WE SHARE WITH HOW TO PREVENT FRAUD DURING THE HOLIDAYS

Citizens report, mostly, receiving calls related with unidentified charges, apocryphal phone calls and messages and offers of doubtful credits. 

In the wake of World Bank Day, the Citizen Council for Safety and Justice in Mexico City informed that, from January to November of the present year, they received 112 reports related with frauds associated with bank loans, credit cards or unidentified charges. According to these reports, 79% of the cases are pending, while 21% of them were consummated.

Before this problem, the President of the Citizen Council, Salvador Guerrero Chipres, recommended being careful during the holidays, when some people have more money in their possession giving that they receive their Christmas bonuses.

Guerrero Chipres highlighted the alliances that the Citizen Council has with the Mexican Bank Association and Condusef.

“We promote crime prevention against bank account holders, fraud and extorsion made on behalf of bank institutions and information theft. We work with the Mexican Bank Association and the National Commission for the Protection and Defense of Financial Services Users (Condusef) for the development of information campaigns and user prevention of bank services”, Guerrero Chipres pointed out.

If someone suspects a fraud, they must follow these recommendations: hang up, verify and denounce doubtful phone calls; don’t give any information, passwords or NIP numbers and check that their accounts are in order by calling the bank directly or using the bank’s official apps.

It’s important to bear in mind that no bank ever calls to ask their account holders for personal information by phone. Also, they must not trust any promotion of loans offered through social networks such as Facebook.

In addition, Guerrero Chipres reminded that the Citizen Council has the app No + XT (No more extortions) where they can block over 171 thousand phone numbers that may be associated with crimes of fraud and extortion.

The situations citizens report the most are unidentified charges in 82.1 percent of the cases, offers of apocryphal loans or credits 17.8 percent. Fortunately, most cases, 79 percent, only result in attempts of fraud.

According to data and numbers registered by the Citizen Council, the most commonly used means to make bake frauds are: by phone, 91 percent, followed by electronic devices with 1.79 percent. In 7.14 percent of the cases criminals operate simultaneously both resources to consummate the fraud.

Nationwide, the five entities that call the Council the most are: Mexico City with 60.7% of the cases; the State of Mexico, 11.6 percent of the cases; Nuevo Leon 1.7 percent and Guerrero 1.7 percent. In relation with mayoralties, in Mexico City, the ones that received the greatest number of reports were Alvaro Obregon, Benito Juarez and Coyoacan with a total of 51.4 percent of the cases.

Finally, the Citizen Council calls upon victims of this type of crimes to report them at the Safety Line or the Trustworthy Chat 55 5533-5533. We offer free services 24/7, throughout the year.