A woman has told how she lost her life savings after falling for a sophisticated text message scam.
When Suni Wan received a message from her bank HSBC saying there was some fraudulent activity on her account, she called them back.
The text message did not seem unusual as it appeared in the same thread that his bank normally messaged.
The message told her that a new device had logged into her account and if it wasn’t her, she should call back immediately.
The man on the other end of the phone said that an S8 had logged into his account, which worried Suni as he had previously owned an S8, which is a Samsung phone.
A woman has told how she lost her life savings after falling for a sophisticated text message scam. A current issue
Worried that someone had gotten hold of her old phone and was using it to try to access her bank account, Suni recited all the information the “bank” asked for, including her name, address, and date of birth.
They also asked him to generate a unique access code and read it so they could fix the problem.
“Then he said there had been some unusual activities and put me on hold for quite some time,” Suni told A Current Affair.
When Suni Wan received a message from her bank HSBC saying there was some fraudulent activity on her account, she called them back. A current issue
Suni only became suspicious when the man on the line started asking questions about her Coinspot cryptocurrency account.
“I finally understood, why would HSBC be worried about my Coinspot? They wouldn’t pass my details to a representative and tell me to call Coinspot directly,” he said.
Suni called HSBC immediately and asked them to freeze her account, but the scammers had already taken $49,000.
The text message did not seem unusual as it appeared in the same thread that her bank normally sent messages to, as the message told her that a new device had connected to her account and that if it was not her, she should call again immediately. REUTERS
They had managed to spoof HSBC’s real number so that their message arrived in the same thread as the bank’s legitimate messages for a year.
“The hardest thing for me is to stop blaming myself, since I keep blaming myself, maybe I should have noticed it sooner,” Suni said.
An HSBC spokesperson told A Current Affair: “For reasons of client confidentiality, we are unable to discuss specific client situations.”
“HSBC takes customer security very seriously and we thoroughly investigate any reported cases of scam or fraud.”
“The industry has seen an increase in the number of scammers using ‘text spoofing’ to deliberately spoof the phone number to make it look like a genuine bank text message.”
“Scam text messages can even appear in the same message thread as actual messages from the organization, making them even more difficult to detect.”
“HSBC will never ask you to provide your PINs, passwords or verification codes in a phone call, in response to a text message or email. Bank customers should be aware of the risk of scams and are reminded to never reveal bank codes or passwords.”
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Source: vtt.edu.vn