Botswana Police warns the public to be on the look out for Internet fraudsters who use different methods to deprive people of their hard earned cash. The common methods they use often include Telephone Banking, Card Scheming, Phising, Identity Theft, and Advanced Fee Fraud Banking.
Telephone Banking: Fraudsters perform “sim swap”, where they block victim’s mobile sim cards, so that any form of communication is diverted to their mobiles to be later used in fraudulent bank transactions.
Card Scheming: Fraudsters attach information trapping devices on Point of Sale Swiping Machines, at retail stores to secretly duplicate information from customer’s debit and credit cards that they later use to steal money from such victims accounts by swiping in retail shops
Pishing: Fraudsters create false websites that promise jobs, sponsorship, loans, etc to entice individuals and prompt them to divulge their personal details. This set up present a platform for fraudsters to trace an individual and adopt various means of defrauding them including having access to their financial accounts.
Identity Theft: Fraudsters use key loggers to trap information and steal passwords of unsuspecting victims, forging their identity documents and posing as them in order to steal their money.
Advanced Free Fraud: Fraudsters make sure they get money from their victims before rendering the service they claim to offer. They achieve this through email scam letters requesting money investment opportunities or taking advantage of genuine situations like natural disasters, accidents etc. Other examples include lotteries, invitations and elections to defraud victims.
The public is therefore advised to always pay attention to any transactions done with their cards and be quick to disallow any mishandling of their credit and debit cards by retail store assistants. Individuals are also cautioned to exercise vigilance and ignore scams by fraudsters and avoid attending any gathering organized by fraudsters. Victims are urged to immediately report cases of fraud to the police no matter minor they may seem to be.