FRAUD AND FINANCIAL CRIME CONVERGENCE CHAPTER 3
The last few years pandemic has played a big role in the usage of digital payments with individuals avoiding physical interactions to stay safe which genially has pushed people to learn and adapt the online banking and go cashless with the flow. As the year passes, there has been tremendous rise in digital payment platforms for online payments. The lockdowns due to the pandemic have only enlarged and enhanced the trend. Most of the sell and purchases are now made and paid by means of the internet and Credit/Debits cards. So, the massive use of internet and cards has allowed scammers/fraudsters to cheat and trick people out of their money during the pandemic. The ease of cashless payment has led to increase financial risks, particularly for those who are new to using these platforms.
Following are some common types of Cyber Frauds and the defensive Measures to be adopted:-
PAYMENT SPOOFING APPLICATIONS
From the time when the pandemic did hit the world, the people were pushed to go digital and go cashless for payment. There have been various online websites came into existence also including Payment Spoof app which allows the users to customise a fake animation that looks similar to the one that appears after any payment. Following applications allow users to amend and edit personal details like the name, contact and time of the transaction through a fake email confirmation, fake SMS alerts, fake wire transfer requests, fake phone call scams, etc.
Spoofing is moreover like Phishing but more complicated and easy to get caught in that fake world. Under these Payments Spoofing Applications, a fraudster or scammer simulate a person or a company or bank account to mislead customers into trusting the sender and providing sensitive information such as personal identifiable information (PII), Aadhar Card Number, bank account details, etc.
Do
- Always check and confirm the bank transactions
- Report any illegal incident happened to Cybercrime Police Station
Don’ts
- Don’t conclude bank transactions without the receipt
CARD CLONING AT MERCHANT OUTLETS
Debit and Credit Cards are the most fundamentally physical means of payment which are entirely storing and transmitting the digital information essential to authenticate, authorize, and process transactions. The important information generally consists of card numbers, the cardholder’s name, security codes, expiration date, and a few others. Unluckily, the fraudsters can replicate or duplicate the personal details or card details and use it to commit fraud. The Card Cloning defines the process of replicating the digital information stored in debit or credit cards which can usually be used to perform the fraud and payment at any Merchant Outlets.
Do
- Always hide your pin number while making payment through card
- Keep Changing the PIN at periodic intervalsDo
- Swipe the cards in your presence Report the illegal incident to Cybercrime Police Station
Does’nt
- Do not share your personal details or bank details with anybody
ILLEGAL LOAN FINANCING APPS WITH ATTRACTIVE INTEREST RATES AND HARASSMENT TACTICS
Nowadays, there are many illegal Loan Financing applications are being suspected with attractive and less interests rate to get the eye of the innocent people. With the help of the harassment tactics, the suspects might have set up an illegal call centre to call victims and extract money from them, threatening to reveal their liabilities to their friends, family and colleagues — all the natural trappings of a typical mobile phone app loan fraud. Then the fake callers’ allegedly extorted money from people on the pretext of recovering loans obtained through instant loan disbursal mobile applications.
Do’s
- Be alert while downloading any applications
- Always check the company verification from NBFC
- Report the incident to the Cybercrime Police Station
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Don’ts
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Do not take loan or other big investment providing you online
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CHARITY FRAUDS
As the name displays Charity Fraud is the act of getting money from the people who think and believe that they are making donations or some kind of charity towards any social cause. It is fraudulent business acts like not using the money for its intended purposes for which the Charity scammers or fraudster often demands you to donate right away. These people might ask for cash, and might even recommend sending a courier or asking you to wire money. Scammers often refuse to send you information about the charity, give you details, or tell you how the money will be used.
Do
- Always cross checks the charity organisation
- Try to make difference between identical and genuine
- Report to the Cybercrime Police Station
Don’ts
- Don’t get for random numbers for donation or charity
- Don’t pay amount without verification
ONLINE FRAUD USING CASHBACK OFFERS
People may get curious about a link’s cashback offer are more likely to open and get the reward for it. While using the fake cash back offer tactic, scammers take advantage of the user’s mindset which works by first getting people to fall for the trap of thinking they have won a huge cashback, then using the cashback to divert them from paying attention to whether they are actually “sending” or “paying” anything This notification directs them to paytm-cashoffer.com, a site that they’ve never visited before. It simply starts with a random browser notification saying, “Congratulations! You have won Paytm Scratch Card” and convince people that they’ve won a cashback prize and ask them to click on the reward button or Congratulations Button.
Do
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Inform your Bank branch for further transactions
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Report the incident to the Cyber Crime Police Station
Don’ts
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Don’t believe in fake or any attractive offers/schemes
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Do not share personal details
When the victims acutely
received such calls completed the transactions by pressing the RewardPe button,
money might have withdrawn from the person’s account, and sensitive information
about bank accounts and other internet banking identification was considered to
have been leaked in many cases.
CREDIT CARD LIMIT UPGRADATION FRAUD
Following the credit card up gradation fraud may lead to huge amount of financial loss to the victim. It is a kind of identity theft wherein a fraudster can use your card details, i.e., the PIN or CVV number, to execute without your knowledge. As result if the credit card fraud detection is not happened as soon as possible then a victim may fall into large debt traps. The scammer/imposter usually gives calls to people to get required the credit card details for increasing credit limit.
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Do’s |
Don’ts |
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· Block the card immediately · Report the incidence to the home branch · Inform to the Cyber Crime Police Station · Login into the Crime Reporting portal |
o Don’t trust unknown callers for any kind of credit card activation o Do not share your card details/OTP |
FAKE ADVERTISMENT /OFFERS
Clicking on the fake advertisments /fake offers may mislead the representation of good and services conveyed through false or fraudulent claims or statements that are promoted by a business or other advertising agent. From beginning to end, browser extensions and adware plug-ins, ad injection allows fraudsters/scammers to put ads where they don’t fit in, to trap the innocent people. They may hijack a server to operate an ad of their choice into a space that belongs to a different advertisement. The fraudsters can nevertheless place ads on a website that doesn’t normally show ads at all.
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Do’s |
Don’ts |
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· Verify the product websites · Visit the store or shop before making payment · Report to the nearsret cyberCrime Reporting portal / Branch orPolice Station |
o Don’t get mislead by fake ads or offers o Don’t make prior payment |
MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING SCAMS
Multi-Level Marketing refers to a tactic used by few sales companies to sell products and services. It motivates the existing members to promote and sell the products to other individuals and bring on new recruits into the business. But nowadays, some fake companies introduced numerous schemes for the people and lured them into investing money. Those who enrolled and connected to the company were lured with the higher returns with further incentives and bonus offers for introducing more members to the company. The distributors are being paid a percentage of their recruits’ sales. New people appointed are become the distributor’s network or downtime and are, in turn, encouraged to make sales to earn money.
These MLM scams have no genuine earnings, and such schemes require a constant flow of new money to stay alive. When it becomes hard to recruit new members and produce income, they just vanish and disappear into thin air. In this, scammers earn higher commissions if they bring in new members, a typical multilevel marketing scheme. The ferocious cycle in multi-level marketing is that you get cheated to cheat others.
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Do’s |
Don’ts |
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· Make distance from the people trying to get you in these kind of schemes · Verify the process and services of MLM Schemes · Try to step back when it comes to investment in MLM · Report to the Police Station if anything illegal happens |
o Don’t get involved in fake unknown schemes o Don’t make any payment |
Conclusion
Nevertheless, as the speed and effortlessness of making financial dealings has improved, the numbers of frauds and crimes reported in every sector’s financial transactions have also gone up. Scammers/Fraudsters have come up with innovative tactics and methods to defraud the common and susceptible people of their hard-earned money.
We as a team of CSSI have tried and projected an idea to create awareness among people about the ways and methods adopted and operated by fraudsters to cheat and mislead them, while also informing them about the measures and precautions to be taken while carrying out financial transactions. It mainly emphasizes the need for keeping one’s personal information, particularly the financial credentials, be aware of unknown calls / emails / messages, practicing due attentiveness while performing financial transactions and changing the secure credentials / passwords on the periodic basis.