Volksbanks warn of dangerous short messages

Hans Christian Dirscherl

The Volksbank warns of new fraud attempts. Scammers send text messages asking recipients to give their consent to the PSD2 directive. The short messages pretend to come from the Volksbank-Raiffeisenbank.

The SMS contains a link that the recipient should tap. A website then opens on which customers are asked to enter the access data for their online banking, their date of birth and their telephone number. The cyber gangsters then use this data for fraud and attempt to carry out transactions with it.

The gangsters cleverly disguise their activities by using the actually existing PSD2, i.e. the second EU Payment Services Directive, as a pretext. Among other things, this means that you also have to enter a TAN every 90 days when you log in for online banking. This is not surprising and should be known to every user of online banking. However, the Volksbank emphasizes that it would never ask its customers by email or SMS to enter their access data using a link.

How to protect yourself

If you want to log in for your online banking, then always use the address saved as a bookmark/favorite in the browser or carefully enter the URL by hand. But do not click any links in text messages or emails sent to you to log in.

You should delete such short messages as well as e-mails that use the same pretext immediately without clicking on anything in them. Also, do not open any file attachments attached to such unannounced emails.

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How to respond to a scam

If, on the other hand, you have already entered your access data on such a fraudulent site, then inform your bank immediately and block your cards. Here you will find all the information about card blocking: Geldkarte stolen – you must do this immediately!

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