In recent years, there has been a significant increase in fraud involving banks. According to a 2024 survey by Serasa Experian, four out of every 10 Brazilians were victims. Among criminals' tactics, tactics range from authenticating purchases to paying fake bills. But now there is also a fake survey scam.The new tactic was so strong that the Brazilian Federation of Banks (Febraban) had to issue an alert to prevent more people from getting hurt. Understand what this scam is and how to protect yourself!
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Don't fall for these scams! 10 common online traps for adults Discover the latest “wrong Pix” scam – and learn how to protect yourself See what to do if you fall for the WhatsApp “new numbers scam”. a new tactic, where criminals call bank customers, saying that their bank branch – or the manager – is under investigation.
To expose the truth during the scam, criminals also send a false police report. Typically, the scammer notifies that a bank branch (or supervisor) is being investigated for selling account holder data or for some other serious offense.
Scammers make suspicious calls from unknown numbers on your smartphone. Photo:imaginajib/Shutterstock They then told the victim that, in order to protect her money, it was necessary for her to transfer the money to the people they indicated, while the investigation took place. Clearly, these lovely people are the scammers themselves.
However, the criminals' new tactic is now being detected in major financial institutions. Bradesco, for example, issued an alert on December 11, 2024 about the scam, alerting its customers.
How to protect yourself from fake survey scams The Brazilian Federation of Banks (Febraban) issued a warning about fake survey scams and tells you how to protect yourself from this scam. Among the guidelines, the Federation advises that banks normally do not, under any circumstances, contact customers for this purpose and do not request transfers of funds to other accounts.
Bradesco also warns that neither the bank nor the police will contact you requesting personal data, passwords, security keys, registration or system updates, or requesting transactions.
Criminals ask for personal and credit card data in the process of defrauding bank customers. Photo: Nova África/Shutterstock So, the big tip is: if you suspect that the purpose of the call is a scam, hang up! Furthermore, if you have any questions about such a connection, please contact the official channels of the financial institution of which you are a customer, but never make any type of transfer to third parties, no institution requests such a process.
Although it is common for institutions to contact you to verify suspicious transactions, agents never request personal data, passwords, system updates, security keys, payments or transactions. Therefore, be careful and avoid passing on such information during the service.