In recent years, calls for vigilance have been increasing in the face of ever more numerous scams. An investigating book shows how the crooks manage to obtain the information that allows them to trap their victims, and it’s cold in the back.
The scams seem more and more common and numerous. Regularly, we can see alerts given by the authorities on social networks, receive an email from the various services to which we are registered, or even read surveys highlighting new methods used by crooks. Despite these warnings, the number of victims of scams and fraud to means of payment increased from 250,900 in 2016 to 411,700 in 2023, an increase of 64 %, according to a study carried out by the ministerial statistical service of internal security (SSMSI), published in July 2024. It must be said that the criminals always find more and more realistic and credible ways.
Journalist Thibaut Martinez-Delcayrou, after having himself been the victim of a scam, has just published the book The chameleons – investigation into the scam with false banking advisers (Flammarion editions), in which he describes the mechanisms to which scammers use. They modify the telephone numbers to pretend to be their victims’ banking advisor, obtain extremely precise information (latest operations carried out, name of their parents, credit card number, account number, etc.) in order to have “The same knowledge as a real banking advisor” And to be credible when they speak to them, he explains in Brut.
In his work, he reveals one of the means by which the crooks obtain this information, and that is the point that earned him “The most threats, intimidation and silence“”as the subject is taboo. Thibaut Martinez-Delcayrou explains that banks have a lot of trouble recruiting in recent years, so that they call on temporary workers. “And that, the crooks have understood this. Banks need new people, they turn to the temporary. So, if you want to infiltrate a bank, nothing easier, it’s the open door”he explains, adding that corruption can also affect alternating or permanent people. These “infiltrated” Obtain customer information at the source, therefore, and resell it to the crooks.
The alert journalist: the phenomenon is far from running out of steam and should even continue to grow in the years to come. “It will be worse in worse, because with the arrival of artificial intelligence, it is predicted that, by 2027 (…), there is an increase of 300 to 400 % of scams of the false banking advisor. In 2024, we start to have these calls made with the real number of the bank, now it is with the real voice of the banquère or the banker, thanks to artificial intelligence”says Thibaut Martinez-Delcayrou.
The way to guard against it? If your bank seems to call you, hang up and remember yourself. Because, if the crooks may make believe that they call with the number of the establishment, they do not have access to their phone and you can therefore speak directly with your bank to find out whether the call was fraudulent or not.
