Category: Consumer News

UK retailers facing one million fraud attempts per day

The UK’s retailers have been warned to brace themselves for a barrage of fraud attempts this busy festive shopping season, with estimates claiming they’ll be hit by one million attacks each day. Fraud prevention firm ThreatMetrix made the call based on data collected by its Digital Identity Network – which checks over 20 billion annual […]

New airline scam promises free Emirates flight tickets

Year-end celebrations are close and many people are looking to book their plane tickets to visit relatives and friends. As expected, cybercriminals are looking to exploit users over the festive period – social engineering techniques are frequent over the holidays, as demonstrated by a scam that is promising people free flight tickets. What is the […]

Banks’ online security is failing customers

The consumer group Which? has criticised some of Britain’s biggest banks for failing to invest in security systems that would better protect their customers from fraudsters. Against a backdrop of booming bank fraud, Which? tested the UK’s 11 biggest banks and building societies and found that the security at five of them was still not […]

Homeworker found guilty of defrauding Advantage

A homeworker who defrauded Advantage Travel Partnership of tens of thousands of pounds has been handed a suspended jail sentence. Rita Hunter, who ran Hunters Travel in Liverpool, was ordered to pay back £33,000 to the consortium. Hunter admitted using former customers’ credit and debit cards to pay for new bookings through the consortium, while […]

UK banks urged to protect customers from fraudsters

British banks must do more to protect customers from transferring money to scam artists, says a new “super-complaint” to the UK’s payments watchdog. Which?, the consumer group behind the complaint, said banks had to take responsibility if customers sent money to schemes that turned out to be fraudulent. As an example, it said it had […]

Scams con artists will use to steal your passport

The Foreign & Commonwealth Office has revealed some of the most common ways British tourists have had their passports nicked while on holiday. With more than 21,000 passports stolen or lost last year, the FCO has launched a social media campaign – called #PassportAware – to encourage Britons to prevent their travel documents from falling […]

Cybercrime is flourishing

It is very clear from the figures released by the various fraud prevention agencies that there is a dramatic increase in cybercrime and real-time fraud. Should the losses continue to persist at the current growth rate, the financial services industry is in for torrid times! Ultimately, it is the attitudes around fraud that need to […]

Fraud victims outside London have ‘little chance’ of police help

Fraud victims outside London whose cases are reported to the police have “little chance of any kind of investigation”, an an authoritative study has found. In a damning assessment the Fraud Advisory Panel said yesterday that Britain’s anti-fraud and cyber-crime measures were “under resourced” and suffered from “widespread ignorance of threats and [an] uncoordinated approach”. […]

Identity fraud up by 57%

The number of victims of identity theft rose by 57% last year, figures from fraud prevention service Cifas suggest. The data, taken from 261 companies in the UK, suggests fraudsters are increasingly getting people’s personal information from social media sites. Cifas said Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn had become a “hunting ground” for identity thieves. It […]

£500 device can hack hundreds of contactless cards

A device that allows criminals to clone contactless bank cards in bulk is up for sale on the so-called dark web. The Contactless Infusion X5 can steal information from nearby cards, including the card number and the card holder’s name and address. This information can then be loaded onto blank cards to create clones that […]