At one point or the other during this pandemic, you may have received a phone call or an email from unknown individuals claiming to be government officials tasked with distributing relief funds to citizens. They go ahead to ask for your personal banking details such as your BVN in order to credit your account with the said funds. We hope you didn’t fall for this because it’s all cake! Scammers have gotten creative with their tactics and it’s good you stay vigilant so that you don’t fall prey. Below is a list of things you can do to avoid getting scammed.

Keep your personal bank details to yourself: Your BVN, PASSWORD, PIN and OTP are not public property and so should not be shared with anyone. If they fall into the wrong hands, your funds could be wiped in seconds. Let them be your best-kept secret.

Take extra care when shopping online: Online shopping can be so convenient yet unsafe. A lot of people have been scammed simply because they failed to follow the simple safety protocol of checking how secure or legit the site is. How do you tell? Well, if a website is secure, it will indicate via “https://,” a padlock icon and/or a green bar. Also, make sure you check for reviews.

Be careful when using public WiFi: The endless streaming/downloads, the freedom to surf the net without any restrictions… Everybody loves free WiFi! But not everything that is free is actually free. Connecting to free, unsecured WiFi network could be risky as scammers can access your personal details through it.

Choose strong and different passwords: We get it, you want a password you can remember easily and so you use your name, date of birth or even house address but you should know that using these leaves you susceptible to fraud as they can be easily guessed. The best passwords contain a mixture of letters and numbers (Uppercase and lowercase). You can throw in a few special characters to make it much more secured.  Lastly, it’s good you know that we will never ask you to divulge your personal banking details either through a text message, email or phone call. If you notice any unusual activity on your account, call 01-2712005 or email contactcenter@accessbankplc.com to get some help.