Digital fraudsters took tens of millions of euros from Finns last year. Banks fight against fraud in many ways, but you don’t always know how to be grateful for the help. Then the bank takes over.
Nordea warns of increased investment and security account scams. Susanna Kekkonen / Antti Mannermaa
Director of Nordea’s personal customer business Sarah Mella told the media at an event organized on Monday morning that banks come across various investment and security account scams more often than before.
Mella told about a recent case where the bank had smelled a burnt cart and intervened in the game despite the customer’s objections.
– The customer was making a very large bank transfer compared to usual, which aroused our suspicions. We called the customer to ask for more information, but he didn’t want to give it and was otherwise evasive.
– He said he was making investments.
According to the bank’s assessment, all signs pointed to an investment scam. This was also told to the customer, who, however, did not listen to the bank’s opinion.
– The customer would have liked to continue sending the money and was disappointed when it was blocked.
However, it didn’t take long when the customer had been in contact with the bank and there was a completely different sound on the clock.
– He had saved 84,000 euros.
Security account scams have increased
In another case, the bank had detected several suspiciously large transfers from the customer’s account. Tried to call the customer, but the phone said busy.
– We were worried that a scam is currently underway, and someone is manipulating the customer on the phone. We saw how these account transfers happened.
The bank closed the customer’s account to prevent all transfers. It was quickly confirmed that the customer had been on the phone with a fraudster. It had been a so-called security account fraud.
– The customer was about to lose 40,000 euros, but we were able to save 30,000 euros. It required very quick actions, says Mella.
Two-step security account fraud
In a security account scam or fraud, e.g. phishing messages are first sent to the victim. In some cases, the victim may have been made to pay a small amount of money to the scammers under some pretext.
After this, the fraudster contacts the victim, pretending to be a police officer or a bank representative, for example, and informs the victim that he knows about the phishing message or other attempted fraud.
Having gained the victim’s trust in this way, the fraudster then asks the victim to transfer the funds in their account to a so-called “security account”, assuring them that the money will be out of reach of the fraudsters there.
However, there is no security account, instead the victim worried about his money transfers his assets to the criminals’ account.
Security account fraud is often two-step. Susanna Kekkonen
“Societal problem”
According to Nordea, investment and security account scams are on the rise in Finland. In January–June, banks have saved Finnish customers’ money worth 16 million euros, which is more than double compared to last year.
Finanssiala ry says that Finns lost a total of more than 32 million euros to digital scammers last year, and not all cases have even been reported.
– It’s really a social problem, says Mella.
Victims have an active role
Mella says that investment and security account scams are examples of modern scams in which the victim himself is an active party and helps the criminals with his own actions – albeit unknowingly.
– Often the victim strongly believes in what he is doing and is motivated. Typically, he contributes to the success of the scam, for example by making the requested bank transfers, says Mella.
According to the financial industry, a typical investment scam aims to extort large sums of money from the victim for e.g. stocks, bonds or cryptocurrency. The contacts are unsolicited and may be repetitive.
Common to the contacts of investment fraudsters are promises of good returns with little or no risk, the short validity of the offer and the fact that the offer is intended only for the victim and must not be passed on to others.
Large sums at once
The biggest increase in the beginning of the year has been seen specifically in investment scams, where the victims lost a total of 8.2 million euros. A year earlier, the amount was 3.3 million euros.
However, the number of scams has not been particularly large, Finanssiala says. During the beginning of the year, 385 investment scams were reported, compared to 172 a year earlier.
The relatively small number, combined with large losses in terms of euros, indicates that up to several tens of thousands of euros are lost at once in investment scams, according to the Financial Industry.