Scams can come from any angle, whether by text, call, email, letter or online. And they’re becoming more sophisticated all the time – continuing to deprive people of often life-changing amounts of money. the guide in this article from MoneySavingExpert, Martin Lewis, explains what to look out for, how to protect yourself and what to do if you’re a victm of a scam. It’s a long read–but stick with it, as it is full of valuable advice.
The best way to prevent criminals from getting their hands on your hard-earned cash is to know how to protect yourself in the first place. The article linked above contains some top tips on how to spot, avoid and protect yourself against scams. They aren’t all fail-safes, but they can help you think before you act.
Make yourself a harder target
Criminals use information about you that’s available online (including on social media sites) to make their phishing messages more convincing. You can reduce the likelihood of being phished by thinking about what personal information you (and others) post about you, and by reviewing your privacy settings within your social media accounts.
And finally……Use Citizens Advice’s Scams Checker
Fraudsters continue to evolve with time, and for this reason it can remain difficult to distinguish between what’s legitimate and what’s a scam – even if you’re scam-savvy. Thankfully there are extra resources out there which can help you decide.
One of these resources is Citizens Advice’s online scams checker tool.
To use the tool, you simply need to answer a short set of questions, such as where you came across the ‘scam’ and what, if anything, it asked of you. Based on your answers, the tool will give some tailored advice, which’ll hopefully make it clearer whether you have been targeted by a scam.
