What is it? Spoofing is a technique used to conceal your own identity. The fraudster hides their real number to pretend to be the legitimate sender of a text message or phone call from your bank, for example from a branch office or customer service operator.

  • How can I recognize it?
    • Suspicious procedure: the fraudsters ask for personal or bank data, inviting the victim to follow non-standard procedures.
    • Urgent: the fraudsters urge the victims to act immediately, referring to imminent deadlines, and asking them to perform banking transactions.
    • False links: the text message contains links to websites where the actual destination does not match the name of the link. 
    • New sender: if you receive a text message from a new sender with which you have no services active (e.g. if I have an account with bank A and I get a text message from bank B)
  • What should I do?
    • Don’t trust only the number on your phone screen
    • Beware of phone calls asking you urgently for personal data or credentials (access codes, PIN numbers or OTP).
    • Do not reply to calls from service desk or customer service operators who you haven’t contacted for support asking to install software on your device remotely.
    • If you receive a suspicious phone call, hang up immediately and contact the sender (the company, entity or bank) via the official channels.
    • Don’t click on any links in the text message that look suspicious, as these could lead to fake websites.