The impersonation scams used by fraudsters as they steal millions of pounds

Oct 27, 2020 08:00 am Cyber Security 219

Beware the coronavirus con artists: Can you spot the fraudsters posing as everything from airlines to HMRC?

There were 15,000 cases of impersonation scams in the first half of 2020

Criminals took advantage of the coronavirus to rope victims into scams

Impersonation fraud sees scammers pose as companies and official bodies to get victims either to hand over money or their personal details

By George Nixon For Thisismoney.co.uk

Published: 03:49 EDT, 27 October 2020 | Updated: 03:49 EDT, 27 October 2020

Scammers have used the chaos of the coronavirus pandemic to pose as everything from airlines, to mobile phone providers and streaming services and steal millions of pounds from victims in impersonation scams.

Fraudsters have continued to cold-call victims stuck at home pretending to be their bank or the police to convince them that their money isn't safe.

Meanwhile, examples provided to This is Money show how have victims have been bombarded with phishing emails and texts designed to harvest their details.

The scams provided to us by trade body UK Finance cover a wide range of companies and organisations: they range from a fake email claiming to be from Netflix - telling subscribers to update their payment details - to emails encouraging recipients to get shopping vouchers.

Below we feature a number of the scams, but would you spo ..

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