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So far, Black Friday is working out pretty well for me.

Before 7AM, I’d already snapped up my nephews’ Christmas gifts at 50% off and clicked ‘add to cart’ on my dad’s gift at a decent discount, online, with minimal fuss.

Winning.

The upside of the sale, if you’ve done your research, is that you can score some great deals.

The downside is that there are always some crooks out there looking to cash in and ruin everyone’s fun.

With Black Friday and Cyber Monday taking place in the middle of a pandemic, online shopping is significantly more popular this year, which is why you need to be aware of some of the scams doing the rounds.

According to IOL, the Ombudsman for Banking Services has warned that “cybercriminals are becoming very inventive in the way they commit their crimes”.

“During this period, fraud is likely to occur when transacting online or with bank cards at the ATM and other point-of-sale devices.”

“Consumers will also receive calls from criminals pretending to be representatives from their bank.”

“Even though the caller may know your identity number, name, and card number, consumers are urged to never disclose any confidential information such as the CVV number on the back of their cards or the one-time pin (OTP) sent to their phones by the bank.”

That applies to every day of the year. If your bank supposedly calls you asking for personal or account information (which they won’t do), the best course of action is to hang up and call your bank to verify and/or alert them to the situation.

Your bank will also never ask you for your access code, password, VPN, or other personal information via email.

Neil Thompson, head of product and customer value proposition at African Bank, says that cybercrime increases as much as 336% at around this time of year.

“If you are shopping online, be especially cautious of phishing scams. Internet banking fraud now makes up 55% of all fraud occurring through banks. If an offer looks too good to be true, it is probably fake.

“You need to watch out for emails promising these amazing bargains. Rather than click on a link in an email or SMS, go to the site itself. Hackers can even spoof websites, so make sure you’re shopping on the actual site.”

The Citizen reports that consumers should also avoid using instant EFT payments – a version of the traditional EFT made through a third-party platform – as cybercriminals have been making use of a practice called “screen-scraping”.

Screen scraping makes it possible for third parties to gain access to the consumer’s bank data and make purchases, using their online banking credentials.

 Using these services will also make them vulnerable to possible fraud, as criminals might pretend to be a third party offering instant EFT services on fake e-commerce sites, so they can capture consumers’ access credentials for their bank’s internet banking websites.

The best way forward is to shop on reputable sites that you’re familiar with, avoid clicking links in emails or SMSes, and treat all calls, messages, or emails that claim to be from your bank with suspicion.

Instead of instant EFT, rather make use of other bank-backed forms of electronic payment methods.

Stick to those rules, and happy shopping.

[sources:iol&citizen]