In the past weeks, both Turkey's Automobile Enterprise Group (TOGG) rule has opened pre-orders and Tesla, owned by Elon Musk, has started prepaid sales in Turkey. After these two developments, which were met with great interest, cyber crooks also attracted the attention of those who want to own an electric car, to participate in the draw or order by making a prepayment without an intermediary. Alev Akkoyunlu, Operations Director of Laykon Bilişim, the Turkey distributor of Bitdefender Antivirus, stating that a series of fraud methods are applied to deceive citizens who want to own a car, warns that you should make sure to take action after receiving information from official links, saying that fake websites are used in prepaid transactions.
In the past weeks, both Turkey's Automobile Enterprise Group (TOGG) rule has opened pre-orders and Tesla, owned by Elon Musk, has started prepaid sales in Turkey. While the number of participants in the lottery for TOGG reached 200 thousand, cybercriminals started to apply a series of fraud methods to deceive citizens during the draw and pre-order process that requires prepayment. Alev Akkoyunlu, Operations Director of Laykon Bilişim, the Turkey distributor of Bitdefender Antivirus, stated that cyber fraudsters use SMS, social media ads and e-mails, especially fake websites, to make prepayments to their own accounts instead of the original site. warns against scams.
They Use Brand Names and Logos
Alev Akkoyunlu stated that cyber fraudsters play a very good role by following the agenda very well and can deceive innocent citizens who want to make pre-orders or participation payments with fake SMSs, social media advertisements, websites and e-mails using the names and logos of automobile brands. “You can avoid being a victim of such scams by following some simple rules and informing your loved ones.” in the statements.
“By using text messages, social media ads, fake websites and emails, cyber crooks all try to deceive you by manipulating you through pre-orders, raffle entries, the last 10 cars left.” In his statement, Alev Akkoyunlu zamIt warns that you should make sure that you enter the website of the car you are going to buy, manually and make the transaction.
However, typos, misspelled email addresses and domain names, and suspicious links can prevent you from falling victim to attacks. Alev Akkoyunlu, Operations Director of Laykon Bilişim, the Turkey distributor of Bitdefender Antivirus, lists the other points you should pay attention to when ordering a prepaid car online:
- The content of an SMS, social media advertisement, website and e-mail contains the logos of the automobile brand, zamdoes not mean it is legitimate.
- Just because a file sent to you looks like a PDF or official document doesn't mean it really comes from the brand.
- Even if the scam email only asks you to reply to the message, don't reply if you don't know the person. If the offer is too good to be true and the reward you get is way bigger than your effort, it's definitely a phishing email.
- Try to get information from multiple official sources and check the information by going to the brand's website.
- If you want to be protected from such attacks, use a security solution that can protect you from phishing scams and malware on all your devices.