Loyalty programs deliver ample amount of information to businesses and scammers try to access this information and use them to commit identity theft.
Digitalization has taken over the world in a blink, and with the help of the internet, it has been easier for businesses and companies to grow and reach out to their customers. But staying at the top without losing customers is a tough job for a business or company. People have hundreds of choices and take no time to close the deal. Businesses or companies offer loyalty programs with discounts, rewards, and other special incentives to add new customers and retain old ones. But as we know, fraudsters are lurking all over the internet. They target people and lure them into sharing their details to exploit points. They even target such programs to collect their customers' information.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, "they received reports from 96,000 people targeted by a well-known e-commerce market platform impersonators, and nearly 6000 people said they lost their money. Reported losses topped more than $27 million."
Cyber-Forensics.Net, a bitcoin scam recovery company, says, "The scammer uses the phishing technique to execute loyalty points fraud. They send emails to the customers claiming to be sent by a well-known business or company and ask the customer to verify certain account information. After the scammer gets the credential information, they drain the customer's account by redeeming the points or transferring them."
What Is A Loyalty Fraud?
Loyalty fraud is a scam where the scammer abuses or exploits a merchant reward program for nefarious purposes. The biggest opportunity for scammers is monetizing collected loyalty data and points.
According to research, loyalty program-related fraud has risen 89 per cent yearly, with approximately $1 billion in rewards value lost to loyalty fraud every year.
What Are The Different Loyalty Scam And How To Identify Them?
- Phishing Attacks: The first step of loyalty program fraud begins with the hijacking of members’ accounts. To obtain these personal and financial details, scammers often pose as government or organization officials and send spam emails that provide a link to the scammer’s account. Instead of going to the legitimate loyalty program website, the victims are directed to phishing websites that steal their personal information, username, and password.
- Database Thefts: Fraudsters even target loyalty programs directly to steal their member’s financial and personal information. The scammers take advantage of unpatched software to make a way into loyalty program databases and extract their members’ data.
- Account Takeover(ATO): Here, the scammer hacks into an account by using the member's stolen personal identification number or by collecting their details through cyber-attacks like phishing scams and exploiting points balances and payment details attached to the account.
- Policy Abuse: This may be performed by legitimate loyalty members. They identify a way and take advantage of loopholes to earn many points or rewards by exploiting the platform or the program terms and conditions.
- Pooling Fraud: Also known as new account fraud, the scammer creates a fake account by using the stolen personal information and then uses the account to sell and redeem stolen points. The loyal program allows its members to transfer points from one account to another, which is a helpful feature but equally helpful for the fraudsters.
How To Stay Protected From Loyalty Scam?
Timothy Benson, a chief analyst at Cyber-Forensics, says, “The most common way a scammer uses to execute loyalty points fraud is by phishing attacks. Fraudsters often pose as a member of legitimate organizations and reach out to people through emails and text messages, convincing them to click on the fake website link and share their personal information.”
To avoid such scams, an individual should never submit personal information such as date of birth, social security number, or bank details on unknown websites. If a website looks suspicious or you find spelling errors, grammatical errors, or poorly designed, it is better to not fall for it.
A company should take down phishing websites before a phishing campaign reaches its customers with the help of products that produce data into feeds that a company can subscribe to find phishing websites.
What Is A Fund Recovery Company?
A fund recovery company is a team of professionals that helps an individual recover their lost funds in online scams. They offer quick results to customers worldwide with their years of knowledge and experience. These professionals have been trained to spot fraudulent behaviour and are well-versed in scammers’ tactics. They have exclusive tracking technologies that help track down the fraudster even if they try to hide their identity.
What Is A Fund Recovery Scam?
A funds recovery scam refers to a scam where the fraudster target victims who have already lost their money on online fraud and asks them to pay upfront before they start the process of recovering their lost funds. Legitimate bitcoin recovery expert cost is reasonable and ensures the individual that their lost funds will be recovered ASAP, giving the full detail of the investigation. A fraud fund recovery service asks for huge fees in advance, and once the victim pays them, they disappear, scamming the victim twice.
About Cyber-Forensics.Net:
Cyber-Forensics.Net is committed to providing the most accurate tracing service for victims of online scams. Cyber-Forensics.Net empowers and simplifies the process of tracking down the cyber-criminals and assists in recovering the funds and creating an atmosphere for a negotiated settlement. For more information, please visit http://cyber-forensics.net/.