I talked to a colleague yesterday who mentioned she got a call from allegedly Lazada informing her that she has an outstanding balance and whether she wants to pay via a payment link. Thankfully she hung up right away.
A few thoughts on this:
- This seems like a simpler scam that refers to a commonly used platform and exploits people’s familiarity with paying on the platform. I imagine a small subset will feel the urgency to make the payment and unfortunately fall for this
- However, referring to need to pay will raise many people’s suspicion
- It is good to verify a few times any payment you need to make via payment link sent online. A mistake via bank transfer and you won’t get your money back
- This is why I still believe there is still room for Credit Card in this Real-Time-Payment market. At least with credit cards, any mis-payment to scammers can be reversed in time
It is prudent to be vigilant about paying anything via links sent by sources you don’t know!