ARE YOU SCAM-SAVVY?

Nine in 10 people are confident they can spot a fraudulent message – but a new study reveals we are nowhere near as good at this as we might think.

The Take Five To Stop Fraud campaign was launched last week.

It was sparked by a survey which showed that only 9% of people were able to correctly identify scam texts and emails in an online test.

Supported by the Home Office and financial institutions, Take Five is aimed at combating one of Britain’s fastest-growing crimes, with 3.3m cases in the 12 months to June 2017.

One of the difficulties is that many consumers think they are “too smart to be scammed” and as a result are leaving themselves vulnerable.

“The results contradict the public’s perceptions of their savviness to spot a scam,” said a spokeswoman for the campaign.

Banking Trade body UK Finance said £366m was lost to this form of financial fraud in the first six months of last year alone.

A further £10m was lost by victims of so-called “authorised push payment” scams.

This is where people are tricked into transferring money into a fraudster’s bank account, usually as a result of criminals hacking into emails sent between individuals and the tradespeople they are employing.

According to the Government, fraud is now “the most prevalent crime in this country”.

The campaign has issued this advice:

A genuine bank or organisation will never contact you out the blue to ask for your pin or full password, or to request that you move money to another account.

Think before you click. Never automatically open a link in an unexpected email or text.

If you are approached with a request for personal information, don’t provide it. Instead, contact the company directly using a well-known email or phone number.