Scam alert: Criminal syndicates target online shoppers to acquire credit cards details
Financial journalist Maya Fischer-French says scammers often rely on platforms that do not require authentication.
JOHANNESBURG - Consumers have again been warned to be on alert for online transactions linked to their bank cards.
Financial journalist Maya Fischer-French says scammers often rely on platforms that do not require authentication.
She is one of thousands of victims of what appears to be a global syndicate that uses stolen credit cards to pay for social media adverts.
Her joint household account was cleaned out.
Fisher-French adds many have fallen victim to global scams on Facebook.
“These criminal syndicates post adverts on Facebook and they get customers to click on it to take them to a fake website. The customer thinks they’re making purchases, input their credit card details and they get the don’t get goods and their credit card details are now compromised.”
Sharing more insight, she explained: “Criminal syndicates that are putting up these adverts need to pay Facebook for these fake adverts, and they are not going to use their money. So they go out and they actually purchase credit card details [from] a dark web.”