Savings, cryptoassets, consumer loans… Online financial fraud is exploding. 338 new sites have just been added to the Banque de France’s blacklist. Here are our tips to avoid falling into the traps of new scammers.
Savings books promising up to 10% remuneration per year, tempting offers of consumer credit, payment services, insurance or crypto-asset derivatives… Like other “modern” scams, scams online financial services are multiplying, through emails, SMS or announcements on websites. It must be said that the context is favourable, since savers, surprised by inflation that seems to have become uncontrollable, are desperately seeking to protect their savings. How not to give in to temptation? How not to fall into the traps of new scammers? Who to contact if you have any doubts? How do you react if things go wrong?
ACPR: the watchdog of the Banque de France
Simply by taking a look at the blacklist “loans, savings books, payment service and insurance” periodically updated by the Prudential Control and Resolution Authority (ACPR), an essential organization, but whose name and activities are paradoxically little known to the general public. Backed by the Bank of France, this structure is in fact responsible for supervising the banking and insurance sectors. Ensuring the preservation of the stability of the financial system and the protection of customers, it ensures in particular to warn consumers against the resurgence of online financial fraud.
Regularly updated, the ACPR’s list, which can be consulted online, identifies sites, suspicious email addresses, or entities offering, in France, loans, savings accounts, payment services or payment contracts. insurance without being authorized to do so. During the first quarter of 2023, 338 new registrations were added to this file. And in the lot, 56% usurp the identity of duly authorized professionals, for example by hijacking a URL or the graphic charter of a known financial institution via a classic phishing scam.
Online financial proposal: the right reflexes
If you receive an investment or subscription offer on attractive terms, first ask yourself the following question: “Why me ?” Why would someone you know neither Eve nor Adam choose to offer you exceptional financial conditions to which tens of millions of small savers clearly do not have access? Even though the world isn’t populated exclusively by crooks, selfless philanthropists rarely come to your doorstep…
So, if you are faced with this type of situation, before clicking on a link, take the time to first and systematically check that your “interlocutor” is authorized to offer banking or insurance products by consulting the very official register of financial agents, the REGAFIthe register of insurance organisations, the REFUSED and the site ofORIAS. This organization, under the supervision of the Treasury Department, has been responsible since 2007 for keeping the register of insurance, banking or crowdfunding intermediaries (crowdfunding). Beware if your “interlocutor” does not appear in any of these files!
Conversely, if you can’t find his details on the ACPR’s blacklist, you might be tempted to believe that this is good news and that he is ultimately trustworthy. But there again… distrust! Because the ACPR’s blacklist is unfortunately not exhaustive insofar as new unauthorized sites regularly appear on the Internet. To keep your head on your shoulders, you also have to ask yourself the right questions. For example, if you are contacted by email or SMS, ask yourself how your “interlocutor” was able to recover your telephone number or your email address. Admittedly, he could very well have legally acquired a qualified database on which your contact details appeared, but he could just as well have bought this information on the dark web, at the end of the hacking, of your mailbox, or of a database (of an e-commerce site, for example) to which you would have entrusted this essential information. To check if your mailbox has been “compromised” – and quickly change your password – go to the site Have I been Pwned?
If you have unfortunately been the victim of such a fraud, file a complaint as soon as possible, or entrust this filing of a complaint to a lawyer specializing in business criminal law or consumer law), which will most certainly save you… time, that is say several weeks of waiting before being summoned, without guarantee of particular expertise, by the police station of your district. The ACPR also recommends that you contact INFO ESCROQUERIES by calling 0 805 805 817 (free service and call from Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.) and to make a report on Internet-signalement.gouv.fr, even if you have not suffered any damage. Because a report can be useful to prevent other scam attempts.