Rip Off Britain: Scam victim on knowledgeable’ fraudsters
The public is being warned to beware fraudsters grooming people who are trying to stay afloat during the cost-of-living crisis. It comes after more than £600million was lost to fraud in the first half of this year.
Paul Maskall is Fraud and Cyber Crime Prevention Manager at the Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU).
The DCPCU was set up in 2002 as a fully operational police unit in a collaboration between UK Finance, the City of London Police and London’s Metropolitan Police.
He told Express.co.uk: “The biggest concern we have is criminals have always been particularly good at using societal contexts to their advantage, so when you’re expecting a text message, for instance parcel scammers will generally come in the run up to Christmas because we’re all getting notifications. We saw it through NHS Track and Trace, through Census fraud, vaccines, at quite a high level over the last two years.”
Mr Maskall explained how DCPCU is already seeing scams linked to energy rebates, uncertainty over the economy and the rising cost-of-living.
The rising cost-of-living is leading people to find extra ways to make money (Image: Getty)
A spam ‘phishing’ email is displayed on a laptop screen (Image: Getty)
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