BACKGROUND:
CityAM report rising UK fraud levels branded a ‘national threat’ by banks. Financial fraud rose by 30 per cent in the first half of 2021 resulting in losses of over £750m, according to the latest fraud report by banking trade body UK Finance, published this morning.
Authorised push payment fraud, where consumers were unwittingly scammed into approving a payment into a criminally-controlled account, increased 71 per cent during the first half of 2021 compared to the same period last year. Over £350m was lost to these types of fraud across over 100,000 cases.
<p>Banks will do what they can to pay people back if they are caught up in a scam but a common misconception is that all victims will always and easily get their money back. This is not always the case and mustn’t be used as insurance. On many occasions, unfortunate victims will be cleverly scammed out of huge sums of money through sophisticated manipulation techniques used by fraudsters to con people out of their cash and APP fraud is a simple yet extremely effective way to target many people. </p>
<p>More needs to be done in training people to spot the signs and the banks can’t rely on their current systems to protect their customers. If the banks are not to reimburse, we must take it upon ourselves to protect us from these increasing scams. Banks will never ask for one time passwords nor will anyone else genuinely ever need to see that code sent to your phone. Scammers often use fear, scarcity or credibility as a way in socially engineering their prey into following simple orders. However, people must question the motive at all times and exercise caution with any call or text before they move any money or hand over sensitive information.</p>