Common types of phone scams
Over half of all scams start with a phone call. Find out some of the ways scammers try to trick you over the phone.
Bank and building society scams
These scams typically involve a fraudster, pretending to be from your bank, phoning you to say you’ve been a victim of fraud.
There are many variations on this scam.
They may ask you for personal and financial information to get access to your bank account or to commit identity theft.
Or they may tell you there is a corrupt member of staff in your bank and they need your help to identify them. They may also ask you to transfer all your funds into a ‘safe account’ because your account has been taken over.
What you should do
You should wait for 20 minutes before you call your bank on a trusted phone number to check it out. This is because scammers are able to keep phone lines open. Whilst you think you are making a new phone call, the line is still open to the scammer who pretends to be a different person from your bank or the police. If possible, use a different phone or call somebody else in the meantime.
Computer software scams
Scammers may call you claiming to be from a well-known software company, saying there is a problem with your computer and they need full remote access to your computer to fix it. They may charge you a fee or use the unlimited access to your computer to commit identity theft or to gain access to your online banking account.
Investment and pension scams
Fraudsters call offering the chance to buy share sales, wine investments, land banking, carbon credits, rare metals, diamonds or other gemstones. Another emerging scam involves false claims about pension liberation, also known as ‘pension loans’. Many people have lost their entire life savings to investment scammers.
Tax owed
Some fraudsters will cold call and claim that they are from HMRC or the Court or immigration authorities, and that you will be arrested if you don’t pay a sum of tax.
Protecting yourself from telephone scams
There are a number of ways you can protect yourself from becoming a victim of a scam by phone.
Reject cold calls. Sign up for a call blocking service. This might not stop all scam calls but it will stop cold-callers. If you receive a phone call from someone you don’t know, always ask for the name of the person you are speaking to and who they work for. Check this information by calling the company’s office on a different phone line in case the caller is holding the line open. Never give out your personal, full credit card or online account details unless you made the call and the phone number came from a trusted source. Never assume that someone is who they say they are just because the number on your caller display matches that of the organisation you know. Scammers can clone telephone numbers of organisations they want to impersonate and make the number appear on your caller ID display.
It’s best not to respond to text messages or missed calls that come from numbers you don’t recognise or are not expecting.