Caixa Geral de Depósitos alerted clients to a new type of scam that uses WhatsApp video calls to deceive victims. Criminals contact clients pretending to be bank employees and ask them to share their phone screen, claiming they want to cancel suspicious operations or resolve problems with the bank account. The institution clarified that it never asks clients to cancel operations in this way, nor through links sent by third parties.
The scheme often starts with email or SMS messages that mimic legitimate bank communications, including links to fake pages similar to the real banking service. On these fraudulent websites, login credentials and contact information are requested, and a fake call may subsequently follow to obtain more information and carry out fraudulent operations.
One of the reasons these approaches manage to convince victims is that criminals can use "spoofing" techniques, which allow calls or messages to appear to come from a legitimate Caixa number. Seeing the bank's name or a number apparently associated with the bank on the screen is not a guarantee that the contact is genuine.
CGD recommends that, when faced with any suspicious contact, clients should not click on links, should not provide personal data, and should end the interaction. Anyone who suspects a fraud attempt should immediately contact the bank and the authorities. The bank also reinforces that it never requests credentials, SMS codes, banking data, or card matrix coordinates through unsolicited messages or calls.
