The article describes new fraud schemes involving mobile banking and how criminals can access other people,s money even through a randomly bought SIM card. It gives examples of large phone top ups from others accounts and warns about SMS scams about account blocks and mistaken charges. The author advises not to panic, monitor banking services carefully, and disable mobile banking immediately if the phone is lost.
But even greater opportunities are given to criminals by the completely accidental purchase of a SIM card with the “mobile bank” service connected to it. This becomes possible when the previous owner of the phone number stops using it. The mobile communications company reissues the abandoned number and sells it again through the retail network. As a result, the new owner of the SIM card acquires not only the phone number, but also the mobile notification service about the status of the bank account previously linked to it by the former owner. Not everyone can resist the temptation to use someone else’s money. There have been cases when, through “mobile bank,” a mobile phone balance was topped up from other people’s accounts by more than 10,000 rubles.Other types of fraud also continue unabated. Criminals send citizens SMS messages in the name of banks about account blocking or incorrect debiting of funds.
Everyone can protect themselves from fraudsters. To do this, it is important to know the fraudulent methods of taking money from the population, and not to panic when receiving messages about problems with a bank account. And if you lose the phone number to which the “mobile bank” service is connected, immediately disable it, then block the bank account and the mobile phone number. Everything related to bank accounts and loans should be under close attention.
Based on materials from the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia “Ust-Ilimsky”