Are you scam savvy? Share your experiences - £200 voucher to be won.

[EllieSmumsnet]

Created for UK Finance

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With the cost of living increasing, it has never been more important to protect yourself from fraud and scams.

Criminals are taking advantage of the current challenges by targeting people with fake investment opportunities, too good to be true deals, loans that don’t exist and by impersonating trusted organisations.

What frauds or scams have you encountered recently? What gave the game away? And what steps do you take to protect your personal and financial information?

• Post your experiences in the thread below to be entered into a prize draw.
• One lucky winner will win a £200 voucher for a store of their choice.

If you’ve fallen for a scam and are happy to share your experience, UK Finance wants to hear from you so you can help others avoid it: [email protected]

Thanks and good luck with the prize draw!

MNHQ

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So many emails saying that parcels haven't been delivered and I need to click links and pay to redeliver. More recently "Virgin Media" have been calling every day for the last week to save me "a massive amount of money on my package"... I keep meaning to call Virgin to ask if it really is them.

I saw an advert on eBay for an interactive cat toy selling for {amount} but what they sent me was a toy that I could have bought from Tesco for small change. I complained, and they said would I accept a refund of half the cost and keep the item. I refused, so they said send it back for a full refund, only the postage cost was nearly what I had paid! I appealed to PayPal, who sided with the supplier and I lost my case. Later on I reverse image searched the item I had seen in the advert, and it was a real product selling for ten times the advertised cost

I've had sooo many scam emails from PayPal, Amazon, Inland Revenue - some are really good, others are more easy to spot. It's a shame that when my bank did text me that there was a suspect transaction on my bank account - I ignored the text, and even when they rang me I did not believe it was them - I googled the number which they rang from and it was genuine - so eventually got the issue sorted - and a new bank card was sent as it had been used fraudulently - you cannot trust anything .... shame really.

Like others, I've had a lot of texts recently claiming to be from my child. Unlike most of the email scams that have poor spelling, these contain the correct spelling. That's what gives them away, my child is of an age where it's all lazy 'text talk' such as writing 'k' and 'yh' etc.

I regularly get the Amazon Prime scam phonecall wanting payment for renewal. I also get the one where they say a warrant is out for my arrest for tax evasion - haven't been arrested yet though.

Joining a Neighbourhood Watch group is a good way to keep upto date. I actually run quite a large Neighbourhood Watch Facebook group for where I live to try and help vulnerable people keep aware of the scams out there and how to deal with them.

I've had the scam WhatsApp saying it's my child and they've broken their phone and to save the new number. I played along for a bit to waste their time as I wasn't busy but got bored in the end.
On various occasions I've had the scam saying my parcel is being held somewhere and to follow link to arrange delivery and pay fee - I buy a lot on-line so that always makes me think but not fallen for it yet.
Embarrassingly I did fall for one at work where a company I deal with sent me a "link" that I had to log-in to for access to a document. It was a scam and work had to reset all my passwords.

I recently received a text from a number saying that I had been in close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID. Then there was a link to request a free test but you pay for postage. I knew it was fake as the NHS don't send free kits anymore. I reported the text (and many others like the kid texting from a friends phone) to O2.

I sometimes get emails/messages from people I don't know all that well asking for help. Often it's older people who are less tech-savvy, and I've been known to message their children (if I also know them) to flag it up. Or I contact the individual by another means to check they're OK and tell them about the message.

I have never been scammed, Anything to do with my bank or asking for my details I do not give no matter what,

I was scammed on Shpock. They said their PayPal wasn’t working so I paid by bank transfer. Went to collect item and they’d used a random address. They chatted like a mum and sounded genuine. I got no help from police, Action Fraud or my bank. Ex husband had a similar scam on eBay and also got no help. You feel stupid but these people are very convincing and good at what they do!

I also got a message from my bank recently asking if I recognised a purchase, which turned out to be a scam. I had to get a new bank card but I wasn’t out of pocket. The bank traced it back to when I tried to download a parking app.

I’ve just had a phone call claiming to be from ‘Bt Open reach’ saying there was a fault with my broadband. It was a uk phone number but obviously from a call centre abroad. I’m so suspicious of any cold calls that I just immediately hung up. A quick google shows this to be a regular scam where they ask to take control of your laptop to ‘fix the fault.’

I work in IT, so am aware of most scams. When I get the occasional call from my “bank” with a heavy accent I tend to play along for a bit before going full-on 1070’s Bernard Manning on them.
Childish I know, but so satisfying.

I’ve just been scammed on Facebook market place. I’ve bought a lot of cycling stuff on there before with no hassle. I bought a bikepacking tent last week. Tent hasn’t arrived, ad has disappeared and seller isn’t reading or responding to messages. I checked his profile, checked his feedback, the tent was about the right price and I paid using the goods and services option on PayPal ie I think I did everything I could to mitigate scamming risks… yet here I am 🤷‍♀️ Feel irrationally angry! I should have PayPal protection but this person could have sold the same thing multiple times and ripped off multiple buyers and there doesn’t seem to be any comeback on them. Makes it hard for genuine buyers and sellers.

I had a bit of a barney with the bloke who tried the BT one ( don't normally engage but was bored). I knew it was a scam because a) he didn't ask any security questions and b) I have a portable router that doesn't come via the BT line. He wouldn't have it and spent about 10 minutes trying to persuade me that he knew better than me what my broadband is.

U.K. government ones about following the link to apply for the cost of living payment, sent from
a normal 07* mobile number.

Amazon emails about an automatic payment for Prime due to leave my account, please follow the link to query, sent from emails like "[email protected]"

HSBC alert about potentially fraudulent transaction of £8000 and my cards being stopped, please click the chat link to talk to a fraud prevention agent about how we have secured your account. This one almost got me, a moment of panic until I checked the sender of the email and it was "HBSC@FRUADSERVICE"

And my favourite was the phonecall from an Indian gentleman telling me my computer had sickness and needed immediate computer vaccine software, please provide my email and password so they can reboot my system from within.

Always get lots of scam emails but most I find obvious due to spelling etc. I did have one convincing one recently though which looked like real deal from a credit card I have but don't really use. It had all the right logos and the tone of the email seemed right. It was only when I was about to click on a link in the email that I noticed the from email address was not from an official sounding account. It was a close call.

Scammers are so clever and anyone can be taken in by a fake email or phone call. You have to be so careful and suspicious of every communication.

An email supposedly from a friend who was travelling ( she was) Said she’d been mugged, everything lost, could I send a few hundred pounds via Western Union. Knew it was a scam as she’d supposedly been mugged in Spain and only the previous evening I’d read a post written by her of her adventurous day motorhoming in Canada.

I had a text saying there had been suspicious activity on my Amazon account, click here to verify.
And another purportedly from my bank.

I'm naturally pretty suspicious of anything incoming via text so ignore and check accounts separately.

I've heard of the 'hi mum' one, it's very clever, but the warnings have put me on my guard.

I recently had a letter from The HMRC saying that i needed to pay a vat bill and gave me details on how to do it.
Given as I have never had to pay Vat i knew it was a scam. I also put the phone number they provided into Google and it came up a scam. They tried twice but i Just ignored them.

Had quite a few purporting to be from Apple Pay recently.

My mum has had a few telling her she has won money - luckily we have told her never to click anything without checking.

My poor elderly Mum has recently fallen for an online scam from someone who cloned a Facebook account and messaged her pretending to be said relative. She was taken for thousands. So sad that she didn't check with one of us before she parted with the money but she felt she knew them. It's been a sobering lesson for us all. Hopefully we are all a lot wiser and Mum now checks with us before answering anything. Sad that anyone would scam a recently widowed elderly lady.

Never thought I'd fall for one, but just yesterday I clicked a link on a website to the Joules Clearance Sale. Popped a few items in my basket - total £120. At checkout my payment failed. I tried again - payment failed. I then received a text from my bank saying they needed to verify some activity on my account. I looked at the website address and it was Joulesvip. Fortunately it appears the bank stopped any payments, but I had to spend 30 minutes on hold to the bank and cancel my card as the scammers have all of my bank details. Lesson learned!

I had a WhatApp message from my son who is overseas, saying 'mum, I'm using a friend's phone, I need urgent help, something has gone badly wrong'.

Fortunately, I had his girlfriend's contact details and rang her to find out what was going on. DS was asleep beside her in bed, nothing was wrong.

The worrying thing is, if I hadn't had contact details for anyone else close to him, I would have engaged with the WhatApp messenger and probably sent money.

It's a diabolical scam and these people must do their research beforehand, to know the parents will respond appropriately. Or is it just a question of sending the same message to a few thousand numbers and getting lucky every so often?

Amazon scams .........HMRC.........PayPal...........Covid..............Post office text...........Renewal of a virus blocker I've never had .........so many to check and delete - I seem to have had them all. I report them whenever I can - but don't seem to make any difference. If I ever get a genuine email - I will probably not act on it - shame really.