This week, Financial Fraud Action UK (part of UK Finance) and the UK Government are launching
Take Five to Stop Fraud Week, to educate people on protecting themselves from financial fraud. The Take Five campaign wants people to pause and take five to check whether that email, text or phone call is from a legitimate organisation, to reduce the number of people who fall victim to such scams.
One common example of this is “phishing” - an illegal attempt to "fish" for your private, sensitive data, by tricking you into revealing personal information. Fraudsters send phishing emails or text messages posing as trusted brands like PayPal in order to extract sensitive information from consumers.
They will often use a false sense of urgency to prompt you to act in haste and follow links to fake websites, where your information can be collected and used to imitate your identity and, in some cases, make payments and purchases in your name.
The methods used by scammers are getting more sophisticated – recently we’ve seen convincing spoof adverts that lead to fake websites, and some have even been known to hijack breaking news events by sending emails that tap into our curiosity. It’s no wonder that people are finding it hard to know whether contact from a business or individual is to be trusted or not.
Our top tips to avoid getting caught out include:
Check the basics: Look out for misspellings and grammatical errors, which can be a tell-tale sign of a scam.
Verify an email’s authenticity: Phishing scams will often mimic the look and feel of PayPal emails, and ask you for sensitive information – something that real PayPal emails will never do.
How to spot the difference: A PayPal email will address you by your first and last name, or your business name, and we will never ask you for your full password, bank account, or credit card details in a message.
Avoid following links: If you receive an email you think is suspicious, do not click on any links or download any attachments. You can check where a link is going before you click on it by hovering over it – does it look legitimate?
Keep tabs on your information: Limit the number of places where you store your payment information online by using a secure digital wallet like PayPal. If you are making a purchase online, consider using a protected payment method such as PayPal, so if your purchase doesn’t arrive or match the product description, PayPal can reimburse you.
Easiest of all, use common sense: If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is! Stay clear of exceptional deals or anything that is significantly reduced in price from what you would expect to pay.
Our customers’ security is a priority for PayPal, and we ask you to act with caution and watch out for fraudulent behaviour. If in doubt, the Take Five campaign urges you to stop and think ‘My money? My info? I don’t think so.’ to quickly shut down uninvited approaches for your details.
If you think that you’ve received a phishing email, you can forward it to
spoof@paypal.com, without changing the subject line. PayPal will let you know whether it is fraudulent.