On a single day in November, we spend a third more money on the Internet than on any other average day during the year. The number of cyber frauds is growing year by year, attackers take advantage of every inattention of their victim. Big discounts and the desire to buy, for example, a Christmas gift at a good price, dulls attention even in front of obvious signs that can point to a fraudulent e-shop.
Sales attract Slovaks. Last year, during Black Friday, clients of the largest bank in Slovakia spent more than 5.5 million euros on online purchases paid by card. For this single day. On average, they bought goods for 44 euros. They behaved very similarly the year before. They spent almost 5 million euros, the average purchase price was almost 50 euros. It is a third more than on an average day during the year.
However, the frenzy of shopping during sales can also attract cyber fraudsters. “They know people are waiting for low prices. The higher the discount, the more inclined they are to buy more. They let their guard down and may miss the telltale signs of a fraudulent website.” explains Marta Cesnaková, spokeswoman for Slovenská sporiteľna.
Card purchases and payments in e-shops are safe as long as we are careful. “First of all, we recommend that shoppers check the website. We also advise you to look at the social networks of the given e-shop, where people can reveal whether it is a serious merchant. They should definitely pay attention if the website or social networks are full of typos and grammatical errors. You also need to check the contact of the company. And we also recommend Googling reviews of the online store.” appointed by Marta Cesnaková.
It is also ideal to use a so-called virtual card when making a purchase. “The client can cancel the purchase right after the purchase on the website. In this way, he will protect his money, because even in the case of a fraudulent e-shop, no one else will get access to his other money.” explains Marta Cesnaková. He adds that the client of the bank can create and cancel a virtual card at any time and as many times as needed. Even several times a day.
We are losing millions of euros
Not only fraudulent e-shops, but also other cyber frauds on the market deprive Slovaks of millions of euros every year. However, according to Ján Adamovský, the good news is that the situation is improving.
The number of reported frauds is not growing at such a rocket pace as we saw last year. In 2023, bank clients reported 530 percent more fraud than two years earlier. “Now the increase, between 2022 and 2024, is around 40 percent,” Ján Adamovský points to a positive trend. According to him, clients reflect more on the education that the bank does. As soon as it catches a new type of fraud and identifies the clients it could affect, it sends them information to be careful.
Clients can also be reassured by the fact that more fraud is being caught than in the past.
Manipulation plays directly
However, the reality is that fraudsters do not sleep and come up with news. “We have several suggestions from our clients about a new type of fraud. They paid the courier for the delivered package with their card through the terminal, but it was empty,” describes a new type of fraud, Ján Adamovský. He advises people to verify the sender before paying, and if they haven’t ordered anything, to refuse to accept the shipment. Alternatively, if they have already been a victim of fraud, to contact the police.
However, according to Ján Adamovský, frauds in bazaar sales continue to resonate the most. “They are not new. However, before that, fraudsters used a form of phishing, in which the client submitted data to the card. The reason was the belief that this was the only way he could get money for the things he wanted to sell at the bazaar. Alternatively, he thought that he was ordering the courier who was supposed to come pick up things in this way. Today the situation is different. The client himself, after being manipulated, sends the money by transfer to the account number that the fraudster sends him,” says Ján Adamovský.
Frauds, in which the attacker manipulates his victim into voluntarily sending money to his account, are dominant today. For older people, these are, for example, WhatsApp messages in which the fraudster appears as the son, daughter, grandson or granddaughter of a senior citizen. In the message, the so-called descendant writes to his parent or grandparent that he urgently needs to send money and immediately attaches the account number. These are usually foreign accounts.
Investment frauds are among the constants of manipulative frauds. This is a form of fraud in which the victim is convinced that he is profitably investing in, for example, crypto. But the problem is that the money that he thinks is going to the account of the investment platform goes directly to the account of the fraudster. Often the victims, believing that in the future their investment will be returned to them several times over, even borrow money so that they can invest even more.
The fact that people lose the most money in some form of manipulative fraud is also proven by the data. While in 2022 fraudsters stole 3 euros through phishing and 1 euro through manipulation, in 2024 it is exactly the opposite.
“If the client is manipulated by the fraudster and trusts him, he carries out transactions himself, from his device and completely voluntarily. He often does them repeatedly over a long period of time. The amount of these fraudulent transactions is therefore much higher compared to if the client, for example, encounters a fraudster once when buying or selling goods at the bazaar,” states Ján Adamovský.
One way to protect yourself against losing money in a fraud is to payment abuse insurance.
“Thanks to this insurance, our clients are protected against the most frequent frauds. For example, in the case of misuse of their electronic banking or card, non-delivery of goods when purchasing through an e-shop or fraud when purchasing from a bazaar such as Bazoš, Vinted and the like.” explains Marta Cesnaková
Photo source: geralt (pixabay.com)
Source: www.nextech.sk
