How to keep the scammers at bay

“I never thought they’d get me”

My client’s words after he was tricked out of £3,400 by a scammer.

He was duped after he got a WhatsApp message from someone pretending to be his daughter, asking him to save her new phone number.

One hour later, they sent a message from that number, asking to borrow some money. It wasn’t an unusual request, so he transferred the money to the account details the scammers sent, thinking it was his daughter’s details.

It was only after they asked for a further £3,000 loan that he got suspicious. By then, the money for the first loan had already gone.

Fortunately, the bank has already refunded him the money, but it’s still left him feeling “foolish, defiled and churned up”.

My client has kindly let me share his story in the hope it will warn others.

Nobody thinks they’ll fall for a scam, but scams are becoming increasingly sophisticated – and believable. We all have to be on the lookout for the warning signs.

How to spot a scam

Modern scammers are relying less on the easy-to-spot tricks – such as the Nigerian prince offering to put millions in your bank account temporarily – with cons that seem much more plausible.

It can be emails, WhatsApp messages or texts with convincing backstories - like the one used on my client - unexpected phone calls that catch people unaware, or two-step scams that follow up a bogus message with an equally bogus phone call from the ‘fraud squad’.

Often, they prey on people’s fears or goodwill: as my client told me “I’ve loaned money to my daughter in the past. I did what any dad would do.”

The UK lost £2.5 billion in fraud and cybercrime during 2021 and the problem isn’t going away. UK Finance has warned the UK faces ‘an epidemic of fraud’ with more than 140,000 calls have been made to a helpline Stop Scams UK since September.

Remember your ABCs

As we said, scams are becoming harder to detect, so if this happens to you, you shouldn’t feel embarrassed. But you do need to stay hyper-vigilant.

My advice is always to retain an element of suspicion, particularly if you get a call or an offer that’s come out of nowhere. There’s an old police maxim that can help, ABC: Assume Nothing, Believe Nobody, Check Everything.

Financial services, and especially pensions, are a target, so look out for some of these tell-tale signs:

·       High-pressure sales tactics. This may include saying your offer is only available on a limited timescale

·       Opportunities that are higher risk, unregulated or come from unusual sources.

·       Deals that sound good to be true, promises of free pension reviews or helping you release your pension before you turn 55 might not be what they first appear.

(You can read more here about the seven types of pension scam here.)

If you’re unsure, a good place to start is the FCA’s new ScamSmart website. This has advice on avoiding investment and pension scams and lets you check out the Financial Conduct Authority’s warning list. Consumer magazine Which? also has its own Scam Alert service, which lets people who’ve been scammed share their experiences to protect others.

How we’re helping you stay more secure

Financial services are a particular target of the scammers, particularly pensions. The Pension Scams Industry Group (PSIG) estimates that £10 billion has been swindled out of pensions schemes since 2015.

At Smarter Financial Planning, we’ll soon be launching our Smarter Money app, which helps bring all your finances and associated paperwork into one place – accessible from your desktop and your phone. One of its key features is secure messaging, which gives you a safer and more efficient way of communicating with us than email or text message.

Smarter Money ensures that your personal data is exchanged using only the most secure methods. You get an alert when you’ve got an important messages or documents waiting to be read and you can log in to access them (with a mobile app that’s protected by a six-digit PIN and registered to your personal device).

With enhanced privacy controls, you decide who your information is shared with, and your data is safeguarded using bank-level security and encryption.

We’ll be sending you more details of this soon, but hopefully this gives you reassurance that the messages you get from us will be genuine.

In the meantime, please remain extra vigilant and remember if it doesn’t seem right, you’re always free to put the phone down and take the time to check things out. Of course, you can always give me a ring too.