Banks need to do more to prevent customers from becoming victims of help desk fraud or spoofing. Being able to lower the overdraft limit themselves is one of the measures customers cite to prevent fraud. Banks should not ignore this signal. So writes the Consumers' Association.
According to the advocacy group, WhatsApp fraud, help desk fraud and spoofing claim more and more victims every year. In WhatsApp fraud or friend-in-need fraud, someone pretends to be an acquaintance from the target's environment, with the goal of convincing that person to transfer money to the fraudster's bank account. Once the money is transferred, the victims lose their hard-earned pennies.
In help desk fraud, a scammer pretends to be an employee of a company or organization, in this case an employee of the bank. He approaches his victim saying that the bank account has been hacked, or that "suspicious activity" has taken place. As a precaution, victims are asked to temporarily deposit their money in a "safe deposit account. What they don't know is that this account belongs to criminals.
Finally, spoofing involves cybercriminals faking a bank's digital environment, for example. Or the name of a bank appears on the screen when a call is made, while in reality the call is made from a different number. In this way, scammers try to gather as much personal information about their victims as possible.
In the first six months of 2021, such practices cost society 22.6 million euros. Experts estimate that the total damage last year cost about 44 million euros.
The Consumers' Association believes that most banks currently do too little to combat fraud. As an example, the interest group cites the transfer limit, the maximum amount a customer can transfer to another account at one time. At ABN AMRO, this amount is 250,000 euros. At online bank Knab, it is 50,000 euros.
Customers cannot adjust the amount of the transfer limit at these banks. "That is very strange and undesirable," said Sandra Molenaar, director of the Consumers' Association. "These banks tell us that their customers just want it that way, but our survey shows otherwise."
A Consumer Association poll of more than 8,000 consumers shows that most respondents are happy to sacrifice convenience if they get better protection against scams in return. Nine out of ten respondents indicated that banks should make it more difficult to transfer large sums of money to unknown accounts.
A suspense account is the most popular solution, according to the interest group. Financial transactions with large amounts to unknown accounts are then temporarily held. Almost two-thirds of those surveyed (62 percent) think this is a good initiative against scams and fraud. Over 40 percent consider a hold on transfers above a certain amount to an unknown account a good measure.
Banks should not ignore this signal from customers, Molenaar believes. "They require optimal vigilance and caution from their customers, but they also have a responsibility themselves. Banks must create the optimal conditions so that their customers can bank safely."
Some banks are already on extra alert for fraud and other scams. ING, Volksbank and Triodos Bank have built in a waiting period of several hours to raise the transfer limit. And at Knab, since the end of 2020, payment orders can no longer be confirmed via the card reader, but only via the app. In addition, the payment limit has been adjusted downward and not all transfers can be treated as Instant Payments.
