BANCO de Oro Unibank cautioned its clients and the general public against the various modus operandi of scammers aiming to steal account details, particularly at this time when people are using more online banking services for their transactions.
BDO has been actively tracking and taking down fake emails that persuade clients to “immediately update” or “verify” their accounts to avoid deactivation.
BDO said scammers pose as BDO employees and create email aliases that look legitimate such as “BDO Customer Care” to make it appear as official communication from the bank.
These emails lead to fake websites which also look legitimate where scammers then steal customer information.
“We’d like to reassure our customers that these email addresses were not taken from BDO’s database. Rather, these scammers harvest email addresses online and send them scam emails using a variety of fake bank aliases made to look like recognizable banks. This is why some customers get such scam emails from banks that they are not even customers of,” BDO said in a statement.
Aside from this, BDO said scammers also call clients and send text messages asking them for online banking details and One-Time PINs supposedly to protect the customer or verify a transaction.
“In reality, they are using this information to take over the customer’s account,” BDO said.
BDO reiterates that legitimate bank officers and communication will never ask for username, password and OTP and will never tell clients to click on links to online banking.
“We advise customers to be smarter than scammers and follow BDO’s website and official Facebook page to learn more about how to protect themselves,” BDO said.
