Central Bank warns public to be attentive of financial scams, phishing emails

Central Bank (CBSL) yesterday said that its attention has been drawn to recent grievances received from the general public regarding financial scams spreading through phishing emails and social media messages.

The Central Bank has noticed that the image of its Head Office building, its logo, and names of senior officials of the bank, are being used by scammers and fraudsters to solicit money from the public by disguising such scams as being sent from a trustworthy entity.

Fake email addresses such as [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] etc. are used to send these emails. Recipients of these emails are informed of having won a large cash prize in foreign currency through a mobile number draw or through a certain well-known international brand promotional campaign and are persuaded to deposit certain amount of funds to claim the prize. 

Further these emails deceive the email recipients, by attempting to obtain personal information including passport/national identity card numbers, bank account details etc. for authentication purposes, to send cash prizes.

In this regard, the Central Bank said it wishes to inform the general public that the CBSL has no involvement with such reward schemes. CBSL has already reported this matter to relevant Law enforcement authorities for necessary action. 

Hence, the general public is requested not to be victims of such financial scams and to respond to such promises of monetary giveaways by first contacting respective institution/company that the suspicious email claims to be from to confirm the authenticity of such emails and if found to be a scam, to inform the nearest Police Station for investigations immediately.