Protect yourself on social media
As your digital presence grows, so does the risk! It is a fertile ground for scammers looking to exploit you.
Fake giveaways and contests: Scammers use these to harvest user data or to spread malware on your profile / account. This can look exactly like a very reputable online shopping channel or a telecommunications company! Genuine givaways will always be conducted trough a company’s official channels and they will not ask you for sensitive information in order to participate. Rather follow links from the company’s website to the competition.
Get-rich-quick investment schemes: If it’s too good to be true, it is too good to be true! This is a golden rule in life and online! It is a scam…
The Quiz to see what your future holds: Most people see it as innocent fun—to fill in all your personal data into a Quiz to predict who you will marry or how many children you will have or what your house will look like, etc. This is to trick you into answering security questions helping them to collect personal information to target you for a more personalised phishing scam or to hack your accounts and commit identity theft!
Impersonation of family or friends: Scammers create fake profiles of people you know to pressure you into sending money or to get your personal information—always a desperate emergency, the child needs to be admitted into hospital, etc. Always verify the sender’s identity by actually calling them—not whatsapp or email—call them! They may even have hacked the person’s email account.
The call from the Credit Card Fraud Division: This is a very dangerous one going around and they usually already know your name, account number, etc. but they do not know much more. They will phone you on a weekend and claim that a large amount is pending on your credit card, usually for popular online shops or popular shops, and they want to check if you authorise those transactions. They will even proceed to send an SMS to your phone as if it comes from the real bank, to show you the pending transactions. By then you are so shocked that someone has cloned your cards, you are giving them any information to ‘verify’ they are speaking to the correct person—and this is how they really get all your information like your ID, account numbers, address, etc. Sometimes innocent questions can do a lot of damage. The real bank’s sms will include the last digits of your account / card number (these guys don’t). Usually the banks flag those numbers if you try to log in to your account while you are speaking to them, it pops up as a warning. If you are unsure about the caller, rather hang up and call the fraud division yourself to see if there is any issue with your card.
Report, report, report: If you encounter any of these, contact the fraud division of your bank or any reporting line provided by your provider.
Change your passwords often: Use passwords not linked to your personal information, like your name, surname, date of birth etc. Use other codes which the scammers will not easily link to you. Use 2-step authentication!!!
