Businesses and the self-employed are increasingly being targeted by high-security account fraud, according to the Belgian financial sector federation, Febelfin.
The federation issued on Friday a reminder of the steps to take to protect yourself against these scams. In this type of fraud, scammers send a phishing message in which the sender pretends to be a social secretariat, a bank, the post office or any other organisation that seems trustworthy. The message contains a link to a counterfeit site.
The fraudsters use this to obtain personal information, such as codes for logging on to online banking services. Once they have this information, the fraudsters can access accounts and carry out fraudulent transactions.
The target then receives a phone call from the scammer posing as a bank employee. The scammer alerts them to suspicious transactions on their account. He then offers to transfer a large sum of money to an “enhanced security” account. However, there is no such account. The money is transferred to accounts used by the fraudsters.
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In another type of scam, fraudsters ask victims to confirm “the cancellation of fraudulent transfers”, when in fact they are signing these fraudulent transfers.
Febelfin points out that individuals, companies and the self-employed can protect themselves against these frauds by not giving out any personal information and/or bank codes and by avoiding installing any software offered by telephone or e-mail. The federation adds that it is best to call your bank via their confidence number if you have any doubts about the authenticity of a call.
In the event of fraud, the first thing to do is to call your bank as soon as possible, notify Card Stop on 078 170 170 and lodge a complaint with the police.
