by Bill Cunningham
159
Anything that counteracts scamming is wel-come. And now we have a new tool to use, allowing us to check if a call from our bank really is a call from our bank.
In the last year over £500m was scammed in bank transfer fraud. Less than half of that was refunded by banks who had signed up to pay us back.
So far in 2021 this type of fraud had increased in leaps and pounds. So banks have acted in a new way to help combat their and, more perti-nently, our losses!
A new name to us is Stop Scams UK. They and financial institutions and tech companies including Google and BT are now involved in the launch to tackle this tsunami of impersona-tion fraud.
The new hotline number is 159, charged at national rate.
We use it when we’ve been called by our “bank” or any other organisation and our gut feel says … hang on a minute, that’s a bit unu-sual to be asked to transfer money, particularly to a new place.
So, suspicious then of impersonation scam-mers, we dial 159 from our phone if we’re with… BT, including EE and Plusnet; Gamma; O2, including Giffgaff; TalkTalk; Three; Vir-gin Media; and Sky.
More banks and telecoms firms are expected to join, and if it’s a success then 159 will be add-ed to 101, 111 and 999.
If our bank is not involved in the scheme or a similar one of its own when we call 159 to ask if ….….then we’ll be told how to contact our bank directly.
No one single change to our paying strangers will stop sophisticated scammers 100% for they are particularly cute at convincing many of us that they are reliable and a trusted friend in need. Our normal vigilance is still a must do therefore. We’ll hear for sure a convincing argument for keeping the transaction secret / unreported to any authority.
Let’s still be very careful and use as many tools and as much care as we can to be sure that our money is off to a genuine recipient.