An increased number of cases have been reported recently where consumers are offered to participate in a lottery. Lured to win cash or other prizes, people enter their personal information on various websites. In several cases, the information about the lottery was distributed on behalf of the National Bank of Georgia and consumers were encouraged to distribute these offers to others. We assure you that the National Bank of Georgia does not organize any online lottery. Disclosure of any personal information or data creates the risk of fraudulent conduct by parties interested in obtaining this information.

 

The National Bank of Georgia repeatedly calls on citizens to exercise extreme vigilance and caution when entering financial or personal data on the Internet. The citizens are strongly encouraged to verify and carefully look at the address of the website where information is entered, to look for data on the reliability and activity of the company concerned.  If, at first glance, the company seems trustworthy and familiar, we kindly ask them to verify the truthfulness of the offer.

 

In addition, we encourage our citizens to follow these rules:

• Not to share personal data to third parties without verification, as they may be involved in unauthorized financial transactions.

 

• To check the address of the website where they are going to enter their data before using financial services.

 

• To look at the content of the website. When creating a fake website, a lot of attention and resources are devoted to making it look like a real, official website.

 

• To be extremely careful of financial offers on social networks.

 

• To find out who owns the website; WHO.is. Users can verify the validity of the address.

 

• Trusted payment source: a valid official website will always require to use a credit card or an official portal (e.g. PayPal) to execute payments.

 

Please contact us on the hotline of the National Bank of Georgia - 032 2 406 406 for additional clarification.

 

The warning notices of the National Bank of Georgia are available here.

 

Additional information on financial fraud can be found on the Financial Education website.