Phone fraud: What are telephone scams and what measures should you take to avoid them?

Phone fraud consists of calls aimed at deceiving victims and obtaining a person's confidential information (such as personal details or access to online banking) and then scamming them. It is also possible that during the call, the victim is urged to make a payment for certain provided services. 

How does phone fraud work?

You may receive a call from somebody claiming to be a bank employee, a technician from a computer company, a telephone operator or an investment company with information of interest to you. In the case of the bank employee, for example, it may be to inform you about a suspected fraudulent charge on your card or account. If the caller is claiming to be from an IT company, they may tell you that they have detected a virus on your computer.
Using different pretexts and often sounding professional, they attempt to make you pay for services provided or ask you to divulge confidential data (passwords, codes, etc.) that, in theory, they need to carry out a series of checks. There are no such checks and the scammer will use the information you provide to defraud you.

What measures can you take?

If you receive a phone call (even if it comes from a seemingly legitimate telephone number) to inform you about something out of the ordinary and the caller asks for your personal and/or banking details, or for you to make a payment, you should always be suspicious and, of course, never divulge any information or make any payment. Remember that cybercriminals can use advanced deception techniques to hide their telephone number behind a legitimate telephone number.
If you do provide personal details or suspect you may have been scammed, you should inform immediately your CaixaBank advisor (if not available, you can call CaixaBank's 24-hour Customer Service helpline: 93 887 25 25/900 40 40 90 or +34 938 87 25 25 if you are abroad) and make a police report with all the details you were able to collect during the call (e.g. telephone number, the caller's name, the information they gave you to try and scam you, etc.).