There are various forms of scams through mobile phones and one of them consists of receiving text messages (SMS) that impersonate the identity of a messaging company. This technique is popularly known as smishing. In this specific case, it came from a fake company that received the same name as one of the most recognized, DHL.
The problem comes when you decide to click on the message. This neighbor, after it was her birthday, was waiting for her daughter’s gift, which she told her would arrive in a shipment. She assumed it was this one. At that time she had just fallen for the scam.
“I clicked, put the tracking number but the page didn’t take me anywhere. I tried it several times because it told me to download the DHL application, it gave an error when putting the number and in the end I couldn’t get in either and I gave up,” comments the affected person.
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A month later, her surprise was to discover that her account had 14,857 euros less . Given the facts, she contacted her financial institution to report that she had not made or authorized the transfer. However, from Caixabank they inform her that the confirmation of the operation is associated with her mobile phone and that they cannot return the money.
“It is not possible to discern whether it was the owner or a third party who carried out the controversial operations” , she explains.
Previous complaint to the Mossos, the neighbor of Girona has no other option but to take it to court. But for now, and we don’t know if forever, she has lost the savings for her son’s studies.
Currently and even more so as a result of the pandemic, many people buy online and here cybercriminals have found a good deal. Caixabank, Banco Santander or BBVA have already denounced and alerted their users of the increase in this type of smishing cases.
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Her main tips to avoid these scams are the following: avoid responding to SMS that ask you to visit a website or call a number to resolve an issue; Remember that your bank will never ask you for private information via SMS.
If we are talking about the delivery of a package, find out beforehand if this is real and if someone in your family has made that purchase . Use common sense and do not fall for this type of scam that, as we see, is not supported by your entity.