What are the most common forms of internet fraud and scams?

Fraudulent practices on the internet are wide ranging – from credit card misuse to phishing, where perpetrators spy on your personal information and access authorisations, to extortion, where criminals disable a server or data and demand money in return for restoring use or access.

A huge number of sales and purchases are conducted online. Are scams a frequent occurrence?

Indeed they are – on the vendors’ side. Time and again users of platforms like ricardo.ch or tutti.ch order and pay for goods that are never delivered. Or, vacation homes are advertised that in fact don’t even exist. The customer makes a down payment and never sees the money again.

But customers can also act in a criminal way, most commonly with merchandise purchased online. Some customers order merchandise, never intending to pay for it. Or they make the purchase under a false name.

How can merchants protect themselves against internet fraud?

Merchants should offer credit cards and PayPal as payment options – both are pretty secure. Caution should be exercised if a customer gives a delivery address in Switzerland, but the IP address is in another country or it’s concealed or fake. Merchants should also be alert if the delivery and billing addresses differ from one another and if the value of the purchases in the shopping cart is unusually high. I recommend that online shops get comprehensive advice from a service provider specialised in fraud prevention.

How can customers best protect themselves?

Customers should not trust just any online shop. Check reports from other consumers about their experiences with the shop on Google, for example, and check where the company has its head office. In Switzerland, companies are required to state their address, including the canton, on their homepage. If you purchase from a Swiss company, it is easier to assert your legal rights, if necessary. Companies that have their head office in some exotic place do not inspire confidence. You should also be suspicious if the website contains a lot of graphical errors or language mistakes and if the published prices are unnaturally low. Plus, you should never buy from shops that offer advance payment as the only option.

In what areas is online fraud widespread?

Fake online identities are found circulating on dating websites, and, of course, the trick with fake lottery winnings is one of the oldest in the book. After convincing the victim that they’ve won a lottery prize, the criminals demand money up front to cover the administrative costs of paying out the fake lottery winnings.

Can anyone become a victim of online scams?

Yes, there are just as many potential targets as there are motives. A big bank can be a target, just like a private individual can be.

What can I as a private online user do?

Vigilance and a little healthy suspicion go a long way to preventing bad experiences. Be careful about what information you reveal about yourself and to whom, and remember that every bit of information that you share can potentially be misused. As a guideline, ask yourself, what information would you feel comfortable posting on your front door for anyone to see? You should never reveal more than that in the virtual world. In particular, you should protect login codes for e-mail and e-banking, credit card information and web accounts.

How can I best do that?

Ideally, you should encrypt the data on your mobile devices and choose a different highly secure password for each of your accounts, which you should also change regularly. A secure password is at least eight characters long and comprises letters, numbers and special characters. I also recommend using a software that stores all your login codes in encrypted form and only allows them to be accessed after entering a high-quality password.

Do virus protection programs actually do what they promise?

They help by offering protection against malware that has been around on the web for a while already. They can’t protect you 100% because viruses are constantly changing form, and new attacks are hard to recognise.

Here, too, being vigilant yourself supports the work of your virus scanner. Don’t trust everything you find on the internet or read in e-mails. For example, trustworthy firms will never request confidential information from you by e-mail! Be careful opening e-mail attachments, even if the sender initially seems familiar to you, and never permit macros to run automatically in Word, Excel or Access.

Try to surf only on sites you trust. It’s best to have a computer you only use to surf – separate from the computer you use for office work and banking business.

Does this mean that IT security technology is destined to always be a step behind the criminals?

Unfortunately, that’s the case and it will remain so for some time to come. Every system can be hacked in some way, and as soon as one fraudulent practice is uncovered, a new trick is there to take its place. It’s assumed that the digital world will develop exponentially. For example, the “Internet of Things” is imminent, which means that it will not just be human beings, but also household devices, switches and sensors that will be connected to the web. This will give criminals even more opportunity to cause trouble.

How do we protect you from damage caused by online fraud?

Generali offers products that include cyber coverage, ranging from reimbursement of the financial losses suffered because of fraud through to IT assistance services. Cyber bullying, credit card misuse and online shopping fraud are also covered. In this case, the protection we offer includes legal services provided by Fortuna. Fortuna also offers its own insurance solutions for private individuals and companies built on a variety of cyber insurance modules.

Cyber insurance products are in demand, especially by companies, young adults and parents of children and teenagers who spend a lot of time on the internet and in the social media world.