Caution: Scammers in Hungary bombard with new tricks, banks warn

OTP Bank warned its customers of a sharp increase in the number of scammers who use the name of the institution to steal personal information – and money.

OTP Bank has come forward to alert customers of potential fraudulent calls, and not for the first time, Pénzcentrum reports. Criminals, they say, call the bank’s clients and pretend to be administrators of the institution. Then, they ask for personal and bank identification data and then lift the money from the accounts of the unsuspecting victim. To sell their act, they will even send pictures of fake IDs to the customer to prove that they are really from the financial institution.

In the last 30 years, the typical criminal activity has changed from street and organised crime or intellectual crime to fraud committed in the online space, Infostart summarises. According to the site, last year, cybercriminals committed 160,000 cases of credit card fraud, causing HUF several billion in damages. László Sonjic, senior consultant of OTP Bank’s IT and Bank Security Directorate, highlighted that today, the number of “classic” attacks against banks has reduced significantly: criminals primarily target customers instead.

The most common tactics to look out for

Con artists often tell customers that the safety of their accounts is at risk, or that a suspicious transfer has been initiated by a third party. Then, they will ask the customer to download an “antivirus” program or an app to their device to prevent fraudulent transfers from occurring. These programs, in turn, will allow criminals to access the data on electronic devices, such as the login information to the online banking system. This way, scammers can easily transfer money from the customers’ accounts to their own.

In other cases, they will ask victims to transfer their money to so-called “security accounts” while they try to prevent the supposed fraudulent transfer from occurring. In both cases, it is the customer themself who hands their account to the criminals.

Besides the banking system, online marketplaces also provide opportunities for scammers. In a typical example, they send links to fake banking sites where people caught off guard will provide their banking information, giving access to their finances. In other cases, they will pretend to sell some used goods to the victim, but before shipping, they will ask for an insurance payment in the name of a non-existent delivery company. This is what happened to a man in Miskolc recently, who paid over HUF 400,000 (EUR 1,013) to his scammers.

How to recognise scammers

Just this month, the National Security Service (Nemzeti Védelmi Szolgálat, NVSZ) shared on social media an audio recording of an unsuccessful hoax call, to call attention to the most prominent indicators that you are dealing with a fraudulent caller. Index collected the following tell-tale signs to look out for:

• Psychological manipulation is the strongest tool scammers have in their arsenal: if you cannot reschedule the call, the caller is extremely forceful with you, or you are being rushed to act very quickly, terminate the call immediately and contact your financial institution.
• If the “administrator” calling you does not know your card and account numbers and asks for screenshots or pictures of your bank data, if you are asked to download a program or an app “for your protection,” or if they ask for confirmation codes during the call, you are dealing with a scammer. Indeed, OTP bank emphasises that their representatives never ask their customers to install any program on their devices, nor do their employees send ID photos to identify themselves.

Read also:

• Here is the new hack of the Budapest taxi hyenas to rip off foreigners – READ HERE
• Stay alert: Scammers try to collect tourist tax from guests staying in Budapest – More info HERE

Source: Pénzcentrum, Index