Shoppers across the East of England are being urged to watch out for fraudsters when online bargain hunting in the Christmas sales.
The warning comes as new analysis for Lloyds Bank shows that four in five (82%) of people in the region say the cost-of-living crisis is making them keener to seek a bargain.
A quarter (26%) also admit to making an online purchase despite thinking that ‘this is too good to be true’.
Purchase scams occur when someone is tricked into sending money directly to someone else’s account via bank transfer (also known as a Faster Payment) to buy goods or services – often advertised online or via social media – that don’t exist.
The scams will often start on platforms such as Instagram or Facebook Marketplace, with victims lured in by the promise of cut-price or hard-to-find goods. Purchase scams are the most common type of scam where people are tricked into handing over their money, with people aged 25 to 34 most likely to fall victim.
Despite the risk of purchase scams, a fifth (22%) of shoppers in the East would use a website they’d never heard of before if it offered the cheapest option, while two thirds (65%) think a bank transfer is a safe payment method when shopping online, despite it offering much less protection than paying with a credit or debit card.
According to the Lloyds Bank 2022 Consumer Digital Index, consumers aged 70+ are nearly twice as likely to have been scammed multiple times, however over…
