Experts are warning consumers who shop on e-commerce platforms against those who, under various pretexts related to their orders, redirect them to make payments outside the platform. Consumers shopping on e-commerce platforms are increasingly being directed to make payments outside the platform under various pretexts related to their orders. This situation is causing financial harm to a number of consumers.
Experts are warning consumers against requests to send money via IBAN, citing pretexts such as “there is a problem with your order,” “the product price was entered incorrectly,” or “you need to pay the price difference.”
Muharrem Baki, Chair of the Cybersecurity Commission of the Consumer Confederation, told an AA correspondent that one of the fraud methods recently encountered by online shoppers involves manipulating the order process to get consumers to send money via IBAN.
Recalling that payments via IBAN were previously common in purchases made through social media platforms, Baki said: “Consumers’ habit of shopping on social media platforms and sending payments via IBAN gave fraudsters the opportunity to exploit this behavior to their advantage. This type of fraud initially started simply as a method of taking money without sending any product.”
Baki noted that fraudsters today are able to use consumers’ actual purchase and order information to demand money through various methods, and added: “The real goal behind pretexts such as ‘there is a problem with your order,’ ‘the product price was entered incorrectly,’ or ‘you need to pay the difference for your order to proceed’ is to get consumers to leave the platform and send money directly to their accounts. Why do citizens fall for this and become victims? Because trust is established — you think the platform actually knows about your purchase. However, if malicious individuals gain access to your information and personal
