Phone users warned of spike in criminals requesting OTPs
The massive growth in online transactions, especially during the Covid-19 crisis, has brought a spike in the number of scams to deceive customers into revealing their one-time passwords (OTP), telecoms giant Advanced Info Services (AIS) warned on Tuesday.
Methods used range from creating fake posts from mobile operators, to posing as banks or operators and offering fraudulent promotions in exchange for users’ OTPs.
Once they have a user’s OTP, criminals access their accounts and steal the money.
“The company is greatly concerned about its customers in this situation, and would like to state categorically that customers should keep OTPs personally confidential, like an ATM PIN code,” warned Saichon Submakudom, head of public relations at AIS.
“Do not reveal your OTP to any other person under any circumstances," she added.
"We would like to stress that AIS, as a mobile phone operator, will never contact service users to request an OTP, because the OTP should be known and used only by the customer to secure their own online transactions."
AIS has tagged a warning about criminal scams to the message it sends with OTPs.
Saichon said anyone worried about OTP security could contact the AIS call centre at 1175 or AIS Facebook, 24 hours a day.