Scammers are the price we pay for technology
Last weekend, I got a phone call from my bank, so, of course, I didn’t answer it. In the old days, it would have been due to a childish fear of being scolded for never opening my statements.
These days, it’s a sensible wariness about scammers – or “authorised push payment fraud”, to use its technical title.
This week, UK Finance, which tracks bank data on fraud, announced that £145.4million was lost in the first six months of the year to what is Britain’s fastest growing crime.
Usually customers get a call, text, email or social media message asking for their personal or financial details or to transfer money.
I got just such a call once; the voice on the other end of the line was so Posho-mcposhface-authoritative that I almost fell for it. Until, that is, I remembered my bank is based in Newcastle and the landlines tend to be manned by lovely Geordie lasses.
I made my excuses and hung up, then telephoned my bank, which confirmed my suspicions that it was a (well-spoken) hoax.
On this latest occasion, it wasn’t. I received a voicemail asking me to call back over concerns about unusual activity on one of my accounts.
Unusual doesn’t begin to cover it. Someone somewhere was using my credit card to invest in cryptocurrency. How James-bond-baddie is that? Or
‘The voice was so Posho-mcposhface authoritative I almost fell for it’
it would have been were it not for the fact “my” outlay on this decentralised medium of exchange was a distinctly Pooterish £191.51.
I’m not sure what that would have bought me, had the dodgy digital transaction gone through. Thankfully, my bank was alerted by the fact that my usual Sunday retail therapy tends to involve easyjet or John Lewis, rather than trading in the crypto universe.
I can afford to be amused by it all because my bank has reimbursed the money, decommissioned my credit card and sent me a replacement.
If I were one of those poor souls tricked into transferring thousands of pounds – even house deposits – to bogus accounts, I most assuredly would not be laughing.
The rise of online and telephone banking has made our lives easier and we have placed our faith in the speed, efficiency and safety of technology, with justification.
But we must never forget that all technology is only ever as benign or beneficial as the faceless stranger sitting at a keyboard using it.