According to figures published by the Observatoire de la sécurité des moyens de paiement (OSMP) of the Bank of France on Monday, September 7, fraud through manipulation has risen again after stabilizing in 2024. This type of scam, which involves manipulating a victim to perform banking operations remotely or to disclose confidential information, increased by 34 percent in 2025, reaching 516 million euros in damages. These frauds, with the most common form being the fake bank advisor, now represent 41.6 percent of the total amount of payment method frauds, compared to 32.1 percent in 2024 and 21.6 percent in 2021. They mainly concern transfers (376 million euros), while damages from bank card payments remain stable (140 million euros), according to the Observatory in a statement. The increase is linked to data leaks, which have been experienced recently, favoring manipulation fraud techniques. By obtaining very personal data about their target, fraudsters can personalize their message and thus appear more credible and legitimate. No one is safe, as young people, the elderly, higher socio-professional categories, and others can be targeted. The surge in manipulation fraud is paradoxically a collateral effect of the progress made in securing electronic payment methods. The widespread implementation of strong authentication for online card payments since 2021 has yielded results, with the fraud rate for online payments made with cards issued in France halved since 2020, dropping from 0.249% in 2020 to 0.124% in 2025. To bypass this strengthened security, criminals are now resorting to handcrafted methods, gathering information on victims through phishing or data leaks and using it to manipulate victims into authorizing fraudulent withdrawals. The "online bank transfer" is at the forefront of this fraud. The entire increase in manipulation fraud has been borne by this payment method, which accounted for three-quarters of manipulation fraud in 2025, compared to less than two-thirds in 2024. The number of fraudulent transactions using this method increased by 182% in one year, while the overall use of this payment method increased by only 13%, leading to a significant increase in its fraud rate. In 2025, the online bank transfer has become the leading source of fraud, on par with the remote card, each representing 30% of the total value of payment method fraud, or nearly 360 million euros stolen in a year, out of a total close to 1.2 billion euros. The reason for the preference for online bank transfers is that at equal effort, the transfer is much more effective than the card for emptying an account. The average amounts per fraud diverted in 2025 were 1,457 euros with the online bank transfer, compared to only 60 euros with the online card. This is due to payment limits applied by banks, generally much higher for transfers than for card payments. The criminals' preference for the transfer has also been sharpened by the democratization of instant transfer, which allows stolen money to quickly get out of reach of the victims and their banks, passing it from account to account in less than 10 seconds. In response to this increase in manipulation fraud, the Observatory calls for "strengthening the mobilization of the entire French ecosystem to prevent this fraud risk as early as possible." It wishes to deepen cooperation with the telecommunications sector, including studying the possibility of setting up a single anti-fraud number, and better cooperation with digital giants such as Google, Meta, or TikTok to combat fraudulent publications and accounts. It also proposes that banks strengthen their fraud prevention tools and continue user awareness efforts regarding the risk of disclosing sensitive data during phishing attempts and the reflexes to adopt in the face of a fraudulent phone call. The French Banking Federation (FBF) reminds that no bank advisor, public authority, or anti-fraud service will ever ask a customer to provide their codes, passwords, or banking identifiers, nor to validate or cancel a remote transaction. In case of doubt, it is recommended to hang up, not click on any suspicious links, and to contact the bank or official organization directly.