How to avoid vishing scams
If you don’t already know what vishing is then you need to read yesterday’s post – What Exactly Is Vishing?
Today I am looking at a few very simple ways of ensuring you don’t become a victim of this crime.
Rule #1 can be applied to just about every scenario you may ever come across online – DO NOT REVEAL YOUR SENSITIVE INFORMATION TO ANYONE, INCLUDING BANK EMPLOYEES.
Whether you are contacted via email, IM or phone you should never, ever, reveal sensitive information to someone you cannot completely trust.
If you always keep that in mind then you will have improved your internet security immeasurably.
The other rules are just as much common sense -
- Banks and other financial institutions never call and ask you for personal information.
- The call or message may say that your call is being recorded but this is just to scare people so that they do not call the authorities.
- Notice how the caller never calls you by name. That is because they have no idea what your name is!
- If your bank or credit card number asks for your account number then they must be false – they should already know such details.
- Just because they don’t ask for your CVV2 number don’t think they are legit – some people can still steal your money without that information.
- Some banks, especially the small ones, usually have the last 6 numbers of the card the same for all the cards. So thieves will ask only for the last 6 digits of your credit card number because they know the first ones. So don’t think that if they ask only for 6 digits they cannot steal your money. They can do this just with your PIN and the last 6 digits of your card.
Remember the above and stay safe.
Don’t get vished!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Actually, banks do call when they see a suspicious transaction on your card. The safest thing to do is to ask what bank it is, and assuming it’s a bank with whom you do business, call them back at the number printed on your credit card.
Also, the last six digits always vary from card to card because the last digit is a check digit, but the first digits identify the bank and the first six can indeed be the same for all cards issued by a small bank.
I don’t know where you’re from John but here in the UK I’ve never heard of a bank phoning for that reason, though they certainly do pass such information on via the postal system.