How to avoid a fraudulent payment transaction trap

How to avoid a fraudulent payment transaction trap

There are cybercriminals that disguise themselves online to be able to fool account holders to make a payment transaction. There are those that pretend to be the one of the customer service representatives of a money services company on Twitter. The ultimate goal of such cybercriminals is to get the sensitive information to be able to gain access into the money services account of the one that has a complaint and tweeted the real customer service account.

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Addressing the concern

When the account holder tweets to complain, the fake Twitter account would request for them to send a DM to address their concern. Then, to make it as if they are going to take care of the concern, they would then pretend to need the information such as the PIN or password to be able to continue. Keep in mind that one must never reveal their PIN or password to anyone as those who truly are customer service representatives of a money services company will not ask for that kind of information. 

After gaining the information

When the fake Twitter account gets a hold of the information they need to log into the money services account, the cybercriminal will inform the client to log out. Then, they will log in and get the codes sent to them so they can initiate a payment transaction to send the funds into their own account, thus completing a fraudulent transaction. The problem with this kind of fraudulent transaction is that the cybercriminal is logged into the account, and the owner will have difficulty complaining as it will seem like they were the one who did the transaction.

Targeting linked accounts

What is even worse is that those cybercriminals might be able to convince the money services account holder to also send the codes for initiating the transfer of funds from their linked credit/debit cards or bank accounts. When this happens, the person might get confused, thinking that their account is being credited but instead, the funds are being transferred so that there will be a big amount in the money services account that can easily be sent by the cybercriminal to their own account. 

Even when there is security 

When it comes to making secure payment transactions online, even the smartest of individuals may be fooled. There are traps online that are difficult to evade such as that of clicking on a link that will require the sensitive information to be placed. Even if there is security integrated into mobile payment apps, cybercriminals will pounce on their hapless victims when given the chance by disguising themselves as those who belong to the financial company.

Never reveal PINs and passwords

Avoid falling into these kinds of traps. Do not give to anyone your account details and try to double check that the person you are chatting with is not using a fake account. Many people fall prey to cybercriminals and it is best be aware that these things do happen so that you can avoid falling into similar fraudulent payment transaction traps.