Share your thoughts and experiences of financial fraud and/or scams with Take Five to Stop Fraud - £300 voucher to be won! NOW CLOSED

I get emails from paypal saying that such and such payment have been made and if I didnt authorise it to click the link and cancel transaction . Its scam designed for you to click the link and them put in paypal password which scammers then use to make unauthorised payments .

use your common sense and stand back and take time. don't rush into anything

had my credit card skimmed at a petrol station once. luckily they spent way more than I would have paid for petrol, so was refunded by credit card comapny. Always check your statements

Don't answer the phone or open your front door anymore unless you know 100% who it is and you wish to engage with them.

I have noticed that now more then ever you can get scammed. I would never click on links that look odd to me and the same with answering the telephone from someone who claims to be that person or organisation and asking me too many questions. I usually end conversation quickly by putting phone down. I am also very aware of shredding any papers with my personal information.
Call me old fashion but I would never bank online.

Never give out any details over the phone and beware the scam where the 'bank' calls and says, don't worry, you can call me back and verify my ID. They can keep their line open, and make it seem legitimate after you put yours down. No one legitimate will ever want you to give them anything over the phone or internet.

Never respond to emails that are asking for details - always go to the site directly yourself and check things out. Likewise with telephone calls, never give any information out over the phone, the bank would never ask for it - just ring back yourself to confirm that it is correct. Also get a card protector to carry your bank card in, it's a bit like a foil wallet and this stops people scamming your card.

i never open any links from email that look dodgy. i never give personal details over the phone. And if it sounds too good to be true its probably a scam!

You should be able to block an unwanted tel number. Our landline is with BT and their Call/Protect service is free. It will block withheld numbers, calls from abroad & last number who rang if necessary. It is very easy to set up, BT will help you if you need it. These callers have the option to leave a message in junk voice mail which you can check easily. I believe other landline companies provide a similar service.

If you receive a phone call or an email to say that you have won a prize, and you are unsure whether it is genuine, ask for help on a competition chat room or forum. 'Compers' will be happy to help. They are regularly asked to verify wins for other people and are experts at distinguishing a genuine win from a scam as they have been doing it for so long.

I am very aware but that is only because years ago when ebay was in it's infancy and before the days of paypal I was scammed. Basically I paid by cheque for a TV that I never received and never existed! It turned out someone had hacked another users account to list items and then was pocketing the money. I informed the police but they wouldn't do anything even though I had the address I sent the cheque to! After that I've always been careful however it's such a massive thing now I'm sure everyone had a story!

I often get calls that I have a computer virus and am asked to turn on my computer to fix it, which I never do!

Please do not answer emails or click on links asking you to confirm you log-in details. I have had 3 in the past week, 2 from Apple saying my Apple-ID is being used in Korea and to log in, the third from PayPal asking me to confirm a purchase I have recently made for £200. For the Apple-ID I went into my account on my IPad and changed my password, I then checked my PayPal account, - no purchases had been made, but I changed my password in any case.

One week before Christmas 2017.My wife decide she needed cash,Some thing she never does (normal pays on card).She put her card in ATM Tesco Epping.asked £150. whirring noise no card or cash.Took 5 minutes to get to Barclays.By which time the thief had released a loop on ATM collect our card and cash. and made it to Barclays and drawn a further £150 pounds.We got the cash back,but not till after Christmas.Police informed us they have a app on mobile phone that reads your pin,from some distance away.We believed we would never be caught in a scam.They commited 24 offence in that area in one day.Never caught.

Do you own research, make it count.

I have never been scammed but I have witnessed a scamming.
My sister was going through a very rough time. She'd lost her confidence and was struggling with depression. She's a animal lover and when one of her cats died it pushed her further into her depression. We all tried to give her support and thought she was getting better.
She told me she was talking to a lovely man on Facebook and she was hoping it would turn into something - he loved animals like her and they'd got talking over her recent loss.
A few weeks later she'd gone very withdrawn and stopped mentioning this secretive about this man.
It wasn't until we overheard a phone call where she said she was sending money that we started to become suspicious. At first she refused to tell us why she was sending this man money. But eventually she told us he'd been really harassing her and she didn't know what to do. She thought they loved each other. She told us he'd wasn't from the U.K and didn't have the money to meet up with her. But all the money she'd been sending didn't seem to be enough.
It had completely ground her down. With her permission we checked this mans profile out - he had no mutual friends with my sister. She showed us the messages. He was clearly pressuring her but in my sisters depressed state she couldn't see it. We traced the account she'd been asked to put money in and it showed an African business account! He'd told my sister he was from the U.S and was a soldier.
He'd completely fooled her. Everything we'd found out he'd told her was a lie. He'd been scamming her for her money. Tricked her into thinking he cared and her being so low in confidence believed him. It was heartbreaking for my sister.
We supported her and eventually she believed us and cut all ties with this man.
I'm sharing this post just to show how calculated and evil some people can be. My sister was already low and he prayed on her.
Always check out who your talking to. Trust your instincts (my sister had suspicions but refused to believe them) confide in family members. And never ever send money.

My 92 yr old mother was scammed by a company offering call barring (of all things). That is all sorted, but unfortunately it looks like she is on some kind of "scammers list" now and she does get a lot of nuisance calls. They don't seem to give up! We have drummed into her not to give any bank or card details to anyone over the phone. Now, she either just puts the phone down, or says she is hard of hearing and asks them to put their request in writing. Then she always reports the number to me or my sister for checking, She gets a lot of calls at the moment purporting to be from SKY offering a new/better deal and asking for card details. A quick call to the genuine company by me confirmed they had not contacted her and they would never call asking for card/bank details. If an offer seems to good to be true..... it usually is.

I had an email from Virgin Media this morning, which didn't use my name, just said "Hello". I thought it was a scam, as most major companies will actually address the customer by name and we are advised to be wary of communications, which do not address the recipient by name.
So I logged onto my account to check and it was indeed genuine. What a lot off faffing about to check it was genuine. ....Or I am overcautious.

Fortunately, I have managed to avoid being scammed so far. However every day my time is wasted with scam emails. I have seen them all. Banks wanting me to update my details, lottery wins from fake lotteries, African bank managers wanting to transfer funds to UK and not forgetting my tax refunds. etc. For me the time dealing with these scams adds up considerably over the years. There seems to be no effective way of stopping them.

If I get an email scam, I always forward it to the supposed sender with a message, so they can see what the customers are receiving. It will help to tighten up security at their end, too.

Never trust what salespeople tell you unless it is written in black and white in a valid contract.

I'm just naturally suspicious so am less likely to fall for scams than someone who is trusting.

it's disgusting! always be wary of emails asking for you to click on it or for payment and when using cashpoints always try and pull on where you place the card incase of a scanner being placed on it!

always look in the top left corner on a web browser, in front of the URL there will be a padlock or the website should start with HTTPS, as yours does. this means its secure.

I am very savvy - I don't fall for any scam - nada! I don't understand how people can?! Am I just being naive? Who can fall for this latest scam; pay your tax ill within 24hours by iTunes gift cards or go to jail! Come on - anyone with a brain cell should know you don't pay within 24hours, to start with - then you know gift cards are not the currency of paying tax - how can people fall for it?!