While shopping online, a Which? member nearly fell victim to a sophisticated online credit card scam that none of our experts have come across before.
Member Alastair Robertson told us:
‘After placing an order with an online butchers and filling in my debit card details, the Bank of Scotland card verification page popped up. I’d seen it before and began to fill it in, but soon realised it was asking for more information than usual. It had boxes for the 16-digit card number, expiry date and security code.Â
‘I closed the pages and placed my order by phone.Â
‘A few hours later, I received an automated call from the Bank of Scotland fraud department. The voice asked for the 16-digit number on the front of my debit card in order to deal with the problem. It told me I had entered this incorrectly and asked for the card’s expiry date. It then claimed I also entered that incorrectly and asked for my sort code. At this point, I hung up and phoned Bank of Scotland directly – neither the pop-up nor the phone call had come from it.’
Our say on fake verification pop-ups
This is a very clever scam that none of our experts have come across before. The pop-up emerged at the exact time you’d expect such a page to appear, and the phone call was well timed, too.
The details needed to pull off this scam may have been obtained as a result of spyware being installed on the member’s PC.
We can confirm that card verification pages and automated calls from your bank rarely ask for additional card details. You should report such cases to the police and Action Fraud.
Have you come across a similar scam? What happened?
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