Criminals have been contacting banks customers over the phone and e-mail under the pretext of providing their IBAN account number, but with the purpose of tricking them.
The IBAN is a 22-digit figure that is used as a unique identifier for accounts and cards, so that it serves for local and international transfers, which will be in widespread use as of January 1st, 2019.
This number has been being updated by banks in recent months.
Any type of call is an attempted scam. No entity is calling its customers. The fraudsters pretend to be bank staff and know customer service techniques very well,”
explained Eduardo Prado, manager of the Central Bank.
To date 105 people have called the monetary authority asking for alleged calls to update the IBAN number and two indicated that they were already scammed.
Prado noted that calls increased sharply from last August and are expected to continue increasing, with the arrival of the end of the year.
Carlos Melegatti, Director of Payment Systems of the Central Bank, explained that bank customers can only find their IBAN numbers through the virtual office of their Bank, the mobile banking system, the checkbook, printed in the state of account or on the commercial banking services platform of each bank.