SINGAPORE – Picture this – a man wearing a jacket bearing the name of your bank turns up at your door, declares there is a problem with your account and asks you to hand over your details so he can fix the issue.
And all without showing a bank identification card or even seeming to know your name.
Pretty much everyone would spot this as a scam and laugh at the notion of handing over important bank details to a guy with “crook” written all over his face.
Even the idea that a bank would send an employee door to door to ask for customers’ details is preposterous in itself. The reality is no bank would ever approach customers and ask for banking details outside of a branch.
This applies even to online banking.
Remember those times you call the bank for assistance? They ask for personal details only to verify your identity; the staff do not ask for your account details because a real bank knows everything about you. Only scammers want such information because they don’t know who you are and what accounts you hold.
Most people would not hand over bank details to strangers who show up at their doors even if they wear a shirt with the bank’s name.
But how come such vigilance disappears when you receive an SMS or e-mail asking you to hand over your banking details by logging into a site? And instead of wearing a bank’s name on their shirts, online scammers spoof the bank’s name via electronic messages to say your account has a problem and that you must key in your account…
