Accounts of individuals or entities that were opened in person or electronically (digital onboarding) are deposited with money that shrewd people steal from their victims, put their hands on their accounts and transfer small and large amounts to Greek banks, foreign banks or fintech -companies.

These are accounts owned by students, unemployed or even naive citizens who, acting as “smugglers”, agree to participate in the transfer of money for a fee or serve someone who claims, for example, that because their accounts are blocked, he does not can receive money due to him from any activity.

Money in any case, whether it be transfers to successive accounts or direct withdrawals from the nearest ATM, is lost by their owners in a short period of time, and their real beneficiaries are left with empty accounts. Also, they cannot find their right with banks, as in most cases they are persuaded to give not only Internet banking codes, but also a one-time code, the well-known OTP (one-time password), which is now required for every transaction, and thus, these transactions are characterized as authorized.

Skimming accounts and extracting information from a personal account in an “authorized” way through email (phishing), smishing (smishing) or telephone (vishing) is currently taking the form of a scourge and, according to data published by large foreign organizations, is superior to old methods. interception of details, for example, cards. Fraudsters use more than just a method of sending misleading emails or sms, in which they encourage users to “click” a link to go to their bank and solve the problem, which is usually their account being blocked. It has become extremely common in recent times to call an unsuspecting citizen directly and, posing as an EFKA employee, OPEKEPE or even a tax expert – recently there have been complaints from official associations about this – say that they can help in filing a declaration. claim the benefit, thus being able to extract your account details. A less common, but not uncommon, practice is swapping SIM cards, a practice that gives them the ability to control a mobile phone number and receive codes for any of the mobile phone owner’s accounts.

Banks use various filters to limit the phenomenon, for example. alerting on account movements, delaying suspicious transactions, controlling the flow of money based on risk models and investing in technology, and informing citizens, but scammers are constantly discovering new ways to mislead the unsuspecting. E-commerce, as well as the digitization of a number of public services, is being attracted by astute people who do not hesitate to act as technicians interested in a car ad that someone posted and, why not, also as representatives of the Greek police .