As banks cut corners

There was news on ABC news, it was not really news, this was a stage that I saw coming a mile away and that was 5 years ago, yet the speed at which this is procreating is cause for concern. The article ‘Protecting yourself from phone porting and SIM card scams’ (at https://www.abc.net.au/everyday/protecting-yourself-from-phone-porting-and-sim-card-scams/100421586) is not just this, the entire COVID registration issues are making things worse. When we take notice of ““At 5:55pm, I got a text message from my telco. It said, ‘Hi, received your port out request for this service,'” he says. “By the time I tried to call them, my phone already went to SOS only. Before I could even react, my number was gone.””, you might think that this is an isolated case, but it is not, when we add ““They had my customer ID [for online banking], and you can do a password reset if you have the customer ID and mobile number,” he explains. “It was really professional. I had daily limit of $10,000, so they sent $10,000. They bypassed that limit by opening another account inside my account, which you can do online, and then they transferred another $10,000.”” There is. massive flaw, the banks refer to this as being customer friendly, I personally see it criminal friendly. All kinds of level of checks and balances are left out of the equation and for now we see banking party-lines that these matters are seldom, the people are protected and it can be reversed. Yet in 5G, within the next 2-3 years the costs will go beyond what the banks find reasonable and we are left with the costs, we are left with the impact and we are left outside in the cold. That is an almost given and matters are merely getting worse. 

The banks (to cut corners) are setting up more and more to be done online, all whilst proper security is lagging and there is a whole range of actions that will not and should not be allowed. I had to check and make sure that online banking was DISABLED, it makes a few issues a bit more hassle, but compared to the damage I could face 2-5 times a year it is a no-brainer. This is a mere beginning when we consider “If I want to change providers, before the [new] standard was put in place, I just had to give my name, my date of birth and my address,”, all whilst the increased made “scammers ask a victim’s existing telco to switch the number to a new SIM”, the effect is the same and because some players are cutting corners the consumer is left with the hardship. There is no easy way here and I get that, yet there is a larger stage of checks and balances missing all whilst cost cutting parties make ‘customer friendly’ needs, whilst parses of verification needs to be at the centre of this all and it is getting worse. 

Why is it getting worse?
Well, There were 5 attempts to scam me in the last 8 weeks, 2 of them were so good that I could not find anything wrong with the information and sources given, more importantly in one case I had to make a separate call to PayPal to make checks to make sure, they had become that good and I know what to look for, yet I have an ace up my sleeve (which I will not reveal here), it stopped numerous scams from being completed.

The first is that YOU NEVER EVER USE A LINK GIVEN! You find the number, the generic number of for example PayPal and you reference the numbers that you write down, they were ready to tell me that no such activity exists. If you click on any link you are causing damage to yourself. But the two (including PayPal) were so well done that finding the differences were close to impossible and I know what to look for. A consumer will have little to no chance at all. 

And matters are getting worse, because 5G will enable the scammers to approach well over 500% in the same time, their revenue goes up and at some point it will cost us, insurances will soon stop paying out and then it will become a much larger problem. You either pay an annual fee, or lose your money. I feel that this is where it is going. 

So whilst we see “to enable to SIM port or swap, scammers will need personal information, like your name, address, and date of birth” COVID give them the name and phone number, the phone number can in some cases link to an address and then only the date of birth is missing and with all these transgressed data bases. Now consider all these places that got hacked, which have a birthdate? Which have a phone number? And the image below completes the picture. 

We see three sources required to get all the data they need and they keep on adding data, data you freely give away in apps, data they captured, data from hacks on the dark web and it is BIG BUSINESS, in the example it is one person with the $10,000 target, now consider 750,000 in the UK alone, 500,000 in Australia, 35,000,000 in the US and consider that $10,000 was a small jab, even smaller would work for them, like a mere $500, with these numbers these criminals become billionaires within a month and these actions need to be done fast. They have per nation 3-4 days at the most, so within 2 weeks they are looking at millions and with 5G they can get more and they can get there faster. Do you still think I am kidding? Take a good look at what data you entered in ANY app or any website, now consider that these people are doing nothing more but to add data as much as they can, at some point (within a dozen sources) they have enough data to port you, to capture your bank accounts and to make changes to your life. They merely needed some time, a $2500 computer and a decent internet connection, the pay off would be a 7 figure number and with the speed they are tracked they would be living large in another country with nothing attached to them. That is the current reality and the level of checks and balances that are missing is just too unbelievable for words.

Enjoy your bank account (for as long as you still have it)