It helps to be informed of what you’re up against when you want to avoid being terrorised by online scammers.
You might think that internet fraud is rare, but the truth is very different. Its tentacles spread across the world and affect the lives of many people whose only crime was to be slightly naive. “It’s very sad, because sometimes when we get people in, the first thing we tell them is to go straight to the police,” an anonymous bank manager told PC Plus. A senior figure at a big high street bank, he asked to remain unnamed for security reasons, but sought us out to talk about the real-life effects of internet crime on people’s lives. He often has hapless victims crying in his office when they realise the truth, and what he sees is only a tiny fraction of what goes on. Around the world, people are losing their savings, homes and dignity thanks to internet criminals.
By far the most common attack is still phishing – the art of duping the unwary into believing that they’re receiving emails from their bank or other institution. When they try to log in via the provided link, all they see is an error message apologising for heavy server load and asking them to try again later. In reality, their log-in details have been saved and the criminals now have access to their bank account.
Cheating the system
“I call phishing ‘out cheating’,” says economist Dr Darrin Baines. “You must at some level trust the person who’s conning you. So, for example, someone sends you an email saying ‘I’m in Africa, why don’t you send me some money?’. There must be something in that narrative that triggers the feeling that they’re worth trusting.”
Happily, shoppers are becoming more web savvy, spending more online and getting ripped off less. “Last year an estimated £153million of card fraud took place over the internet – a decrease of 16 per cent from 2008, when e-commerce card fraud losses were approximately £182million,” says Mark Bowerman, spokesperson for the UK Cards Association. In the same period, credit and debit cards were used to buy a record £47billion worth of goods and services online, which was up 15 per cent from 2008. So the percentage of dodgy web transactions is dropping – but that doesn’t mean you should get complacent. Bowerman advises consumers to get familiar with the latest advice in the Cardholders section of Card Watch.
Knowing which cons are in operation is key to staying safe online. In some cases, the swindles are old ones that have migrated to the internet. But what are they? Let’s take a look at the scams, how to spot them and how to avoid them.
