Sim swap scam

[Justloadit]

I've had staff members wander into a branch of our cellular service provider and do a lost/stolen SIM card change/replacement without much drama. Well, let's put it this way, I've had cases where I only hear about it after the fact. Strictly speaking, I feel the service provider should revert to the account holder's official representative first before doing it.
Ultimately the concern when it comes to online banking is your security is not just in the hands of the banks and their processes - it now also relies on the security and processes of the cellular service provider.

In my experience, if you are on a Pay-As-You-Go this is a simple process to do a SIM swap, while you wait at the Vodascum shop, however, if you have a company contract SIM, you will be required to get a company letter head written request, not that this is difficult to obtain, with a copy of your ID, however if it is a personal contract, your ID is all that is required. Before the SIM swap takes place, a SMS is usually sent to the active SIM stating that a SIM swap has been requested, and if this instruction was not given to contact the service provider immediately to cancel the process.

Decided I might as well decrease my credit at FNB - if I don't use it a figure is might be dangerous having these limits left open IF my account ever gets hacked. So called in - and was quite surprised to be asked my pin number - yes my PIN, something we are told we should NEVER give over the phone. I did not and got put through to an operator - but she wanted to put me back onto the system so that I could put my pin in. This just seems very, very dangerous in my book.... Anyway, will dump that c/ card and just activate being able to buy on the internet with my Capitec card.

This is a standard practice with FNB cards, what actually happens, is that you have called the call centre on their number, so the route of the call is from you, you then place your request with the operator, then your call is routed to another secure server, which verifies that the current call is valid. Upon validation, it will return the call to the operator, much like when you purchase on line using a credit card, when the transaction is being made, you are routed to another secure server to make the payment details.
The secure fact here is that you made the call to the call centre, and hopefully you have used the secure number under the FNB banking page after you have successfully logged in. Now if is the other way round, where they call you, then it is a sure thing that you are going to be scammed.

[AndyD]

Sim swapping is a legitimate concern and can result in your account being cleaned out. The sim swap is only one part of the fraud, they also need to get your personal details, account login name and pin number through conventional phishing/social engineering/trojan attacks.

[pmbguy]

Talking about scamz
I know of highly professional people in town that have been scammed via the internet....stupid...its weird hey?......It must be very strong greed to be that stupid.
I do feel very sorry for them.

I have personally "won" enough to take over the world!

[ians]

So what you saying Andy is it all boils down to your security network, anti virus system, firewall etc, not just giving away your details over the phone?

I had what must have been my google account hacked, they then attempted to get access to my bank account but it seemed the program you download from standard bank prevented them form gaining access because it popped up as 9 attempts. I took the computer to a company which loaded all sorts of programs and left them to clean out the computer

[Pap_sak]

In my experience, if you are on a Pay-As-You-Go this is a simple process to do a SIM swap, while you wait at the Vodascum shop, however, if you have a company contract SIM, you will be required to get a company letter head written request, not that this is difficult to obtain, with a copy of your ID, however if it is a personal contract, your ID is all that is required. Before the SIM swap takes place, a SMS is usually sent to the active SIM stating that a SIM swap has been requested, and if this instruction was not given to contact the service provider immediately to cancel the process.




This is a standard practice with FNB cards, what actually happens, is that you have called the call centre on their number, so the route of the call is from you, you then place your request with the operator, then your call is routed to another secure server, which verifies that the current call is valid. Upon validation, it will return the call to the operator, much like when you purchase on line using a credit card, when the transaction is being made, you are routed to another secure server to make the payment details.
The secure fact here is that you made the call to the call centre, and hopefully you have used the secure number under the FNB banking page after you have successfully logged in. Now if is the other way round, where they call you, then it is a sure thing that you are going to be scammed.

Yup. My problem is we used to have the easy" NEVER GIVE YOUR PIN OUT - EVEN YOUR BANK WILL NEVER ASK FOR IT" - pretty easy to remember even for the simpler folks out there. Now we have " YOUR BANK MIGHT ASK FOR YOU PIN"

Probably me just being stupid, but I did prefer the old way.

[Justloadit]

Yup. My problem is we used to have the easy" NEVER GIVE YOUR PIN OUT - EVEN YOUR BANK WILL NEVER ASK FOR IT" - pretty easy to remember even for the simpler folks out there. Now we have " YOUR BANK MIGHT ASK FOR YOU PIN"

Probably me just being stupid, but I did prefer the old way.

At the end it is really about convenience.
Not "sometimes" giving the PIN, requires you to personally going to the bank to make any change to your account. If this is not an issue, then there is no problem with adopting the policy "NEVER" give your pin to any one.