Digital payment problems. Image: pexel
Banking Ombud highlights the problems of digital payments
Reana Steyn, has highlighted the problems of using digital payment methods, after receiving complaints from people who had been scammed.
Digital payment problems. Image: pexel
Ombudsman for Banking Services, Reana Steyn, has highlighted the problems of using digital payment methods. After receiving hundreds of complaints and phone calls from people who had been scammed millions of rand using similar tactics.
According to Reana Steyn, the convenience of contactless payments, which include touching your bank card or using your smartphone or smartwatch at a point of sale (POS) machine, has created new fraud methods.
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How making a digital payment can affect you?
Near-field communication (NFC) technology, which enables two devices, such as your smartphone and a payments terminal, to communicate while they’re close to one another, is allegedly used in the theft, according to Steyn.
Steyn stated that it was obvious that fake websites and emails pretending to be from real firms were being utilized. Based on the complaints the ombudsman’s office received as well as the patterns discovered by some of the banks. Whose clients were the victims of this scam.
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Steyn confirmed that her office has lately received and officially reported on 124 of the NFC fraud-related complaints.
According to her, consumers’ accounts were illegally depleted through tap-and-go purchases made with smart devices in a majority of foreign countries including Dubai, France, Spain, etc. while the authentic cardholders were in South Africa.
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How much do people loose through these fraud tactics?
She said that the losses incurred are in the millions of rands.
“people loose millions through digital payment frauds”, she said.
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Steyn claimed that just one of the country’s main banks had acknowledged receiving more than 6,000 such complaints between January 2022 and 1 June, 2023.
