Furlough fiends cash in on fears
SCAMMERS have had a field day during the coronavirus pandemic, with a massive increase in fraud over the past five months.
The reason for that is because fraudsters always latch on to big issues or events and base scams around people’s fears.
This is precisely what has happened with news this week that high numbers of employers have been breaching the rules of the furlough scheme – as reader Rita from Cardiff has just found out.
Rita works in a factory and was put on furlough in May. As per the rules, her employer paid her 80 per cent of her usual salary for May, June, July and August.
At the beginning of August she was made redundant and given one month’s notice and received her final salary at the end of August.
But on September 2, Rita received an email from what appeared to be an HMRC address. The email was headed “Urgent Response Required By Law”.
It went on to say that the recipient needed to answer several questions, responding via email.
It asked Rita to provide details of how many months she had been on the furlough scheme and to provide details of her salary and furlough payments.
It then requested her National Insurance number and full address and telephone number. Rita responded with the information, believing it to be a genuine request from HMRC.
The following Friday she got a phone call from a lady announcing herself as being from the HMRC Fraud team.
She claimed Rita had been overpaid under the furlough scheme by £835 and that this had been caused by her redundancy.
She advised Rita that this was fraud, and that both she and the company had therefore committed a criminal offence. The lady then said that if Rita repaid the overpayment immediately the matter would be closed.
Rita agreed to make the payment and proceeded to make a bank transfer.
The next day she telephoned her ex- employer and from there discovered she had been scammed.
I have advised Rita to get on to her bank and ask if they are signed up to the Authorised Push Payment Scam Code. If so, it is likely Rita will get her money back.
Check out more advice from Dean at theconsumerlawyer.blog