- 29
- May
- 09
First it was ‘phishing’ that we needed to add to our own personal finance glossary to warn consumers about the techniques fraudsters are using these days to obtain sensitive personal information, including credit card numbers and bank account details.
Today, we have added another term to the glossary to warn our readers about a sub-type of phishing called ‘smishing’ where fraudsters phish for sensitive personal information via a mobile phone’s Short Message Service (SMS);
INSERT INTO `module_blog_posts` VALUES or what we commonly refer to as text messaging.
If you haven’t encountered these terms before, you’d probably think we were making these words up, but they are in use and worse still, fraudsters are practising both phishing and smishing, which you really won’t find smashing if you ever end up as a victim of one of these crimes.
Earlier this month the UK’s fraud prevention service, CIFAS, reported an increase in smishing, as well as other types of ‘account takeover fraud’.
Just remember that your bank or building society will NEVER ask you to disclose your PIN.
Plus, if you are ever asked to give out any sensitive information and you are even slightly unsure about where the information is going, contact the institution via a number on a statement, bill or other trusted source and ask them to verify that they have sent you a text message or email BEFORE you give out any information.
