Online frauds are rising in India. Many innocent people have fallen prey to online fraud and lost hard earned money. Normally, the main victims of online frauds are senior citizens. There are a lot of incidents where senior citizens have lost lakhs of rupees from their bank accounts due to online fraud. Fraudsters call up senior citizens posing as bank executives and collect sensitive banking information. This sensitive information is used to wipe out money from bank accounts.
In the past few years, many senior citizens have lost Rs 2 Lakh, Rs 3 Lakh, Rs 14 Lakh, Rs 68 Lakh and so on, from their retirement funds to online fraud. As new cases on senior citizens being cheated through online fraud are being reported, there are still many cases which are not reported. While the government has taken all the necessary steps to make India a digital economy, online frauds like Vishing, Phishing, Identity theft are the new normal.
See Also: How To Avoid Online Fraud?
As stated earlier, the most common technique used by fraudsters to trick senior citizens is Vishing. In some cases, fraudsters somehow collect card details and CVV of victims and call them asking for the OTP which was sent to their mobile number. On the other hand in some cases, fraudsters even ask for the card number, expiry date, and CVV along with the OTP.
As many senior citizens are losing their retirement funds to online fraud, it is very important for the RBI to force banks to take serious steps to stop such frauds. In this blog, we will discuss the various measures mentioned by the Economic Times, to save senior citizens from online frauds.
1. Banks must have ‘tracer’ card numbers with dummy details of customers in their internal databases. In case fraudsters attempt any fraudulent transactions on such cards, the banks get to know that data had been leaked internally.
2. Another measure to avoid online frauds is, the OTP sent to the users' mobile number should be linked to specific transaction attempts rather than be complete permissions which are valid for a certain period of time. The message should contain Use OTP 251856 for purchase of Rs 15,000 at the online store. This OTP must be valid only for that amount and at that merchant.
3. Banks can avoid online fraud, by further increasing protection on OTP. The SMS must contain the location from where the OTP page is accessed. The SMS may look like "Use OTP 1575624 for purchase of Rs 22,000 by customer in Bengaluru, Karnataka.’
4. To save senior citizens from online frauds, banks need to implement an option called dual or split OTPs for higher value transactions. Senior citizens should give a second phone number while carrying out higher value transactions. Half of the OTP must be sent to one number and a half to the other. If this feature is implemented, it will be difficult for fraudsters to carry out fraudulent transactions.
See Also: How to get your money back if you are a victim of online fraud?
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