Become Scam Aware with Home Instead
It takes real awareness to spot a scam in progress. This handy guide will help you to spot and avoid the latest scams, targeting your money.
Today, with the emerging new age technology, criminals continue to create increasingly sophisticated ways of accessing our personal details and money. Our very best defence is to be fully informed in order to protect ourselves, our family members and our valuable assets.
It takes real awareness to spot a scam in progress. There are many different types of scams out there and they are constantly evolving. This handy guide will help you to spot and avoid the latest scams, targeting your money.
Phishing Scams
Phishing involves criminals using scam emails, texts or phone calls to trick their victims into visiting a fake website. This website may download a virus onto your electronic device, steal bank details or other personal information from you.
Spot them by checking for misspelled URLs or email addresses and urgent or threatening language. Avoid clicking on unsolicited links. As of June 2024, the National Cyber Security Centre revealed that the number of scams reported has reached 32 million, which means it’s more important than ever to protect yourself against them.
Telephone Scams
Telephone scammers often call you pretending to be from a legitimate organisation. Often they will stress that there is a problem with something that you are involved with or they will notify you of a special offer.
Their goal is to obtain your personal information and they do this by asking you to confirm lots of details like your name, address, date of birth as well as your bank details. Sometimes scammers will pose as IT technicians and ask for things like your IP address. Once they have these details, they can access your devices and everything on them.
Spotting these can be difficult as modern telephone systems allow numbers to be bought in a specific area, making it look like the scammer is calling locally, when in fact they could be calling from anywhere in the world. Remember that legitimate organisations will never ask you for extensive personal details as they already have these. You should never give away things like your pin number or banking password.
Firmly ask the caller to remove you from their contacts list and say that you will pass their message onto a trusted contact who can call them back if they wish to. You can visit the Telephone Preference Service HERE and ask them to stop uninvited sales calls from legitimate businesses.
Doorstep Scams
In recent years, we have had an increase on the number of doorstep scammers that have been targeting properties in the East Devon area. These scammers will pose as gas contractors, gardeners, policemen, the list goes on. They may have a fake identity badge and seem trustworthy.
They may say things like they have spotted a problem, are collecting for a charity or have a special offer for you. They could pretend to need help and try to find a reason to enter your home.
It’s important to remember that if there was a real and genuine problem with your home, you would know about it already. A real tradesman would call or email before turning up at your house. Usually, you have to book an appointment with them, they wouldn’t just turn up on the off chance.
See if you can discreetly check their ID or if you don’t know them, don’t open the door. You can purchase “No Cold Callers” signs online which you can display to deter these people. You can submit meter readings online or over the phone yourself and if you are unsure, ask someone you trust for help.
Email & Online Scams
Scammers have been targeting email users for years now, and our spam filters are usually quite good at filtering fake emails into our junk folders. Sometimes however, a spam email can slip through and end up in our inbox, posing a threat to us.
These emails can appear as legitimate emails from well-known companies such as royal mail or Tesco. They will instruct you to click on a link or open an attachment to resolve a problem. The links can contain viruses which will enable the scammers to access files and personal documents on your computer. Scammers send out thousands of these emails, hoping that a small number of recipients will follow their instruction. This is why these emails are usually generalised and say Dear Sir/Madam or Dear Customer instead of your name.
Never open a link that you are unsure about. Check the email address is legitimate and see if there are any spelling mistakes. Scam emails often have a foreign country code at the end of the email address. Instead of .co.uk they may have .co.za or .co.de for example. If in doubt, always delete!
Postal Scams
You may receive letters which include false claims, offers or prizes. These are all aimed at obtaining personal details, money, or assets. These letters can pose as scam charities and try to get you to register your details to find out more information. They may ask you to phone a number, send an email or visit a website. This would then put you in touch with the scammer directly who can try and coerce you into ‘donating’ money or giving away personal details.
These letters can come in many different forms such as ‘legal’ documents claiming that you have news of unclaimed monies or matters that you must address with urgency.
If you receive a letter that you’re unsure about, don’t reply and ask a trusted person for help in identifying it. If you’re still unsure, discard it. You can reduce the amount of post that you receive by opting out of sales mail from the websites you regularly use. You can visit the Mail Preference Service website HERE which can stop most direct mail – but not all.
Find Out More
At Home Instead we provide free scams awareness talks to our local community in Exeter and East Devon. If you would like to learn more about the community talks we offer, please email [email protected] or phone 01395 200600.
