Mumsnet users share their thoughts and experiences of financial fraud with Take Five

[JustineBMumsnet]

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Finding out that you’ve been a victim of a financial scam or fraud is never an easy thing to deal with. They can occur through varying methods such as via phone, email, text and/or post. With that being said Take Five want you to share your and/or your friends and family’s experiences of fraud or scams.

Here is what Take Five have to say: “Our research shows that many people do not feel confident that they could identify a fraudulent approach. Therefore the event will aim to empower and inspire parents to feel better prepared to ‘confidently challenge’ fraudsters, and recognise signs of fraud - remembering the mantra – My Money? My Info? I don’t think so."

Do you have an internal siren that goes off when you feel like something is a scam? Perhaps you’ve been scammed before and now know the best course of action to take? Or maybe you helped stop a family member from giving their bank details to someone you didn’t feel was genuine?

Whatever you or your family’s experiences of financial frauds and/or scams, write them on the thread below to be entered into a prize draw where one lucky MNer will win a £300 voucher of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs Apply

I never click on email links in dodgy emails (check headers etc).

I get the odd spoof apple or paypal e-mail. I spot them but can see how people are sucked in. They can be very convincing. A good dose of cynicism is not a bad thing.

Be very wary of emails from banks /PayPal, never follow links always log on to their website separately and check the senders email address

I had a cheque book stolen & two cheques used from it.

Luckily for me my bank smelt a rat & contacted me instead of paying out. Since then I check my online banking daily and if I needed a new cheque book - which I haven't for some time - I insist on picking it up from my branch.

Had my eBay/PayPal id stolen once. I don't know how. Lost about £600 but managed to convince all concerned that it was not me. Very scary. Did not link my bank account to PayPal for a long time, but have now gone back to it, for ease. May regret it.

I had my card cloned and used for loads of £20 purchases which soon added up. Luckily some were in different countries on the same day I was in UK so the bank believed me.

We've had our bank account hacked before and to this day we still don't know how it happened or what happened. Luckily our bank was on it straight away and contacted us when they noticed something out of the ordinary on our account, we got a full refund obviously and had all of our account details changed to prevent it happening again.

I run anything past snopes and spend my life googling phone numbers and blocking them from my mobile. I try very hard to be savvy and igore or delete things that don't scan.

My Mum had her card details stolen and they spent £5,000 on art in Italy!

Once after a holiday in Paris where we had stayed In the most lovely b&b (no locks on door, two rooms only), I got home to realise that my card was still continuing to be used in Paris, I distinctly remember it was to buy expensive train tickets.

It was horrible to feel that I had been violated, fortunately my card provider sorted everything but it was still a horrible experience

I’ve had my credit card and PayPal account used fraudulenty. I haven’t linked bank account to PayPal and it was me who noticed the credit card fraud because I check my app regularly.
It’s pays to keep an eye on balances and to be very skeptical. I never click on emails where I don’t know the sender some can be very convincing but the email header generally gives them away.

I am driven crazy at the moment by calls claiming that I have been in an accident. Today they even said that they have an official report of some sort. Never been in an accident in my life.

I work in tax and you would be amazed at the number of phishing emails and phone calls our clients receive purporting to be from hmrc.

It does make me wonder how many unrepresented tax payers who don't have an accountant to check with get caught out by them. Some of the techniques used are really quite clever.

I had my card cloned at a atm many years ago - I am still wary of using them.

My current account was emptied the week before Christmas as the bank had sent a new card to the wrong address and some lovely person decided to use it to order hundreds of pounds worth of stuff online.
Rang the bank who sent a form for me to fill in detailing the purchases that I hadn’t made and the money was refunded - took about a week. A few days later the same happened as the exact same transactions went out as ghost transactions so I had to go through the whole process again.

It was incredibly stressful and I never found out whether anyone had been held accountable for it.
I check my bank accounts religiously as a result of this so would notice anything unusual that had gone out.

I always look at the full address of the sender. I trust no one who emails or calls and mispronounces my name. Or if they ask if you have a computer. And I ask the person to wait (if it's a call), leave the phone on the hallway table and go about my day. I always wonder how long they wait before they give up. 😆

I'm always wary of emails with links, I go directly to the website instead of clicking on the link

I never click on links in emails after I did one time and received a phone call asking for my bank details saying I had won the lottery. I'm more careful now.

I had my bank contact me and ask if I had made purchases in the USA. I was in the UK at that point and it seemed that the purchases, for relatively small amounts, were test purchases to see if my account was monitored. The bank reversed the purchases right away, I was never out if pocket, and they sent me a new card right away.

I've had no problems since then.

I get a lot of emails that look very realistic such as from my bank or PayPal etc. I always click the sender's email address because often it'll be something plausible like [email protected] as a proxy for eg [email protected]

That allows you to see that a company isn't sending you those emails.

I'm careful to check links before I click and also who sent the email. I got excited the other day thinking I had won a supermarket competition that I had entered but then realised it was from a hotmail account and had spelling mistakes everywhere

I don’t let my contactless card go out of my sight, after my parents card was taken away and they lost £3,000 after the chip was skimmed. Its surprising how many times I’ve had to say something.

I have saved my in-laws from several scams. One involving selling their boat, they were sent a cheque for more than the asking price 'by accident' then asked to cash it and refund... By Western Union. Big red flag that only I could see?!
Another one, MIL wanted to buy a cat. Found one online, apparently couldn't be a scam as the guy had a photo of him holding a cat and had spoken to her on the phone. But wanted payment up front and then the cat would be 'delivered'. Alarm bells again, I put a stop to that too.

There’s just been a case on our local news where a smallish charity has lost £30,000 of very badly needed money to sophisticated fraudsters. They explained that the fraudsters already knew such a huge amount of information about them that they became convinced it really was the bank phoning.
I’m really worried about fraud and think much more action needs to be taken.
I had a phone call not long ago from a fraudster. They hadn’t hidden their number so I called the local police 101 with the mobile number but they didn’t even take it down, they just weren’t interested in following it up. We clearly need far more resources to fight this.

I can't praise my bank enough for the way they've handled my account being fraudulently used. It's happened to me about 4 times now and the bank immediately stopped my card and phoned me, before I even noticed what had happened. I check my bank several times a day too. I don't know if they have a software programme that spots unusual spending, but it's comforting to know that they are in to it so quickly.