Wire Transfer Scams, Phishing, Fake Bank Advisers ... Frauds to Be Foiled

The transfer is the safest means of payment. But, in the event of fraud, the amounts are stolen quickly reach peaks. Focus on the situations that should alert you and how to protect yourself from them.

With a fraud rate of 0.0004% or 1 euro stolen for 250,000 euros of transactions, a bank transfer is the most secure cashless payment method. However, when you have your bank credentials hacked, the damage suffered by it escalates quickly. According to the latest report from the Observatory for the Security of Payment Means, published in early July by the Banque de France, the amount of a fraudulent transfer reached an average of 12,586 euros, against 70.50 euros for the bank card.

To retrieve your bank details and credentials, crooks have two options: outsmart your bank, or outsmart yours. Malware and bogus sites are the most common techniques for doing this. They are used to steal 52% of the amounts stolen in 2018, because, massive, they make it possible to target thousands of Internet users at the same time.

Malware: the Invisible Threat

The problem with malware is that it is difficult for the average Internet user to spot. If your computer (but also your tablet or smartphone) is insufficiently protected, all you have to do is open a fraudulent e-mail, navigate to an infected site or even connect a trapped USB key to your computer for a virus, spammer or other trojans infect it. For what use? This malware allows fraudsters to analyze and collect data that passes through your computers, such as your usernames and passwords, when you log into your inbox or online banking.

To protect yourself from these attacks, you must adopt the right actions ... The first is to keep your computer equipment up to date. In other words, it is better to avoid postponing the update of your operating system indefinitely. You can also equip your terminals with a free antivirus, which again, do not forget to update regularly. And if you are a little geekier, you can start installing a VPN (a virtual private network) to prevent access to your IP address, the identification number of your computer.

Prevention of Fraudulent Transfers: Banks Have a Role to Play

Your bank also has a role to play in protecting your bank accounts: setting up a strong authentication for the validation of transfers entered online, waiting time between the moment when a beneficiary is created and the moment when the money can be transferred to his account, and, of course, the installation of detection and monitoring tools.

Banks, internally or through external service providers, analyze the transactions that go through the accounts of their customers. Thus, when a transaction is issued from abroad while you live in France, an alert is generated, especially if the amount exceeds your consumption habits. An information message is then sent to you or your bank advisor will contact you directly to ensure that you are indeed at the origin of the transaction. By the way, this is the reason why it is advisable to notify your bank when you travel abroad.

To reduce the risk of fraud, banks also conduct prevention and information campaigns, particularly on the famous technique of phishing or phishing in the language of Shakespeare. By logging into your personal space or by going to your bank's website, you have probably already read messages such as "never communicate your username and bank details by email or on a web page accessible from an email ". This is precise to prevent you from being caught in the cracks of phishing. The phishing is, using fake emails and fake websites to get you to inform your bank details.

See also: The bank must reimburse its client victim of phishing

Beware of Identity Theft of Bank Employees

Outsmarting your vigilance to extort money from you is also the goal of crooks who usurp the identity of a trusted person. And even if online fraud dominates, that based on this technique, known as embezzlement, is found in 41% of the amounts stolen by transfer in 2018. In its Observatory for the security of means of payment, the Banque de France insists on the four most frequently reported cases of usurpation.

Last year, for example, the victims were tricked by fake bank advisers. The typical situation: a scammer usurps the telephone number of your bank adviser - "generally during the latter's absence", specifies the Banque de France - and calls you to obtain your bank details. Another similar case of usurpation: that of a false banking technician. There, the fraudster comes into contact with you pretending to have to perform tests on the bank's network. Obviously, to do this, he needs your login details ... Our advice: as on the internet, the watchword remains the same on the phone, namely never to communicate your sensitive data!

Requests For Change of Bank Details ... Absolute Mistrust

Internet providers, energy providers, donors and more generally any organization to which you may owe money are well suited to identity theft. Why? Because you frequently pay them bills. There, the idea of ​​the fraudster is to make you believe that the organization whose identity he is impersonating has changed bank details. To continue paying your bills, you must therefore change the bank details to which your transfers point. By the time the real organization contacts you (since it will no longer be paid), some transactions may have been diverted.

These techniques a priori simple to implement can target everyone: individuals, associations, but also companies. The latter is however the subject of specific and most cavalier embezzlement: fraud against the president. It consists of taking the identity of a senior executive of the company and asking an employee to make an urgent and confidential transfer abroad. "Too big for this to work", you say to yourself! Well, think again! Leading companies have been fooled, such as Pathé, Michelin, Intermarché and KPMG, for amounts reaching several million euros.