See how it works and run away from it
2 min read
At least 40,000 Brazilian citizens have already fallen victim to the so-called Phantom Hand scam, introduced by fake bank employees.
Photo: Tero Vesalainen / shutterstock.com
Estimated reading time: 3 Minutes
At least 40,000 Brazilians were victims of the so-called Phantom Hand. The Federal Police is already attentive to the movements of the criminals who are demonstrating Banks And financial institutions to deceive people across the country.
The aim of the scammers is to gain access to the bank accounts of the victims, in a few minutes, to perform a real cleanup of the available balance. Criminals usually withdraw money from the account by wire transfer.
Learn how the Phantom Hand Scar works
Criminals contact victims via phone call, email, or WhatsApp. At first, one’s impression is that the communication is made by the call center of the bank or financial institution. All this is just a farce.
The fraudster reports some personal data to the victim and then says that there was some strange movement in the account. The intent is to make the person feel anxious and insecure about the information, and to facilitate the application of the inversion.
The fake employee says that the bank account may have been hacked, that’s why it needs more data to prevent losing more money. From that, he points out a fake security update in the bank app and convinces the victim to install it.
When a person installs the app, the scammer can access the account and control the victim’s cell phone in real time, only realizing the “clean” balance later. Hence, this practice is called Phantom Hand Strike.
How not to fall for the phantom hand scam
PF warns that people should not click on links, let alone accept commands to download apps offered by “attendants,” because banks do not require it. When receiving a call or message, the right thing to do is to end the interaction and contact an official banking call center.
It should be noted that an alert was recently issued against a scam that used the name PickpayThe criminals, since announcing a birthday promotion for the financial services company, have contacted the victims via WhatsApp and promised a Pix worth R$200.
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Photo: Tero Vesalainen / shutterstock.com