Tuesday 28 September 2021

the online banking scandal that the banks don't want to talk about

The banks are very keen to encourage online banking, but amongst all the talk about how their bank's security systems are very safe, what gets much less emphasis is that online banking is only as safe as your own computer or smartphone security. Yet the numbers of people losing money through their own computers is staggeringly large. Compromised passwords and 'trojan' malware that spies on your security information are two top methods by which the fraudsters raid your online bank account. And sometimes this is damn near impossible to stop. Now we all want to improve our passwords and check that we've got the right protection software (after all it's available free of charge), but even if you have done all this there is still a significant risk. Why take it?

Banks don't publish numbers of their customers who suffer losses through online banking. Perhaps if they were published people would think twice about online banking. I've certainly heard lots of reports of people losing money from their accounts, and some reports indicate that the numbers are increasing rapidly. Yet online banking saves the banks a lot of many in employing bank staff to process transactions, either through telephone banking (where call queues are often long) or conventional physical banks (which are rapidly declining in number). Banks end up having to settle a high proportion of fraud cases by recompensing the customers, but I imagine the cost of doing this is worth the hassle. But is it worth the hassle for the customers who have been seduced into online banking?

We're given this steer now that only old fuddy-duddy people don't do online banking. Well, I think smart people will deliberately avoid it, and save themselves a lot of worry for the cost of a bit of extra inconvenience. Sure, I used to do online banking and of course it's simple, easy. But it's also simple and easy for the well-trained crook. So I stopped using online banking.

Now most of us do online purchasing a lot - especially since the corvid period. And yes, the thieves can get into your shopping accounts as they can to your online banking. But whilst this is bad - who wants to find that you've been buying pizzas for some stranger in Montreal? - it's not as potentially ruinous as thousands of pounds being stolen from your bank account. So I draw a line at that one. The pity is that so many people fall victim to the banks' pressure to go online and suffer as a result. I say, let's stop doing this. Let's see the banks employ more bank employees to work from real banks, and we won't' be giving so much more money to the fraudsters instead!