this second, but genuine consultants will never be so pushy, especially not bank staff.

We’ve become used to near-instant money transfers, which may make us inclined to panic, thinking of our bank accounts being drained in a minute.

Yet the actual banking system is far more sluggish. And slow financial logistics aside, if you are being called about fraud, the transaction has already been flagged and paused. Take a breath. We can fool ourselves into giving away information because we’re trying to be helpful, or because we feel pressured. But the reality is that there are no negative consequences to just hanging up the phone, or not replying to the email.

As an example, my grandmother recently got an email, supposedly from her email service provider, asking to follow up about her request to cancel her account. She had made no such request. But in this case there’s simply no reason to reply, click, or engage at all.

As someone who has had to call their ISP over 10 times to try to cancel their subscription, I can tell you with confidence that pretty much no business anywhere is going to stop taking your money just because you didn’t respond to their email.

If you are seriously concerned, hang up the call and phone the company or service yourself.

Nobody needs your password or your personal information

Your bank will never need your password. In fact, no business anywhere will need your password.

Password, pins and security codes are for you to identify yourself to systems to do things.

With banks, many of us will be used to having to confirm transactions on our phones using a banking app. Any legitimate service will use a method like this, which doesn’t involve you giving them any information about you.

ID Numbers

On that note, almost nobody needs your ID number. Here’s looking at you, people in stores walking around offering promotions and asking for my ID to “check if I’m eligible”.

Which links are suspicious? It’s pretty difficult to judge from the link text alone, especially with the widespread use of link-shortening services like Bitly or Linkin.bio. But there are good clues and best practices which everyone should keep in mind.

A link sent to you by an unknown number/contact never needs to be opened. A link sent by a contact with no context (or a message that would be strange for that person) can always wait until you’ve messaged them back and asked about it.

BIZ TECH

en-za

2022-05-22T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-05-22T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://sundaytribune.pressreader.com/article/282071985514626

African News Agency