Mobile phone users have been warned to be on their guard against a new trick scammers are using to trick people out of their money or personal data.
The clever con came to light after a worried man contacted consumer group Which? after being targeted by a sustained campaign of scam texts and phone calls, seemingly from Lloyds Bank.
The man noticed a strange text appearing at the end of a chain of legitimate messages from Lloyds Bank. The text claimed he would receive a message asking him to confirm activity on his account and another text soon after from a different number claimed a £110 transaction on Amazon had been declined by his bank. The text said the customer needed to confirm that it was he who had attempted the Amazon payment, or Lloyds would ‘decline future card payments’.
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Luckily, the man became suspicious when he noticed that the message contained the last four digits of a card number which was not his, and called Lloyds directly on its fraud hotline, using the number on its website, and bank staff confirmed they had no fraud concerns regarding his account.
Although the scammers were foiled, the customer still got a total of seven calls from an ‘0333’ number to both his mobile and landline, which he ignored. However, the customer told Which? "I’m frightened that the scammers had both my numbers, knew I was with Lloyds and could also send texts appearing to be from Lloyds."
The worrying ability to insert fraudulent texts into legitimate message threads from banks and other trusted organisations is one of the most convincing tricks in any scammer’s arsenal, according to Which? senior researcher Faye Lipson.
The con works by the criminals using online ‘spoofing’ services to send text messages over the internet ‘from’ SMS short names (such as ‘Lloyds Bank’). When that fake ‘Lloyds Bank’ message arrives on your smartphone, the phone will automatically group it with any other messages from the same short name, as the phone's software has no ability to discern who the true sender is.
"This means we must treat all messages claiming to be from banks or other trusted bodies with a degree of scepticism," said Ms Lipson. "It’s common for scammers to have some prior knowledge of us – such as where we bank – gleaned from data breaches and then traded on murkier sections of the internet and the vast majority of us will have had our data stolen at some point, often repeatedly.
"That’s why, when we’re asked for our money or personal information, we should always take five minutes and think about how to verify what we’ve been told, using trusted contact details – such as the helpline number on the back of your card."
Lloyds Bank warned customers to be vigilent agianst fraiudsters, saying the bank would never ask customers to share account details like user ID, password and memorable information, their Personal Security Number (PSN) for Telephone Banking, PIN code or card expiry date and would never ask customers to move money to another account.
What to do if you fall for a scam
If you have either been a victim of a scam or spot a suspicious website, you can report this in several ways:
Fraud and cyber crime can be reported to Action Fraud, the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud.
You can also report internet scams and phishing to report@phishing.gov.uk.
Suspicious websites can be reported to the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).
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