Men more likely to authorise suspicious banking payments

MEN are more than twice as likely as women to authorise payments from their bank account that have been flagged as suspicious, a survey has found.

According to the poll carried out for Nationwide Building Society, more than one in five (21 per cent) people said they have authorised transfers even though their bank or building society has flagged them as suspect.

Men are more likely to have done this (29 per cent) than women (14 per cent).

More than a third (36 per cent) of 16 to 24-year-olds, and (37 per cent of) 25 to 34-year-olds, have authorised a payment flagged as suspicious, compared with 9 per cent of over-55s. Authorising such payments left more than a third (34 per cent) out of pocket.

A name-checking service called confirmation of payee is used by banks and building societies to help reduce fraud and misdirected payments.

It helps to tackle bank transfer scams where fraudsters will try to persuade people that they are paying a legitimate organisation.

Nationwide also launched a scam checker service in September last year.

The service enables the society’s members to check an electronic payment they are worried about either in a branch or by calling a freephone number.

The survey of more than 3,000 people across the UK in May also looked at issues with rogue traders.

It found that more than two-fifths (44 per cent) of people have or know someone who has had work done on their property to such a poor standard that it required fixing or redoing. While nearly a third (32 per cent) of those got someone else to remedy the work, 12 per cent did it themselves. Despite

‘If anything in the email header looks odd, don’t send the money’

poor quality work, more than a third (37 per cent) said the money paid was not returned.

Nationwide also warned about email hack scams when making payments, after finding more than a third (35 per cent) of people said they were not previously aware that criminals can intercept genuine email and text exchanges.

Ed Fisher, head of fraud policy at Nationwide Building Society, added: “Ring the tradesperson on a number you know is theirs and double check the account details. If anything in the email header looks odd, don’t send the money.”