- This is contact made by phone, which encourages you to give out PINs, passwords or digital banking codes.
- These calls often involve fraudsters claiming they’re from the bank, the police, or another official organisation or company that you trust.
- You may get a ‘warm up’ call where no information is discussed. This is to prepare for a second call in which they’re likely to ask for information.
- They may have some information about your organisation already, such as a name, address, or even the name of a genuine member of bank staff, all to make the deception more plausible.
- Calls often seem urgent, to get you to act quickly, giving you minimal time to think about whether the call is fraudulent. Some common examples are:
- ‘There’s a problem with your account that requires urgent action.’
- ‘There’s been some suspicious activity on your accounts; we need you to move your money to another account.’
- ‘There’s malware on your computer.’
- ‘We’re investigating fraud by bank staff.’
- ‘We need to cancel payments.’
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What is telephone fraud or ‘vishing’?
Take Five to stop fraud
Take Five is a national campaign that offers straight-forward and impartial advice to help everyone protect themselves from preventable financial fraud. This includes email deception and phone-based scams as well as online fraud – particularly where criminals impersonate trusted organisations.