Credit card and banking scams carried out using email and phone marketing caused over £337 million worth of losses in the last financial year, according to fraud watch group Financial Fraud Action.
A wide range of scams targeted at families and individuals cost Britons millions of pounds every year in the form of illegal bank withdrawals, unauthorised transfers, and stolen credit cards.
Many of the scams reportedly involve fraudsters posing as officials from banks and government departments in an effort to gain the trust of their targets. Fake officials often convince targets to give their credit card information in order to ‘verify’ their identity as part of standard security measures.
One of the most recent scams involves fake bank officials calling a target to inform them of fraudulent transactions made using their credit card. The target is told to hand their card to a courier that will be arriving at their home within the hour.
The courier then transports their credit card to the group posing as the bank official over the phone, complete with its key identity information. Other scams involve the fraudsters posing as cancellations departments for banks and credit unions.
Other common scams involve fraudsters sending unsolicited spam emails to targets in order to convince them to log into their bank accounts online. The fraudsters use unsecure webpages designed to imitate those of major UK banks.
The websites then collect online banking information from victims and complete a series of illegal cash transfers to fraudulent accounts. The amount earned by online and phone-based scams rose £36 million in the last year to a total of £337 million.
Financial Fraud Action and the police warn Internet users to verify that the online banking websites they log into are legitimate, and to ignore emails that claim to be from bank officials, particularly those that lack any form of security or verification.
