Guaranty Trust, @gtbank_helps; Guaranty Trust Support, @IGTBANK HELP; Guaranty Trust Bank Official Live Help, @chatbanklive; and multiple Guaranty Trust Support Platform accounts only distinguished by numbers are among numerous scam Twitter accounts that respond to Guaranty Trust Bank (GTCO) customers who lodge complaints on social media.
On Saturday, Elohor Omame, investor and partner at Tlcom Capital and First Check, reported multiple scam bot accounts disguising as customer support accounts of GTCO.
Omame, who laid a complaint on a compromised bank account online, was responded to by three scam bot accounts claiming to be the official customer support handles.
The accounts, which appeared very similar to the official GTCO customer support handle, asked her to send a direct message via WhatsApp using phone lines they provided.
Social media has become an integral part of society and even financial institutions have included its use in their operations to improve responsiveness and connectivity.
But as with anything operated in the cyberspace, it does come with risks.
While the official handles of the bank’s support handle has a gold verification tick, the faux customer support handles bear striking similarities to those of the original handles, and unsuspecting customers could fall prey.
READ ALSO: ‘No Refund’, GTBank Tells Customer Whose N264,000 Went Missing
For instance, the official and verified GTCO customer support handle, @gtbank_help, is very similar to scam bot accounts @gtbank_helps and @IGT_HELP.
The distinguishing factors are very minute and easy to miss, especially if tagging the handles to a post.
They all use the official logo of GTCO and often direct customers to send them direct messages on WhatsApp with their complaints.
When Omame ran the contact numbers provided by these scam bots on True Caller, an identification app, some of them returned as ‘scam’ and others were registered in the names of people.
Guaranty Trust Support @IGTBANK_HELP and @chatbank_live have now been suspended, but Guaranty Trust, @gtbank_helps, is still in operation.
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