As a business, one of the most important things you have is your reputation. It takes a lot of time to build up a customer’s trust and loyalty, and it can be shattered pretty quickly if you do something wrong. That said, it’s not always you who ruins your business reputation.
If there is someone pretending to be a part of your business, who scams or upsets one of your previously loyal customers, and they don’t realise that it’s not actually you, or someone from your company, this can be really negative for your reputation.
Hopefully, people will do a phone number search and this will tell them that it is a common scam, and not actually a call from your business but this relies on people using this online service. It is also especially difficult when scammers spoof the number they are using, to make a text or telephone call appear as though it is coming from an official number, even when it is not.
No one is immune
An example of this type of scam on a large-scale is one where the fraudsters call a number and pretend to be a large IT company, such as Apple or Microsoft. They explain that they have found a virus on your computer and will claim that you have to download a certain anti-virus software – often at a cost to you. Of course, not only are you paying for something that isn’t legitimate, but oftentimes it will actually install malware onto your computer and steal your personal information, either to sell on, or use in other scams.
Screen sharing
Amazon Prime has also fallen foul to a similar scheme, with victims receiving an automated call that alleges that they have overpaid for an Amazon Prime subscription and that by simply pressing the ‘1’ key on their phone, they will be cancelling this transaction. There are a few ways that this can go from here – either by connecting the victim to a premium rate phone number and running up a hefty bill, or by connecting to a real-life scanner who will offer to “help” you by encouraging you to download a team viewer app on your computer. This means that they will then have remote access to your computer, and with this, they can steal passwords, bank information and credit card details.
Of course, Amazon wouldn’t call you if you were being charged incorrectly and most of us know that, however, these scammers tend to take advantage of the vulnerable in society who may not be quite as tech-savvy, or understand the etiquette for something like this. They may also find it hard to believe that it isn’t really Amazon/Apple/Microsoft/your business that is calling them, especially if the perpetrators are especially convincing, which can be devastating for all involved – not only the businesses whose reputations are being torn to shreds but the poor victims who have given away their personal details.
