How to Avoid Falling Prey to Online Scams

Suman Kumar Verma (Practicing CMA) (1300 Points)

24 May 2011  
 

Customers get deceived and part with confidential information like an IPIN or net banking password, making it easy for the scamsters to commit a fraud.
'Vishing' and 'identity theft' are some other ways through which customers are tricked to reveal their confidential information online. While 'phishing' is carried out via fraudulent emails, 'vishing' is orchestrated via bogus voice messages and phone calls. In 'identity theft' fraudsters try to obtain the key pieces of personal information such as date of birth, mother's maiden name, passport number, etc, to gain access to the customer's accounts, says Mehta.
In view of the increasing cases of online banking frauds, most banks have implemented 256-bit secure socket layer (SSL) encryption. It is recognised as the best industry standard for encryption of information transmission for net banking sessions.
 
* Make net banking passwords difficult to guess, change them regularly
 
* Before keying in sensitive information, ensure the site is running in a secure mode by looking for the padlock symbol at the bottom of the browser
 
* Scan email attachments for viruses before opening them. When unsure about the source of an attachment, delete it
 
* Tear or shred any old cheques or account statements before discarding them
 
* Don't share your password or CVV details orally with banks. Bank never asks for confidential information like user ID, password, credit card number, CVV, etc, via mail, SMS or bank initiated phone calls.
 
* Customers should install a good anti-virus system on their PCs and ensure that it is updated regularly.
 
 
* Do not share passwords with anybody, including family members, friends or bank employees
 
* Don't access bank website from a link provided in an email from any source. Instead, type the address of the bank website in the address bar of browser to access the bank account
 
* Don't click on any link provided in emails, they may redirect users to a fake/phishing site.
 
* Never note down user ID, password on piece of paper, documents or phones for easy retrieval.
 
* Customers should also never use the 'remember password' feature provided by browsers to save their net banking passwords.
 
* Don't access net banking from cyber cafes. If you have to, use the virtual key board to key in details and ensure you log out of the system once you are done.