Tapping cards. Image: Broadband
Reana Steyn warns about tapping cards
The Ombudsman for Banking Services, Reana Steyn, has encouraged people to be careful when paying by tapping cards, mobile phones and watches.
Tapping cards. Image: Broadband
The Ombudsman for Banking Services, Reana Steyn, encouraged people to be careful when paying by tapping cards, mobile phones and watches.
Paying with cards, mobile phones and watches makes life easier but people should be careful as this method is being used by fraudsters to steal people’s money.
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How people can be affected by tapping?
Thieves are no longer limited to stealing people’s information through emails, calling them and sending them sms, but they have a new way of stealing their money using mobile phones.
Every year she receives complaints from people complaining that they have been cheated by workers who use modern technology. She asked people to be careful when buying goods using modern technology because criminals also use modern technology to defraud. She pointed out that even if they buy online, they should make sure that the places they buy from are legal and follow the law to protect people’s information.
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She said that places that protect people’s information are forced by law to strengthen security. “I encouraged people to never send their confidential information to strangers and if you suspect that you are being scammed, you should contact their banks immediately,” she said.
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How the fraudsters take money?
According to Steyn, in NFC/digital wallet payment fraud, the thieves attach their smart gadgets, like smartphones and smart watches, to payment platforms like Samsung Pay, Apple Pay, Garmin Pay, Google Pay, etc. using stolen card information.
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“Fraudulent purchases are then made on the victims’ accounts using the fraudster’s smart device without the cards receiving one-time pins or OTPs to verify the transactions,” said Steyn.
Steyn claimed that several of the complainants had received messages asking them to finish an authentication process that they had never started, messages that contained their bank card number and/or OTP, the stolen information.
She advised bank customers to immediately report the occurrence to their banks if they received such a notification even though they had never really initiated a transaction with their bank card.
