Fraud is everywhere, we are all at risk of losing our money every day.
Criminals are constantly finding new ways to trick you out of losing your money. They need you to fall for their tactics for their financial gain. We wouldn’t give the keys of our home to just anyone so we should never do the same with our personal and financial information.
Read Brian’s story:
Brian received a text that he thought was from AIB saying a direct debit had been set up on his account. Brian had not set up the direct debit, so he rang the number in the text. He was told that it was a fraud message and was asked for his log in details and codes from his card reader to cancel the transactions.
Without Brian knowing it, the text was a scam and he had called a fraudster who now had all his details and took €9950 from Brian’s account.
How do you protect yourself from fraud?
Do not trust any out-of-the-blue messages, calls or emails. Take a moment and ask yourself, could this be fraud? It only takes a split second to be caught off guard and one mistake can have serious financial consequences.
Fraudsters are using genuine bank, utility and phone company names to make the scam look legitimate. The most common way they do this is by sending you a text messages containing a link or a phone number to call. These messages ask you to act urgently to secure your account, pay a fee, or stop fraud. Often these messages are followed up by a phone call. They may even use technology to mimic a genuine phone number.
Take a moment and ask yourself if this could be fraud. Don’t click on a link and provide personal and financial information. Contact the sender through a trusted platform to check if the request is genuine. If you receive a phone call, hang up and call them back on a number from their genuine website.
AIB uses one-time passcodes, card readers and face biometrics to protect your account. They will never contact you by text message, call or email and ask you to give us codes or take a selfie. They will never include a link. They will never send an employee, courier or taxi to your home to collect your cards.
For more information on common frauds and how to protect yourself, visit AIB’s security centre.
