Scam of the week

Employees receive 80 per cent of their monthly salary, up to £2,500. There will be no change to this up until the end of July.

After that, employers will be encouraged

“to start sharing with the Government the cost of paying people’s salaries”. There will be further announcements at the end of May.

CAN MY EMPLOYER TAKE ME OFF IT?

Yes, the decision to furlough an employee is entirely at the discretion of the employer.

But if they decide to remove only certain employees, they must not discriminate.

CAN MY EMPLOYER FORCE ME TO RETURN?

Yes, if your job cannot be performed from home and it is safe for you to return to work. They cannot ask you to work and keep you on the scheme but this is set to change.

From August, employers can ask employees to work part-time. They will have to pay parttime hours but the Government will continue to make payments under the furlough scheme.

The figure has not been announced yet.

Many people are getting to grips with online banking for the first time – and scammers are taking full advantage.

I’ve heard people have been receiving emails from someone pretending to be their bank this week.

The message says a suspect direct debit has been set up on their account and they are told to click on a link to view details.

When you do, your personal data becomes vulnerable. If you get an email like this check if it is sent from a genuine email address – usually it is totally unrelated. Or call your bank to find out if it is genuine. It won’t be.