Scams and online fraud account for over 40% of criminal activity in the UK, and between April 2022 and March 2023, there were over 3,5 million incidents involving people aged 16 and over in the UK.
Falling victim to a scam can be extremely worrying and have massive implications on your lifestyle and finances. Sadly, too many people are still fooled by scammers; as seen on the BBC 1 show Scam Interceptors and the methods used by unscrupulous scammers are becoming more sophisticated, manipulative and conniving as they go through the process of trying to obtain money and items that don’t belong to them.
Knowing the scam is part of being able to stay safe, and this post is going to look at a few of the more common scams seen in the UK to help you stay wise to criminals and their devious tactics.
Amazon Scam
The Amazon scam is quite possibly one of the most common and even well-known scams. What happens is you get a call from someone pretending to be from Amazon (FYI, amazon will never call you out of the blue, so this should be a sign to hang up). Continuing the amazon scams approach, the caller will try to convince you someone is attempting to use your account to buy something expensive, and they’re going to hippo you to stop this by finding the person responsible and preventing you from losing money. The opposite is likely to happen.
Hi Mum
The “Hi Mum” scam is carried out via Whatsapp or text message. And it will simply be a message from an unknown number saying hi, mum. You will then be expected to respond with your child’s name to check if it’s them and ask why they are contacting you from a different number. They will then use this to ask you for money to go to an account you probably won’t recognise again, telling you a story as to why. If in doubt, don’t respond. Call the actual number for your child to talk to them directly.
Missed Delivery
Missed delivery texts or email scams are becoming more popular as more and more people use delivery services for good delivery. You will typically be told you need to pay an additional fee to have your parcel released, something which most companies don’t do unless import fees have not been covered, and this is usually relayed to you prior to delivery from the courier service or you will have a card posted through your door via Royal Mail.
To avoid flailing victims of any of these scams:
- Always hang up and use another method of communication to contact the company in question directly via usual methods, not using any suggestions from the potential scammer.
- Avoid giving them access to your phone by downloading an app or any other software they suggest.
- If they become pushy or impatient with you, then this is a clear indicator of a scam, and you should end all communications.
- If in doubt, call your bank or other associated accounts to protect your details and stop any transactions.
The more you know about the different scams and tactics used by scammers, the easier it is to spot different scams and stay safe.
