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Emails telling me changes to my Amazon account etc.. have been made and to click on the link to fix them, which I never do

I have luckily not had this problem yet but always be more cautious!

My elderly mother was scammed out of all her savings approx £87,000 by telephone callers ( they told her not to tell ANYONE)
Told her she needed to pay delivery courier charges for a lottery she,d won.
It went on for 18 months before we found out and got the police involved (to no avail) as she’d sent the money via western union to a foreign country.
Then when we thought it was over by changing her telephone number unbeknown to us again a courier arranged to meet her ....but didn’t turn up! And now having her email address & postal address they started it again even got her to take out a large bank loan which she gave them which ended in her going bankrupt.
These scum pray on elderly people often with early dementia or just being of an age where they believe people
Are often lonely and confused (or just gullible)
This is certainly one form of fraud that needs to be taken seriously and we all need to try to protect our elderly parents or family from.

I've thankfully never been a victim of fraud but at times seem to be bombarded with dodgy emails and phone calls. i don't answer calls from numbers I don't recognise - if it's important they will leave a message. When Isearch their number later invariably it's a known spam call. And all those emails from banks I don't bank with and other offers to improve my sex life - well they get ignored too!

I think it's important for people not to become terrified and live in fear of what might happen, just as they would treat the potential for crime in the real world. We keep alert, don't leave doors unlocked, keep our cash on view or invite strangers in.

Staying aware of the basics - not opening anything that doesn't look right, not clicking on links and never giving out sensitive information - and using common sense to deal with unsolicited approaches will help. In the main, I think we are lucky to have online banking nowadays. I don't much miss having to pay for parking and the dubious privilege of lengthy queuing, within banking hours.

Always check your bank and card statements carefully, whether you still get the hard copy, as I do, or just have everything online. I always go through mine carefully as soon as they arrive and reconcile them to my financial spreadsheet (yes, I am that sad!). Recently I noticed three £15 payments for mobile phone top-ups spread over a month and rang the credit card company to query them. I was put through to the fraud department who told me this was a massive operation - someone out there was helping themselves to small amounts from multiple accounts, knowing that the majority of people don't check their transactions carefully and wouldn't notice such insignificant debits. Don't let them get away with it!

freefan has a very good point:- there must be a way that important phone calls from docters' surgeries and hospitals can be assigned a caller ID that tells us the nature of the call. It's certainly time that telephone companies put an end to caller ID spoofing, they have the means to check if a call has been made using Voice-over-IP technology which is how most phone numbers are spoofed.

I recently had several texts and calls from my bank and, being naturally suspicious, finally answered one. My bank told me there had been some suspicious activity on my account. I rang my bank from another phone and they confirmed there was a problem and took me through some security questions. I was surprised by the questions they asked, they were about how I used my account and there was no mention of passwords, maiden names etc but at the end of the process I was reassured that I was talking to my bank. We then discussed a series of transactions, some of which I claimed and others were definitely not me. All the money taken was reimbursed and I was told to destroy my debit card, I received a new one in the post. I was also told I need not change my PIN and that this had not been my fault. I haven't really worked out what happened although I can guess.

I also want to say that there seems to be a fear of online banking. Many are worried about giving out their account details when making transactions but, if you think about it, it's very public anyway and many pay using direct debit, allowing companies to take amounts out of their accounts. The one thing that we don't want is for someone to be able to set themselves up as a payee on our accounts. Banks provide additional security measures to allow new payees, it's usually a two step process. Also, banking online means that you can frequently check your accounts and keep an eye on things.

The reason was that it had been used with the PIN number and the bank said I must have given it to them. I hadn't, nor was it written down anywhere but I had to prove this by providing police reports and evidence that I was in a different country.

After my card was stolen I reported it to the bank (Santander) to stop the card. Several days later large amounts were spent on the card and the bank refused to believe that I hadn't used it, despite having reported it stolen days before, asked for it to be cancelled and being in a different country at the time! It took a long time to get them to refund the money and caused a lot of sleepless nights after I was already shaken up by the theft.

My family have had problems with fraud, a phone call offering help with a computer fix lead to them giving bank details...! Sadly no matter how many warnings are given they are vulnerable and I would have no confidence that they wouldn't do the same again in future. It is so sad not being able to prevent it!

Never open an email that has an attachment that you do not recognise, I always go inside the bank to draw cash out as I feel safer and check my bank statements regularly to make sure that no suspicious transactions have been made. If I have a phone call and do not recognise the number I do not answer.

I never click on links on emails

I try not to conduct any business on phone calls received. I check the numbers and email or ring back once satisfied they are who they claim to be.

Any telephone number I do not recognise is filtered by my answering machine. I really hope my ancient machine keeps going as it has saved me from hanging up on so many unwanted callers. I heard on bbc radio years ago that you should say "remove me from your database and do not call this number again" then hang up. I use this when at my elderly aunt's home. I don't know if it works but you have to say it really quickly as they hang up midway through if you are too slow!

If you ever receive texts or messages from Financial institutions always call them back on a number YOU know is correct - From letters, paperwork or suchlike from the company involved - Never just use the handy link given!

Thankfully i've never been victim to any fraud but one of my friends was. They fell for one of the fake tax rebate emails and had their account cleared about 10 minutes later. They did get it all back thankfully but took a week or so.

I remember my bank phoned me once as I was at work in the UK asking if I was in China spending £3000 on jewellery. Fortunately the bank system had flagged it as suspicious activity.

I have had money taken from my bank used on betfair . Nationwide returned the money quickly which was good. My husband had a call from someone pretending to be from Sky. I had told him I thought my laptop had a virus so when the next day someone rang and said we could have a virus he thought they were genuine. He spent the next hour following their instruction on my laptop then they said you need to pay for our time. Only then did he twig that something was wrong and said my wife has the cards you will have to call back. Needless to say we never answered any calls from them again. Any emails that look dodgy I hover over the email to see what the real email is. If its a spoof email from a bank or business like amazon I will forward it to them so they can chase the source. I have even sent letters from abroad begging for money to the fraud squad

Take advice from more than one source, and more than one expert. use the internet and checkout the MSE website

I get emails on a daily basis for Bitcoins or from various African financial institutes offering me millions of dollars, I find it hard to believe that these people make so much money from it! It also doesn't seem to matter how many times I report the emails to microsoft they still arrive, it's so frustrating.

M<y daughter has me well advised and has said that any phone calls from a number I don't recognise I have to ask for their name, company and phone number and tell them my boss will call them back when convenient as this is a business line... usually resulting in a very quick hang up and very few repeat phone calls back.
Unfortunately because I have regular phone calls from doctors and hospital clinics I can't just ignore my phone when the number is unknown which is maybe something medical surgeries are needing to address ?

I very nearly got caught out a few years ago and wanted to share this on here. If you get a cheque as part payment/deposit on something and you pay it into your bank and the cheque clears and the balance shows in your account - this does NOT mean the money is yours!!!! Apparently according to my bank the money can be clawed back up to 6 months afterwards if it is found that the cheque or sender are fraudulent! I was really shocked by this!

Always ring a company back on their official number rather than discussing personal information when they call me!

I had an email supposedly from the Inland Revenue saying I was due a tax rebate and follow a link. One or two words spelt wrongly as well

I would like my DH to use his email account more but because he's not comfortable with spotting these increasingly sophisticated scams he prefers me to deal with them.