Customers at several major UK banks could be vulnerable to attacks from fraudsters, a new investigation has found.
Consumer group Which? found that at least one phone number from Santander, Nationwide, Lloyds, HSBC, TSB and Virgin Money was successfully 'spoofed'. This is a common tactic used by scammers that involves forging the name that comes up on phone calls, texts or emails to make it appear as if a genuine company is getting in touch.
Rocio Concha, Which? director of policy and advocacy, said: “Number spoofing is a particularly malicious form of fraud used by scammers to deceive their victims – and our research shows some banks could potentially be leaving their customers at risk.”
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Companies can sign up to a Do Not Originate (DNO) list from regulator Ofcom to make it more difficult for fraudsters to impersonate them. This helps telecoms providers to spot and block calls that are likely to be scammer spoofs.
A HSBC spokesperson told Which?: “We are participants of the Do Not Originate scheme which provides additional protection, alongside numerous other measures, to help protect customers from scams and fraud. We regularly review the numbers we have registered with a view to additional entries where it is appropriate to do so. We are currently in the process of adding those two numbers to those already on the register.”
Lloyds Bank said: “Banks can’t solve the problem of number spoofing alone and telecoms firms need to speedily address the technical gaps in their systems that allow this type of fraud to happen, even with Do Not Originate lists in place.”
A Nationwide spokesperson told the consumer group: “Nationwide takes the protection of its members seriously and our contact numbers are on the Do Not Originate list – and therefore cannot be spoofed. However, it appears one of our numbers was inadvertently missed, for which we would like to thank Which? for bringing to our attention. We can confirm this is now being added to our list of protected numbers for future.”
A Santander spokesperson told Which?: “We have now requested that Ofcom adds this number to the DNO list. As part of the measures we take to protect customers against fraud, we aim to include all our inbound-only customer service phone numbers on the DNO list, which provides some protection against spoofing but is not 100% comprehensive.”
A Virgin Money spokesperson said: “Virgin Money currently has over 40 numbers registered for the Do Not Originate service and we continue to add numbers to this to ensure as much coverage as possible. The list is not a guarantee that spoofing won’t occur as not all providers use the list and technology constraints can mean that some calls get through, however, we will raise this with them and ensure that all the numbers you highlighted are registered.”
TSB said that all relevant TSB numbers are now on Do Not Originate.
A spokesperson for trade association UK Finance said: “It is important to remember that anyone can be caught out by these criminals and that you should always stay alert. To help stay safe, customers should always follow the advice of our Take Five to Stop Fraud campaign and question any uninvited call requesting their personal information or money in case it’s a scam.”
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