Don’t fall for Covid-19 cons

Why you should be watching out for coronavirus scams…

Fraudsters will often use high-profile events to persuade unsuspecting victims to part with their money – and recently they’ve been cynically cashing in on consumers’ concerns about coronavirus.

Scams related to the outbreak have collectively cost victims more than £800,000 in just the space of a month since February 2020, according to the police and National Fraud Intelligence Bureau.

Some reports were made by people attempting to buy protective face masks from fraudulent sellers. One victim reported losing more than £15,000 when they purchased face masks that were never delivered.

Police have also received reports about coronavirusthemed phishing emails attempting to trick people into opening malicious attachments or revealing sensitive personal and financial information.

One common tactic used by fraudsters is to contact potential victims over email purporting to be from research organisations affiliated bodies, such as the World Health Organisation (WHO).

They claim to be able to provide the recipient with a list of coronavirus-infected people in their area. In order to access this information, the victim needs to click on a link, which leads to a malicious website, or else the victim is asked to make a payment in Bitcoin.

Police said people should never click on the links or attachments in suspect emails, and never respond to unsolicited messages and calls that ask for personal or financial details.

People should also do some research before buying online from a company that they do not already know and trust.

It may be worth using a credit card as a payment method, as these can give added consumer protections if something goes wrong.

For more information on how to shop online safely, visit actionfraud.police.uk/ shoponlinesafely.

More than 17,000 fraudulent calls were picked up last year by a bank’s voice identification system, which helps weed out criminals from genuine telephone banking customers.

Nearly £400 million of customers’ money was prevented from falling into the hands of criminals, HSBC UK said. Its Voice ID system, which was introduced in 2016, identified around double the number of fraudulent phone calls in 2019 compared with the previous year.

The technology analyses voices by checking more than 100 behavioural and physical vocal traits, including the size and shape of someone’s mouth, how fast they talk and how they emphasise words.