Phishing uses fraudulent emails and websites to fool recipients into divulging personal financial data such as credit card numbers, account usernames and passwords, etc. Such attempts are increasingly professional and both the email and website may look entirely genuine, mimicking the trusted brand identity of the organisation involved.

Banks, credit card agencies and online services such as Student Finance England, Barclays Bank, eBay, Natwest and Paypal have all been targeted in the past. So keep your eyes open to any suspicious emails. Here are some key tips and things to look out for.

What should you do if you’ve received a scam email?

• Do not click on any links in the scam email.
• Do not reply to the email or contact the senders in any way.
• If you have clicked on a link in the email, do not supply any information on the website that may open.
• Do not open any attachments that arrive with the email.

Below is a great example of what not to do…even if it does look like fun

If you think you may have compromised the safety of your bank details and/or have lost money due to fraudulent misuse of your cards, you should immediately contact your bank.

If you’ve been a victim of fraud, report it to Action Fraud.

Fake emails often (but not always) display some of the following characteristics:

• The sender’s email address doesn’t tally with the trusted organisation’s website address.
• The email is sent from a completely different address or a free web mail address.
• The email does not use your proper name, but uses a non-specific greeting like “dear customer”.
• A sense of urgency; for example the threat that unless you act immediately your account may be closed.
• A prominent website link. These can be forged or seem very similar to the proper address, but even a single character’s difference means a different website.
• A request for personal information such as user name, password or bank details.
• The email contains spelling and grammatical errors.
• You weren’t expecting to get an email from the company that appears to have sent it.
• The entire text of the email is contained within an image rather than the usual text format.
• The image contains an embedded hyperlink to a bogus site.

For more on Phishing Scams, visit our shuspace pages.