How to recognize and report fake e-mails or phishing

What is phishing?

'Phishing' is the general term for fraud in which someone tries to get hold of your personal (credit card) details. You may for instance receive a fake e-mail, SMS text message or WhatsApp message that will take you to a fake website.

Scammers will be looking for the following data:

  • Your credit card details;
  • The log-in details for Creditcard Online;
  • Your name, address and place of residence;
  • E-mail address and password for your e-mail address;
  • Details of your bank account (IBAN).

Unfortunately, we are - usually - unable to prevent the phishing activities of internet criminals. We would however like to tell you how to recognize fake messages and what actions you can take together with us to combat phishing.

View phishing messages

How does a fake e-mail work?

A fake e-mail is an e-mail that is sent in the name of ICS. The goal of the e-mail is to get you to provide personal data. The e-mail will contain a request to enter data and a link to a fake website.

Recognizing fake e-mails

You can recognize fake e-mails as follows:

  • The e-mail is usually not personal, it will say 'Dear client' or 'Dear Sir/Madam';
  • You will be asked to take action quickly in the e-mail;
  • If you do not respond immediately to the e-mail, your credit card will be blocked;
  • The e-mail will also contain a link that will take you to a fake website;
  • Your e-mail provider or spam filter will in fact usually identify the e-mail as spam.

How does smishing work?

Scammers who try to get hold of your data via SMS text messaging use smishing, i.e. SMS-phishing. Incoming SMS text messages are much shorter than a detailed e-mail. You will therefore often see an instruction such as ‘confirm your identity', 'remove the restriction on your credit card’ or ‘your credit card has been blocked for security reasons'. This is followed by a request to click on a link to resolve this.

How to recognize a fake SMS text message or WhatsApp message

To recognize whether someone is trying to get hold of your data via a message on your telephone, watch out for the following:

  • Short text;
  • You are asked to do something to be able to continue to use your credit card;
  • SMS text message comes from an unknown (foreign) number or from ICS.

Example of fake SMS text message

"Your card has been temporarily blocked due to the new PSD2 security requirements, avoid unnecessary costs and immediately reactivate your card via icsactivation.com"

Tip : ICS will never ask you via a link in an e-mail or SMS text message to log in, modify data or provide data. If you want to log in, always open a new tab in your web browser and go to icscards.nl/abnamrogb to log in safely. If you receive an SMS text message from ICS, it will be a request to contact us or you will receive a code for verification or authorization. ICS will never ask you to send in your credit card. If someone requests your credit card, do not send it.

Contact us

Phone number

You can call us Monday to Friday between 8:00 and 20:00 and on Saturday between 8:00 and 17:30.

Contactform

Send an e-mail via our contactform in Creditcard Online.

Postal address

Postbus 23225, 1100 DS Diemen