Accounts Payable News^®

13 July 2009, US

Criminals are using a new form of fraud in an effort to obtain money from banks and their customers, it has been suggested.

According to Actimize, a US firm that provides financial risk management software, the popularity of phone scams is on the rise.  The technique involves fraudsters pretending to be a bank representative, warning them that the security on their account may have been breeched.

Cleverly, once the criminal asks for account details, the call is transferred to a genuine bank employee, while the fraudster stays on the line to gather all the personal information.  This is then used to make withdrawals.

Paul Johnson of Pannone recently warned that the placing of "plants" in some organisations has meant that operations such as call centres now have criminals infiltrating their systems.