The National Police has once again alerted users about the danger of getting lost when using the Bizum mobile payment application. In a message via twitterhave once again made it clear that when using the platform to receive a payment, you must pay close attention to the types of movement that appear on the screen.
“In Bizum, receiving money is not the same as requesting to receive money,” the Police remarked in the tweet.
Indeed, in recent months, especially since the start of the pandemic, cybercriminals have taken advantage of Bizum to trick users into inadvertently sending them money. To achieve this, it is quite common for them to resort to second-hand stores such as Wallapop or Milanuncios.
On these platforms, criminals pose as buyers who show interest in a particular product. When they address the user to negotiate the purchase, they ask you to make the payment automatically through Bizum.
The problem is that, instead of a payment, what they make is a request for money. If the victim accepts it, he ends up sending money to the alleged buyer instead of receiving payment for the product in question.
via whatsapp
Another form of fraud occurs when the scammer sends a WhatsApp to his potential victim, changing the sender and making him believe that it is a person from his contact list. The fraudster informs you that by mistake has made a Bizum of 20 euros or another amount of money and asks for it back. This fraud is also common in the theft and theft of mobile phones when criminals send the message to dozens of contacts from the same terminal as the victim.
It should be remembered that Bizum is already the app for making payments most used due to its convenience and immediacy. Five years ago it was created and there are already 23 associated banking entities to it to facilitate, in addition to transfers between individuals, payments in shops, so criminals take advantage of any minimal security breach.
These types of scams are becoming more and more common, which is why the authorities insist on alerting the population so that they do not answer messages from unknown people or click on suspicious links or accept very succulent offers. Telephone calls through which they offer products to the victim are common and deceive them into believing that they will be able to access a discount when in reality they are creating a bizum account that the fraudster can use electronically.