- Common Scams: Beware of phishing (or smishing) scams, account takeovers, and overpayment scams targeting users of online payment platforms like Zelle, Venmo, and Paypal
- Protective Measures: Safeguard yourself by enabling Two-Factor Authentication (2FA), using a strong unique password, and verifying the identity of individuals you are doing transactions with.
- Immediate Action: if you suspect fraud or have fallen victim to a scam, act promptly by reporting the incident to your bank or the revenant payment platform.
‘This is Chase Bank, there is a hold on your account due to a security breach, click here to verify your information’
Have you ever received a suspicious text message like this one from a supposedly reputable source asking you to send money through online payment platforms such as Venmo or Zelle?
If so, you were probably an intended victim of fraud. Unfortunately these types of scams are all too common; it is estimated that 68.4 million Americans fell for phone scams and nearly 8.8 billion dollars was lost to fraud in 2022. If you use an online payment platform like Venmo, Zelle, or Paypal you might come across a variety of these scams. Being able to identify scams can help you keep your money, well, yours.
Phishing (or Smishing) Scam:
Phishing is a scam where attackers will get you to reveal your personal and banking information through unsolicited text messages or emails on mobile devices. This can often happen by clicking on a link attached to these messages or downloading a malicious attachment.
Account Takeover:
Account Takeovers are exactly like they sound. A scammer gets access to your Zelle account, changes the password, and locks you out.
Overpayment Scam:
An overpayment scam is when you receive a notification that someone overpaid you and asks for you to return the money. In reality, you haven’t overpaid at all and are now sending your own money.
Protect Yourself
Now that you’re familiar with these types of scams, you’re probably now thinking to yourself what are some ways I can protect myself from these types of scams? A few good ways to help combat this are:
Enable Two Factor Authentication
The easiest way to protect yourself is by adding a second layer of protection to your devices. Two-Factor authentication, or 2FA as you’ll commonly see it, is when you can only login after providing two types of information to verify you are who you say you are. For example, 2FA is already required for all logins to the protected university systems. It involves entering your login information and then submitting a numerical code that you can receive through text or an app like Google Authenticator.
Use Secure Passwords
Another way to protect yourself is by choosing strong, unique passwords for your accounts and updating them regularly. A strong unique password typically includes upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters to create complexity. Another useful tool to keep your account secure is passphrase. A passphrase is a sentence like string of words used for authentication that is longer than a traditional password, easy to remember and difficult to crack. An example of a passphrase would be hat-tiger-pizza-lamp, random words that do not have an obvious connection.
Verify the identity of who you are doing transactions with
If you’re unsure if something is legit, always confirm the identity of individuals or businesses before engaging in financial transactions. It is a good habit to contact the individual or business through a verifiable contact, like the phone number or email address on their official website to validate the authenticity of the transaction. It never hurts to go the extra step to make sure you’re not getting scammed.
Educate yourself
Finally, your best defense against frauds and scammers is by educating yourself. Stay informed about common scams and be wary of unsolicited messages or requests. You can do so by heading to https://capture.udel.edu/ to watch 60-second videos on a variety of security topics.
If you believe that you have fallen victim to a scam or experienced fraud contact your bank or the relevant payment platform immediately to report the incident and seek help.
