Last updated: 11 Sep 2023 11:00 Posted in:
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has warned that an increasing number of scammers are pretending to be the UK’s financial regulator.
The FCA said criminals impersonating it are trying to con people into handing over money or sensitive information, such as bank account PINs and passwords.
Members of the public have reported more than 7,700 instances of this type of scam to the FCA’s contact centre so far in 2023. Reports of this type of scam have more than doubled since 2021, the FCA said.
The watchdog said that a common tactic used by fraudsters was to tell people they were owed compensation, and then ask for bank details or a processing fee to arrange ‘payment’.
The FCA advised that it did not contact people in this way, and that anyone asked for personal information should hang up the phone or ignore the email.
Steve Smart, an executive director of enforcement at the FCA, urged anyone concerned that they had been contacted by a scammer should check the FCA website.
According to the FCA:
· If you’re suspicious about a call, just hang up. You can check to make sure a call is genuine by contacting the FCA on 0800 111 6768
· Check the sender’s email address. If you’re not sure the email is from the FCA, then you should ignore it and contact the FCA directly.
· You should check the spelling and grammar of an email. If it doesn’t look right, ignore the email and report it to the organisation being impersonated or Action Fraud
· Scammers can make an organisation’s switchboard numbers appear in your caller ID. To protect yourself, don’t give out any personal information following an incoming call and don’t call back using the contact details the callers provide.
The FCA said it is increasingly clamping down on the scammers as household budgets are squeezed from the rising cost of living.
It comes after industry group UK Finance found £1.2bn was lost to fraud in the UK in 2022 – equivalent of £2,300 every minute. Frauds involving payment cards is the most common scam.
The FCA said it was working with the government to ban cold calling for all consumer financial services and products. That would mean, for example, a salesperson could not call you to sell you any type of insurance, such as accident or home insurance.
The regulator said it was being contacted about different types of financial scams, such as ‘boiler room’ scams, where fraudsters cold-call investors offering them worthless, overpriced or even non-existent shares or bonds.
Callers to the regulator also reported being offered investment ‘opportunities’ in non-existent digital currencies, or cryptocurrencies, a widely unregulated and high-risk sector.
