Fraud soars as virus brings out the scammers

CORONAVIRUS has created a “playground” for fraudsters, resulting in an explosion of scams, police and trading standards officials have said.

The public has lost more than £18 million to scammers taking advantage of the pandemic and the measures put in place to combat it, such as lockdown and Test and Trace.

Experts warn that many more people are now susceptible, whereas previously con men tended to pick on the elderly and isolated.

Katherine Hart, lead officer for doorstep crime at the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, said: “It’s a playground for scammers. What they are doing is seeing an opportunity to exploit the confusion in society.

“Uncertainty brings fear, and that brings confusion. So, if we’re all confused and the Government is confused, it’s a fantastic opportunity for a scammer.”

The desire to comply with authorities during the pandemic has led some people to be even more trusting with their personal information.

“Everybody is vulnerable,” said Dr J Michael Skiba, an expert in financial crime. “Your guard is lower than normal, so you might get more easily duped into clicking on that email you get.”

Fi g ure s from Acti o n Fraud, the UK’S reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime, showed that between March and August there were 3,447 reports from victims of fraud directly relating to Covid. So far people have reported £18 million in losses to scams but the total is likely to be far higher. The lockdown has prompted a rise in other types of con, such as “romance” s cams where fraudsters befriend often lonely and isolated people online by pretending they are interested in a relationship and then try to extract personal details and money.

There is also concern that third-party companies handling test and trace data for hospitality businesses may not be keeping data securely, meaning it could fall into the hands of scammers.

Gaurav Melhotra, whose firm Goaco provides a genuine test and trace facility, said he had so little faith in some test and trace companies that he always gave a false name but with genuine contact details. He was soon contacted by a fraudster who used the fake name.

“He claimed to be from HMRC and mentioned there was a fraud case registered against my name and started verifying personal details that I had been providing when scanning the QR code in pubs and restaurants.

“They had obviously got my details from one of the track and trace systems.”

Claire Hodgson, a trading standards specialist for Buckinghamshire and Surrey, said there had been a 40 per cent rise in overall fraud since the pandemic began.

She said one burgeoning area of scamming was people pretending to sell puppies online. During lockdown the increased demand for pets saw prices soar.

“People advertise on social media, ask for a deposit and then, lo and behold, the pet never appears,” she said.

Other scams have included offering refunds to people whose holidays have been cancelled, bogus government grants and even fraudsters p o s i ng as Covid marshals t r ying to gain access to people’s properties.