Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1540302
3 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 12 OCTOBER 2025 NEWS and the millions lost to online fraud money transfers; by not rushing to ad- here to instructions received through SMS suggesting that their card has been blocked; by not giving personal details, pin numbers and passwords over the phone," Ryan Caruana says. Mark Falzon recounts one case of a woman who received an SMS informing her that her bank card was blocked and requested her to click on a link. "Her solution to determine whether her card was truly blocked or not was to head down to a convenience outlet and buy a packet of water and pay with her card. The transaction went through seamlessly, giving the lie to the fraudu- lent SMS," Falzon recounts. It was a simple way of verifying wheth- er the message was real without running the risk of being defrauded. But Falzon is concerned about the instant payments system that kicked in across the EU on 6 October, which mandates that any transaction needs to be processed with- in 10 seconds. "It is convenient for customers but it is an additional headache because it allows fraudsters to quickly transfer funds, making it even harder to track them down," he says. As for Maria, she rues the day she was taken in by the kind words of a surgeon from Gaza as she struggles to under- stand the betrayal. Like her, many more victims of online fraud will follow. The appeal from bank officials and law enforcement officers is to constantly remain vigilant. Denying faceless pred- ators, the keys to our online lives, they insist, will always remain the first line of defence. Fraud reported by BOV clients 2025 Business email compromise (BEC): €1,128,460 Bank scams: €951,110 Cards: €760,524 Other: €380,046 Investment: €1,675,890 Romance: €441,590 TOTAL: €5,337,620 Figures valid until end September BOV also stopped €2.2 million in client funds from being lost to fraud Online fraud reported to police 150 cases TOTAL: €8.3 million Figure valid until end June Caruana says that €200 million a day are lost in online fraud alone across the EU and UK.