Bank customers warned against making large cash withdrawals during holiday period

By Clinton McGregor 

   

The head of Fraud Prevention at NCB, Dane Nicholson, is warning customers of financial institutions to, as best as possible, avoid making large cash withdrawals over the Christmas holidays.

 

Mr. Nicholson says criminals have stepped up surveillance of and attacks on people withdrawing large sums of cash to shop or conduct business over the holidays.

 

He said some criminals are pretending to be bank customers, watching and waiting inside the institutions for persons making large cash withdrawals, then trailing and robbing them.   

 

Instead of visiting the bank to make these withdrawals, Mr. Nicholson urged bank customers to conduct the transactions via the RTGS and ACH channels, or NCB's E-link platform. 

 

Meanwhile, the anti-fraud expert is again urging banking customers and business operators to remain on high alert for cyber-criminals seeking to gain access to their accounts through smishing scams.

 

He admitted that while there is an increase in the number of phishing and smishing scams, there has not been an increase in the number of customers falling victim, presumably because financial institutions have intensified their customer education campaigns to ensure their customers are aware of and report such scams. 

 

The Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency (MOCA) recently charged nearly a dozen people for allegedly defrauding the accounts of banking customers using a smishing scam.

 

A member of the Jamaica Constabulary Force is among the accused.

 

The public is also being urged not to share sensitive personal or financial details, such as passwords or banking information, with unknown or suspicious sources.