Falling Victim to Scams Digital Tells A BioCatch Podcast

The fourth episode of Digital Tells: A BioCatch Podcast focuses on scams and social engineering. Why is there so much scam activity these days? Why are these scams so successful? And what, if anything, can financial institutions do to help protect themselves and their customer?We open with a first-hand story of a brilliant social engineering, told by Coby Montoya (https://www.linkedin.com/in/cobymontoya/). Tim Dalgleish (https://www.linkedin.com/in/timdalgleish/) discusses some of the Digital Tells that may indicate scam activity. And Ayelet Biger-Levin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayelet-biger-levin-a32b81/) explains the layers of machine learning and analytics that converge to detect scams.  TranscriptCoby Montoya Sometime in fall in 2019, I was working from home. Middle of the workday, I received this text message from it says it's from Capital One. It says, Hey, there's been a charge on your card at this Wal-Mart in California. Is that you? Yes or no? I said no. I responded back. And I immediately took out my Capital One card and looked at the back, called the phone number in the back to report this, you know, hey, this definitely was not me.Peter Beardmore The voice you were just hearing if from a gentleman I met recently. He’s a professional, in his late 30’s, lives in Arizona.. and the scenario he’s discussing not uncommon. It’s happened to me. It’s likely happened to you… but this story gets interesting….Coby Montoya So as I'm on hold, I receive additional texts. Says, OK, this wasn't you type one if you would like someone to call you instead of having to call and sit on hold. So again, middle of my workday, you know, this is much easier for me than having this on hold. So I said, Sure, have someone call me back a few minutes later, actually, probably less than a minute. I receive a call back and the phone number was, you know, same phone number for my Capital One card. And so I let them know, Hey, this was not me. You know, I identified myself. I authenticate myself, providing some basic information, and they say, OK, well, we can send you a replacement card. We'll deactivate this one. It's going to take about three to five business days to receive this card. It's actually a card I use very frequently. So I ask them, Hey, is there any way you could send this out sooner? They said, Well, we can. There's a fee that comes with that, but you know, you just experienced fraud. So we're going to go out and waive that fee for you, right? All right. Great. Good experience. And I appreciate it. And so they said before we send this replacement card out, however,