Fraudulent activities committed by hundreds of thousands of criminals is sadly on the increase. An estimated 1 in 14 of adults have reportedly been affected by a fraud in the last couple of years. Not only does the affect of fraud often create massive financial problems for the victim but it will inevitably cause enormous stress and a depression in self confidence.
Fast action is critical if someone realises they may have been duped and hit by a scam. If you discover any of your accounts have been hacked, this must be reported to see if any recovery can be effected. Then steps should be taken to protect the accounts from any further fraudulent actions. Ringing the bank immediately by using the trusted number on the back of the bank card or by ringing the special security 3 digit bank access number. Explaining exactly what has happened and when, will help get a clear picture. Depending on which payment method was used, some salvation may be available. They will ask how the payment was made, i.e. which card, was it debit or credit. Was it by bank transfer; paypal or similar; wired money transfer or if no authorised payment has occured, but money has gone. Sometimes banks will refuse repayment for a variety of reasons. If after their explanation, a victim feels they still qualify, they can make a complaint dirctly to the bank in writing, giving the full details of the offending action and if possible proving the victim was not to blame for the actual loss. If the bank still won’t budge, it is possible to take the complaint further by directing correspondence to the financial ombudsman service who will need all the information to be provied in a clear and logial manner with all possible copies of documents and notes of phone calls and actions taken.
Anyone running any kind of business needs to take fraud and cyber crime very seriously. Criminals are now using AI to reproduce highly realistic documents and websites to cheat their way in. Great vigilence is needed on all new transactions and many with existing companies for that very reason.
Payment diversion fraud is on the increase and is one of the most critically damaging forms of fraud against businesses. Basically conment manipulate staff into sending money to different bank acounts that look like the genuine article. CEO fraud is where a criminal will impersonate the top dog of the company, often by deepfake imagery and this persuades the hapless clerk to follow the fraudsters demands to make urgent and time sensitive payments. Invoice fraud – this is where fake inoivces are created and supplied to the payment department to divert funds to the wrong place because there is no reason to suspect a problem. There is also the salary diversion fraud – a nasty and clever ruse where criminals contact someone’s HR department with a minimum amount of info and ask the payroll staff to divert some of the salary to savings scheme but are in fact diverting those funds into a criminal action elsewhere, far away from the employee’s account.