Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
8 things your bank will NEVER ask you to do (but a fraudster might!)
Kamal Khurana
11th Mar 2015
Have you heard about bank courier fraud? No? Well let us tell you about it…
It’s a scam where customers are convinced over the telephone to handover bank cards or cash to a “courier” on their own doorsteps. It’s very common and new research has shown that women are much less likely than men to fall for courier fraud.
Figures reveal that across Great Britain as many as 1.15 million men and 600,000 women could be vulnerable to this sort of crime and the banking industry is encouraging people to be vigilant and report these suspicious calls from scammers falsely claiming to be from a bank or the police.
As real as it may seem a genuine bank would NEVER send a courier to someone’s home to collect cards or cash. If you know what to look for, then you’ll be better protected so here’s a list of 8 things a bank will never ask you to do taken from the The banking industry’s Know Fraud, No Fraud campaign.
Eight things your bank will NEVER ask you to do:
- Call or email to ask you for your full PIN number or any online banking passwords
- Send someone to your home to collect cash, bank cards or anything else
- Ask you to email or text personal or banking information
- Send an email with a link to a page which asks you to enter your online banking log-in details
- Ask you to authorise the transfer of funds to a new account or hand over cash
- Call to advise you to buy diamonds, land or other commodities
- Ask you to carry out a test transaction online
- Provide banking services through any mobile apps other than the bank’s official apps
Fiona McEvoy, spokesperson for the BBA said:“As with all types of fraud, we encourage people to act if they’re suspicious. Check all the details you’ve been given by waiting a few minutes after the call is finished and dialling a number you know to be your bank.”
If you suspect you have become the victim of fraud please contact Action Fraud (0300 123 2040) and your bank as soon as you can. Specially-trained staff will be able to advise on what to do next.
Have you received one of these fraud phone calls? Perhaps you’ve even handed over details? Let us know in the comments below.
Just had a call from a company saying they work on behalf of BT openreach and promise you half price broadband, phone calls, phone line rental and mobile.
You have to set up over the phone a redirect debit which means handing all you details to them.
i call 1471 and see if number withheld and in this case i phoned a number they give you it doesn’t even ring .