Vishing is a portmanteau of "Voice" and "Phishing" - a fraud technique that extracts personal and financial information over the phone. It is the telephone version of web-based phishing. In Japan, "bank transfer fraud," "It's me" scams, and refund scams all qualify as vishing, collectively known as "special fraud" and recognized as a social problem.
Typical techniques include impersonating a bank employee to say "Your account has been compromised" and extracting PINs, impersonating a tax office to claim "You have a refund" and guiding ATM operations, and impersonating police to say "Your account is being used for criminal activity" and coming to collect cash cards. The use of caller ID spoofing to display real institutional numbers is also increasing.
Compared to email and website phishing, vishing is more troublesome because direct voice interaction allows criminals to adapt their tactics to the victim's reactions. They skillfully employ psychological manipulation - creating urgency, eliciting sympathy, or wielding authority.
The cardinal rule is: when asked for personal or financial information over the phone, hang up and call back using the official contact number yourself. Banks and police will never ask for PINs or passwords over the phone. For families with elderly members, repeatedly communicating this principle is crucial. Recently, voice cloning technology has been reported to mimic family members' voices, making it dangerous to identify someone by voice alone. Establishing a family code word is an effective defense against both vishing and voice clone fraud. Review specific countermeasures in bank transfer fraud prevention.