Irish bank Permanent TSB has sent out a warning to its customers after an increase of "smishing" and "vishing" scams.
The sophisticated scams take advantage of phone calls and text messages from service providers and target vulnerable customers for personal information. Vishing involves calls claiming to be from utility providers such as broadband services that are seeking remote access to devices.
It results in a bill payment being set up in the customer's account that includes the authentication of the payment either through a one-time passcode or approving a new device. The bank warns: "Any unsolicited contact by telephone/text or email requesting banking security information should be treated as highly suspicious. Always independently check that the person is who they say they are. Remember that criminals can spoof phone numbers and mimic e-mail addresses."
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With smishing, customers are receiving text messages with one particular example claiming to be from the HSE. The banks says: "Permanent tsb customers have reported receiving SMSes that look like it originates from the HSE. Please note that these are fraudulent and the HSE would never ask you for your personal banking information in this manner.
"After customers have responded to the fake sms, customers then receive a Vishing call purporting to be ‘Permanent Tsb’ alerting of ‘fraudulent activity on accounts’ seeking additional security information like authorisation codes in order to take full control of the online banking facility."
What should you do if you receive suspicious calls?
- Do not divulge any credit/debit card/account log-on information.
- Do not respond to the caller.
- Regarding genuine authorisation codes received from permanent tsb via SMS please ensure that you read and fully understand the text message before proceeding
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