Cyber Bullies

In the event of you waking up to see a debit transaction on your phone from your bank, what do you do?

So I woke up, my bad habit picks my phone up first. Ok, maybe it's not really a bad habit, I have my alarm which I have to turn off on it. I go through my notifications, to get to my devotional and I see a debit transaction of 12,068NGN. My first thought was “TF?!!”. Ok, so you can guess I got distracted and opened the email. So the email goes:

“I’m like I didn’t f***ing subs…. Oh!”

These scammers are not stopping at anything. They don’t even care who their victims are, they just want to get anyone who would fall for it. Rich or Poor. I mean, Me! I haven’t even made it like I know I would yet.

Anyway, I’m a thinker (I won’t just read my email without analyzing) or I guess I just like to analyze data. So when you tell me a solution is “2”, I guess I want to know if it’s:

2*1

1+1

2+0

1.5+0.5

2/1

And many more variations. Same thing should apply too when you get an email. Ok, I should use another example that isn’t mathematical.

You’re a police officer and you pull a guy over, he hands over his license and looks like the picture in it. You let him go if he’s not in serious trouble but the minute he is, you should do some additional testing (biometrics) to confirm he’s who he says he is and not that he’s using an identical twin or a lookalike sibling’s credential.

Same thing applies in emails. No two people can have the same email address. They can have same names but not email addresses. And no credible organization would send their emails from an mail server that isn’t in their domain name.

Screenshot of mobile version of email received with “names” not “emails”

I actually realized, on the web, email addresses aren’t collapsed like the mobile version:

 

Recipient is still showing “you” but sender is showing

But we are a mobile generation and we get to pick our phones up first before laptops or tabs. So, back to mobile…..

 

Always verify that the email address of the sender is authentic

Authentic email. After a transaction I knew I made

Email addresses are genuine

Let’s remember that it’s not only banks that have email addresses in their domain names. Most credible organizations have their domain names registered and would only send or receive official emails from that platform. Reminds me of a fake job flier I saw recently:

The email address is obviously fake!

The context of the email could look very real, as it’s easy to duplicate things on the internet. So another thing you should look out for is if you were addressed. Don’t think your bank has too many customers so they wouldn’t specifically put your name in the email (For debit and credit transactions I believe).

For my banks, I get a text alongside emails for debit/credit transactions. If there’s no sms accompanied with an email. It’s probably fraudulent. Follow social media pages of companies you do transactions with, they usually put up disclaimers. Go to company websites to see and know what’s real. Don’t play ‘curiosity kills the cat’ and be clicking any link anyhow.

They don’t have to put a gun to your head or harass you to rob you these days, let’s be vigilant in our online dealings. I hope this post has enlightened someone