HOW TO STAY SAFE
Impersonation Scams
Impersonation scams involve criminals pretending to be trusted individuals or representatives from reputable organisations with the aim of stealing your money or personal and confidential information.
Scammers may pretend to be government officials, or representatives from banks, telecoms, retailers, insurers etc. They may even impersonate colleagues, public figures, friends or family. They use emails, SMSs, messaging apps, social media platforms, and phone calls to impersonate legitimate organisations or people. Often, the caller ID or email domains are 'spoofed' to make them appear authentic but are actually fake.
Their tactics include farming your trust buy using deepfake technologies to impersonate subject matter experts or trusted community leaders and using urgency to pressure you into complying with their requests - leaving you without time to verify the claims being made.
In other scenarios, the scammers pretend to be assisting you with a service or claim to 'protect' you from potential fraud or scams that are being perpetrated against you, or in which you are being implicated as a suspect.
The scammer claims that they require you to verify personal and confidential information and could include asking you for a one-time pin that pops up on your phone, clicking on a link in a message or email, or even sending you 'formal' looking documents to create an impression of legitimacy.
The goal is to get your personal details (ID numbers, contact details, address information, pictures, etc.) and confidential information (passwords, card details, account numbers, login details, etc.) or to convince you to send them money.
Once they have your information, it can be used to blackmail you, impersonate you, or to steal from you. In more serious cases, you could fall victim to extortion and sextortion.
How To Spot It
These are the red flags you should look out for:
- The contact or request is unsolicited. Trust your instincts, if you did not expect the call or message, something seems out of place or strange in any way, or if you are unsure about the legitimacy of the situation or offer, you should terminate contact immediately.
- Scammers create a sense of urgency or try and instil fear to trick you into acting without thinking. For example, they might threaten legal action or claim there's a problem with your account and if you don’t act now, you could fall victim to fraud.
- The scammer asks for confidential and personal information information. They may request this over the phone, via email, by sending a link you need to click on, or even request that you download a mobile application to complete the process and facilitate the installation of malware onto the device used.
- You are asked to make upfront payments to benefit from the offer. In some scenarios, you may be pressured, blackmailed or threatened into making the payment to protect yourself, your place of employment, your family or someone you care about.
What To Do
There are steps you can take to empower yourself to fight back against scams:
- Verify and do your own research: Before you take any action, contact the company or organisation via their formal channels to confirm. If the organisation is unrecognised, verify their authenticity against CIPC or for financial service offerings against the financial services regulators.
- Be wary of a sense of urgency or pressure: The person or communication is trying to intimidate you or illicit a sense of fear – you should end contact immediately.
- Do not share information: Do not share any confidential or personal information before conducting your research and verifying to confirm any claims, offers or deals are in fact legitimate. Legitimate organisations will never ask for confidential information like your banking PIN or account login information.
- Use official channels: Do not click on links in SMSs, emails, or WhatsApp. Visit the official website and utilise formal channels only, if in doubt, contact them directly to verify.
- Implement robust cybersecurity practices: Use strong and unique passwords which are changed regularly, do not use public Wi-Fi when doing your banking or working with confidential information, implement multi-factor authentication where possible. You should also conduct periodic security checks for malware or spyware on all your devices.
- Report it: If you have been scammed, please report it immediately to the relevant organisation and/ or authorities, as well as the Yima reporting function below, or the Yima scams hotline.
Stop. Think. Verify. Don't get scammed!
HOW TO STAY SAFE
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