Finance
Royal Bank of Scotland encourages protection against fraud on ‘Take Five Day’
People across Scotland are worried about their families falling victim to fraudsters, yet 73% admit they have never discussed the simple steps they can take to protect themselves and those around them from financial fraud.
75% of people in Scotland worry about loved ones falling victim to financial fraud but are failing to take action.
Take Five Day is reminding people of the five simple steps everyone can take to protect themselves from financial fraud:
- Never disclose security details, such as your PIN or full banking password
- Don’t assume an email, text or phone call is authentic
- Don’t be rushed – a genuine organisation won’t mind waiting
- Listen to your instincts – you know if something doesn’t feel right
- Stay in control – don’t panic and make a decision you’ll regret
Official figures published by Financial Fraud Action UK (FFA UK) reveal that the overall scale of financial fraud in 2016 was £768.8 million, an increase on the £755 million lost in 2015 (Source: FFA UK fraud figures 2016).
New data from Royal Bank of Scotland shows that the average scam victim loses £6,000 to fraudsters. The bank is marking Take Five Day today by highlighting the top five scams personal and business customers in Scotland are falling victim to:
| Scam type | Average loss to customer |
| Goods not received | £1,560 |
| Advance fee fraud | £1,290 |
| Advance fee fraud | £10,550 |
| Invoice fraud | £19,530 |
| Holiday scam | £2,270 |
Alasdair MacFarlane, Head of Fraud Prevention and Response, Royal Bank of Scotland, said: “Scammers are all too convincing and work round the clock to persuade their victims to part with their money. We have hundreds of people working 24/7 to detect and stop fraud, but it’s very important that, as individuals and businesses, we know how to protect ourselves. We provide security advice to our customers regularly and today we’re encouraging them to Take Five minutes to think before they act on financial requests, or hand over their secure information.”
Take Five Day is part of the Take Five campaign, launched by FFA UK and backed by all major banks and key financial services providers across the UK. Launching today with a national day for fraud awareness, it aims to put consumers and businesses back in control with straight forward advice to help prevent financial fraud.
More advice on how people can protect themselves and their loved ones from fraud, including campaign materials and business advice, can be found on the Take Five website.
Royal Bank of Scotland top five scams explained:
- Invoice fraud – invoices that seem to be from a trusted trading partner but are fake. The fraudster typically quotes that payment arrangements have changed and that the customer should pay the outstanding balance to the new account, operated by the fraudster rather than belonging to the trusted trading partner.
- Spoof payment requests – customer has received a fraudulent request, purporting to be from the Co’s Boss, CEO, MD etc. or even purporting to be from one of their own clients. This requests a payment or drawn down of funds. Customer has not adequately verified the instruction and subsequently found that no such payment was genuinely requested.
- Advance fee fraud – Occurs when fraudsters target victims to make advance or upfront payments for goods, services and/or financial gains that do not materialise.
- Goods not received: Occurs when a customer pays for goods and services but does not receive them from the seller.
- Account compromise – a caller purporting to be from your Bank advising that your account has been compromised either by transactions, by internal staff or error payments and is now at risk.
