Technology

Alistair Fairweather

Whenever I make an EFT payment on my banking app, it warns me three separate times, in neon, that I might be falling for a scam, including for payments to my municipality's publicly recognised account. Such is the level of paranoia in the world of online payment providers.

As absurd as this behaviour is, it's not surprising. The volume and deviousness of scams sent to our cellphones seems to increase with each passing week. If it's not "Aramex Couriers" warning me that I owe R14.72 on my undelivered package, it's "Discovery Bank" screeching that my miles are all about to be cancelled unless I visit this charmingly opaque link. Older and more credulous people hardly stand a chance against the sheer volume of these digital letter bombs.