Crisis-stricken Britons talk about internet scammers

As the cost of living rises in the UK, there are growing concerns that fraud could become more frequent, reports Sky News and gives examples from the life of ordinary Britons.

It took the scammers two hours to transfer £9,500 from the bank account of a British woman named Ida. Caught off guard by a call purporting to be from a well-known telecommunications company, she was forced to transfer large sums to newly opened accounts.

“I got a call and was told that someone was trying to access my internet,” the woman told Sky News. “They asked if I could help catch the scammers and I agreed, thinking it would only take a few minutes.”

The scammers convinced their victim to download a screen-sharing app that would give them access to her cell phone, then asked her to open a number of other bank accounts and transfer money in an attempt to “catch the scammer”.

“Money just started to fly out of my account,” says the 63-year-old woman. “I was so confused. It didn’t dawn on me until I called my daughter on the way to work and told her, and she said, “Mom, you’ve been lied to.” I felt like such an idiot.”

The woman immediately called her bank – and since £ 3,000 was still on the way, this amount was returned. Twelve months later, she is still waiting to see if her remaining £6,500 will be returned to her.

While these types of scams have always been relatively common, as the cost of living rises, there are fears that they could become more frequent as people want to take advantage of the crisis, Sky News highlights.

Ida’s sister, Beatrice, told Sky News: “They talked on the phone for two hours and they slowly, slowly got her to the point where they could do it, and the pressure of urgency, she has to do something now, coupled with her thought that it was hacked in some other way. They did everything to convince her, they had an answer for everything.

For Ida, the trauma was unbearable, and now she got rid of her landline phone. “She became even more suspicious of the most unsuspicious things,” her sister says. .

There is a misconception that older people are more vulnerable to scams, but Britons aged 18 to 34 are twice as likely to be scammed, according to a study by Goldman Sachs.

A study based on a nationwide survey of 4,000 British adults found that 22% of people aged 18 to 34 have been the victim of financial fraud at least once.

By comparison, only one in ten people over the age of 55 and 12% of people between the ages of 35 and 54 have been scammed.

When 16-year-old Tristan Walker asked his dad for a pair of Nike Air Max, they really thought they’d be the last ones to get scammed. His father, James, is the CEO of Rightly, an independent consumer data service and fraud detection expert.

Since the original sneakers cost over £150, Tristan found a pair for £120 on the Sneakers Academy website. “Tristan sent me the link, and as someone who should know better, I really should have known better,” James told Sky News. “Because I was having a bad time with time, instead of looking for Sneakers Academy, I said okay, okay, and just bought them, because at that moment I was persuaded to buy shoes.”

As soon as the order arrived, Tristan realized that the shoes were fake. “They were really low quality and poorly made,” he said. “They had holes in the soles, you could just say they weren’t real.”

Luckily, since the sneakers were purchased with a credit card, James was able to get his money back using the appropriate section of the Consumer Credit Act.

“If you ever buy anything, it’s best to use a credit card because if anything goes wrong, the credit card provider will be jointly and severally liable,” James said.

However, James said that the best way to protect yourself is to do your research before buying, there are also a number of new internet add-ons that can help you determine if a website is a scam.

Experts fear that with the Christmas season approaching and Black Friday spending frenzy, people who want to save money could find themselves even more penniless.

New data from Barclays has revealed that nearly nine in ten (89%) Britons rely on Black Friday to do some or all of their Christmas shopping this year and nearly half (48%) plan to shop online, leaving them vulnerable. for scammers.

Nearly a third of shoppers feel the need to make a purchase quickly to get the best deal.

Katie Watts, Consumer Products Expert at MoneySavingExpert.com, said: “When seasonal sales are such a buzz, scammers see this as a great opportunity to take advantage of unsuspecting shoppers. The item may not appear at all. Either way, there are some things you can do to make sure you don’t fall into the trap of a scam… Do you recognize the seller? Does the website URL match your expectations? Does the website have any spelling and grammatical errors? These are all signs that you may be dealing with an illegal seller. Even more disturbing is when you are asked to use an odd payment method. If you are asked to pay by bank transfer or choose an unusual payment type (for example, the “family and friends” option in the payment system), alarm bells should sound.