With hackers and scammers getting more savvy by the minute, it’s unsurprising that an estimated 3.5 million adults aged 16 or over experienced incidents of fraud between April 2022 - March 2023, according to the Office of National Statistics. However, thanks to received reports, The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has removed 184,000 scams across 337,672 URLs as of June 2024.

With more complexity and the recent involvement of AI, it can be hard to navigate what is real and what is not these days, so let’s dive into our top tips to help you steer clear of scams:

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What is The Most Common Type of Scam?

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• Texts and phone calls - These can include scammers impersonating well-known companies asking you to take action due to suspicious activity with your account, or suggesting they couldn’t deliver a parcel and you need to reschedule delivery. There will be a link for you to follow or number to call which will lead to you giving them personal information. 
• Emails - Phishing emails are getting much more convincing. Similarly, these will look relatively convincing and contain a link for you to follow or more recently, a QR code for you to scan.  
• Websites - Fake websites will download viruses to your computer, or are designed to steal passwords or other personal information.
• Giveaways - things to look out for are spelling/grammatical errors, mistakes in the email address or assertive language that causes you to panic or feel distress.  

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What Should I Do?

Unfortunately, if you are victim to a scam, most of the time you will not be able to get your money back or retrieve the personal information you shared. However, you can take action to protect others and yourself in the future:

• Report the scam to Action Fraud at www.actionfraud.police.uk 
• Contact your bank if you have given away any banking details or potentially lost money
• Change your passwords for any accounts that share that password you believe has been compromised 
• Scan your devices for malware in case you have been hacked

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How to Protect Yourself In The Future

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• Don’t click on links - Never click on a link from a potentially untrustworthy source. 

• Be sceptical - Don’t trust every text, email or phone call you get. It is always better to be safe than sorry. 

• Contact the company - For example, if the message is from a bank you have an account with, contact them using the information on their official website to find out if they need anything from you before taking any action. 

• Be careful with your phone - Being generally careful by using trusted websites, having strong passwords that vary across your accounts and using two-step verification when you can are all things you can do to help protect yourself. 

• Don’t refund payments - If you’ve been sent money mistakenly by an unknown account and then are asked to send it back - don’t! Contact your bank and they will deal with the issue as this could escalate to further scams without your awareness.