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

[EllieSmumsnet]

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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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I have had a couple from a courier via email -saying it's a missed delivery. However the dead giveaway is they do not address me by my name, or know my address - I either delete or report via my email provider as a phishing scam

I get the Amazon recorded messages - the amazon prime emails - and have had several saying I am a close contact for Covid - all with links to click. I am aware to check where the emails are from (usually there is a hotmail email address hiding if you expand the address line). They are really hard to spot - watch for the spelling t00. - there are otfen tpyos :)

My dad got one from the HMRC, saying he was going to get arrested for non payment of tax. He was of course beside himself - he rang me very distressed - I have found that if you use google to look up a potential scam, you can usually get good information. I did a screen shot - just confirming that it was a scam tp put his mind at rest - shame of whoever did this though.

I had a call a few weeks ago, purporting to be my bank, about "suspicious activity on my credit card". I knew it was a scam and told him so, but what was scary was that he then taunted me with a wide range of details which showed he'd hacked into some website on which I'd paid for something recently. My bank, when I called them on a different phone, were even able to suggest which website it was!

On a different note, re: the "Mum, I've lost/broken my phone" texts. Why wouldn't the child just RING you on the friend's phone? That's the most obvious sign it's a scam!

I THINK I am scam savvy - I have had lots of emails in the past few year from 'PayPal' 'Amazon' "DPD' Inland Revenue'. I always check the 'from' by doing a reply all -and you usually see a gmail or hotmail account behind the email
The Amazon phone calls really annoy me - wanting me to authorise a purchase of an Iphone
Check everything and NEVER click on links

Am old so they think I am an easy target. I am very ?helpful and give them made up bank details I then ask if they would like my password……….P1550FF 🤫🤫

Just had a new, concerning scam - while watching a YouTube video on my phone today, a pop-up box appeared telling me that my phone storage was almost full, and 'click to clear' - looked legit -The clue to me was the spelling of 'Warning' - with 2 'n's....

Spelling errors like this often give a heads-up, but it is sadly all too easy to be surprised or tricked into clicking something you believe is authentic. Best to suspect everything initially and only ever click when you are 100% sure (and even then, very sophisticated scams can succeed).

I think I am scam savvy, but only due to hearing about the awful situations others have found themselves in due to scammers, and the adverts from Banks help. I watch a TV programme which highlights scams, they are really helpful. (Gloria Hunniford and Angela Rippon highlight scams)

Had one just today from an antivirus company - they've taken money from my account as an auto renewal. A quick google search confirmed - yes it's a scam. There's a number to ring to cancel - not ringing.
Reported and deleted.

i have had several texts about paying for postage to be redelivered and i never click any links unless I can see the whole link beforehand. I aways track my deliveries properly from original email beforehand too

I tend to get the very non-sophisticated scam emails;

• You've won £10,000 just give us your bank card details.
• You are the heir to an unclaimed fortune & you need to hand over your personal details immediately.
• You are owed £1000s via HMRC refund, etc, etc.

Had a few phone calls claiming to be Microsoft saying my security had been compromised & I should upgrade immediately. My dad has had the text from scammers pretending to be his child - saying they have lost their phone, have a new number & need several hundred pounds transferring to their account asap. Luckily he realised. Listen regularly to Radio 4 & it's horrendous how these crimes are on the increase - people scammed out of thousands - pensions & life savings. Absolutely shameful that some people feel this is a way to make a living. I think the more we raise awareness about these scams, hopefully the less victims there will be.

I'm pleased there has been a lot of publicity about scams lately.

I do think the most important thing is to stop and think for a minute. It seems the scammers want to panic you into reacting. As a PP said, the Mum text shouldn't ring true to most people. I saw a local lady posting on Social media recently. She said "but they even know my DD calls me MUM" (Mam is possibly the most favoured variant round out way) I tried to explain that % wise the scammers were still onto a good thing.

My 78 yr old Mum got the 'Mum Ivr lost my phone's WhatsApp and thabkfully knew it was a scam straight away (she had heard about it and also knew it didn't sound like anything I'd do)

I've also had the scam text claiming to be from my child asking me to call them. Luckily it's been well publicised so I wasn't taken in by it!

I have agreed a 'code word' with the kids they will use in texts if they ever need me to call them or send them anything.

I also have 2 factor authentication set up on everything involving money like banking and PayPal.

I am cynical and believe most things to be a scam unless proved otherwise.

I seem to get all the scam messages going. It's quite exciting when I get a new one I haven't seen before. It's fun to pick apart the logic and grammar.

I did get one that was very realistic a while back that was from "my" mobile company saying as I hadn't renewed in a while I might not be on the best tariff. It was on a spoofed number, so looked genuine and up until the week before I hadn't renewed in ages. It was just the luck of having just renewed that made me realise it was a scam.

I always hover over who an email claims to be from to get it to show the email address before I even open an email. I get so many which say "Amazon", but when you hover over them the email address is just a bunch of letters and numbers.
The texts from ' the post office' requiring a charge seem to have stopped for now.
The phone calls from Amazon have not - i had a conversation with a nice little Indian man last week asking why he was trying to scam me ? ... line went dead

My workplace regularly tests us by sending phishing emails. Serious consequences if you fail a certain number in a year. Lose access to email and no annual bonus.
Recent scam emails or texts I’ve had are a need to click on a link to acknowledge that training had been completed or a link from a delivery company for an update on status of a parcel.

I have a pretty high index of suspicion, I think. I never click on unknown links and check the metadata on email I don't like the look of, and if anything am a bit too cautious - I once had a parcel sitting in customs for weeks because I thought the Parcelforce letters I was getting about paying the duty on it were dodgy! I think it helps to have habits you stick to when checking email or answering the phone to unfamiliar numbers, because the truth is most of these scams are pretty unsophisticated but they catch people out who are flustered or not really concentrating in that moment.

Having said that, some people are just more gullible then others. A friend of mine who is otherwise sane and sensible was convinced she'd been 'friended' on Facebook by Jacinda Ardern, no matter how much I tried to suggest that the real one might be a bit busy for that kind of thing...

A long time ago on holiday, we got sold timeshare style deal following a scratch card handed to us on the street and finding we had won something. Go to the hotel after spending half a day at the sales pitch and realised how stupid I had been. Couldn’t believe I had done something like that, it’s just not me. Had a search online and found out many people had fallen for it and apparently the spiked the drinks (they weren’t allowed to give you alcohol) etc. sounds far fetched but it did seem like it was the case, once I’d ‘sobered up’ I just knew I’d done something silly. It took a couple of years but we managed to get the money back via our credit card company. Lesson learned

When they first started - PayPal and HMRC scams - I was ALMOST fooled, I got my credit card out for one - then the little voice in my head told me to question where the email has come from.
I have now reported countless scam emails to my provider and they don't seem to reduce any.
The amazon 'you have a pending transaction for an Iphone' call really annoys me - i have blocked so many and they try again on a different number.

They must be scamming so many vulnerable people - because they keep trying. 😡😠😪

I simply don't trust any email from my bank, paypal or Amazon now - it's a real shame that more is not done about this - they must be making a mint out of these scams as they don't seem to be getting any less

It’s that time of year when the parcel delivery scam texts and emails arrived. I had one this morning purportedly from Royal Mail but there was one spelling mistake which gave it away. I have to say they scammers are getting better at faking the messages and I can see why so many people fall victim to them.

I think through raising this on consumer programmes and adverts from banks - I feel I would be able to prevent me from being scammed - saying that - really fed up of phishing emails and the calls from 'Amazon" or the HMRC

The winner of the UK Finance Sponsored Discussion is @DasAlteLeid. Congratulations!

There are soo many scammers out there - fortunately i've not been caught out - I am just glad there is a raising of awareness as scammers are getting more and more clever with their scams - particularly the tax refund emails which can be acted on as all the person would see is ££££'s - thanks Mumsnet for highlighting this