With a surge in usage of digital modes of payment in recent years, incidents of frauds in retail financial transactions have also gone up. The RBI has released a booklet titled ‘BE(A)WARE’, as a part of the public awareness initiative against these threats
There has been a surge in usage of digital modes of payment in recent years and it has gained further momentum during the Covid-19 induced lockdowns. While enhancing customer convenience, it also furthered the national objective of financial inclusion. However, as the speed and ease of doing financial transactions has improved, the number of frauds reported in retail financial transactions have also gone up. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on March 7, released a booklet on modus operandi of financial frauds, titled ‘BE(A)WARE’, as a part of the public awareness initiative by its Consumer Education and Protection Department.
Fraudsters have been using innovative methods to defraud the common and gullible people of their hard-earned money, especially the new entrants in the use of digital platforms who are not entirely familiar with the techno-financial eco-system. The RBI booklet has been compiled from various incidents of frauds reported as also from complaints received at the offices of RBI Ombudsman to provide maximum practical information of value, especially to those who are inexperienced, or not so experienced, in digital and electronic modes of financial transactions. The Central bank says that this booklet is intended to create awareness among the members of public about the modus operandi adopted by fraudsters to defraud and mislead them, while also informing them about the precautions to be taken while carrying out financial transactions.
Yogesh Dayal, Chief General Manager, RBI emphasizes the need for keeping one’s personal information, particularly the financial information, confidential at all times and be-ware of unknown calls/emails/messages, practicing due diligence while performing financial transactions and changing the secure credentials/passwords from time to time. Dayal says this booklet is part of the public awareness initiative by the Consumer Education and Protection Department, Reserve Bank of India.
While informing about the precautions to be taken while carrying out financial transactions, the booklet says that fraudsters create a third-party website which looks like existing genuine website, such as bank’s website or e-commerce website or search engine, etc. These links are generally circulated by fraudsters through SMS/social media/email/Instant Messenger, etc. Most of the time, customers enter secure credentials by just having a glance and clicking at the link but not checking the detailed URL. The links are masked through authentic looking names of websites, but in reality, the customer gets redirected to phishing website.
