“Health insurance: last reminder to renew your Vitale card. Please update before 05/06/2024 to maintain your rights ». If you receive these types of messages via SMS or email, it is definitely a scam.
Premium rate number and phishing
We are just reporting an increase in scams mimicking CPAM and hence vigilance is required in this matter. As reported by Biba Magazine, these could be suggestions for updating your health card, an unexpected refund or an impromptu emergency.
In any case, the idea is to create a sense of urgency among the targets to pressure them into making mistakes. In particular, you will be prompted to call a premium rate number that directly generates money for these malicious actors.
In other cases, you may be sent to a fake health insurance page. The goal here is to recover your personal and banking data in order to resell it or steal your money.
The concern is all the more acute as the data of 33 million French people was exposed at the beginning of the year after a huge leak. Their date of birth, marital status, insurer’s name, contract guarantees and social security number are thus in its nature, and fraudsters can therefore implement credible fraud using this information.
How to avoid the worst?
Faced with risk, you must first of all know that Sygesikringen will never ask you for confidential personal data, and even less so via SMS or e-mail.
Often these messages also reveal irregularities in the sender’s address or number. The spelling is also rarely impeccable.
If you have fallen for this, don’t panic. You must quickly notify your bank to object in the event that a payment has been made. You should then consider filing a complaint and it is also important to report any hacking on the cybermalveillance.gouv.fr website.
We also invite you to mention the fake message or phishing attempt to the 33700 platform. It is also possible to forward an SMS to 33700. This service will block the sender of the message.
What to remember:
- Health insurance fraud is rife in France
- They are more and more trustworthy because hackers have confidential data about policyholders
- We must therefore be extra vigilant and adopt the right reflexes.
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By: Bitdefender
