Fraud prevention

Fraudsters capitalise on cost of living crisis

In this article

Watch our fraud event replay

Fraud event summary

Five fraudster tricks

Your questions answered

16 Nov 2022 . 5 minute read

NatWest Premier customers heard how fraudsters might target them and why we’re all vulnerable at a recent virtual event. Watch the video, read the article and see answers to a selection of questions that came in.

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Fraud event summary

The current cost of living crisis is proving fertile ground for financial fraudsters – with loan, energy rebate and investment scams on the rise as people focus on managing their money.

That was just one of the key messages shared with NatWest Premier customers at a recent event on fraud.

Panellist Paul Maskell, Fraud and Cybercrime Manager, UK Finance, said it was important to “stop, take a breather and be mindful” when receiving a text, email or phone call asking you to do something.

He told the audience: “Fraudsters play on our emotions, and they’re very, very good at providing the right context. We saw it during Covid, with scams around the NHS and business loans. And now, with the cost of living crisis, we’re seeing it again, with scams directed at people trying to get more from their money.

“They often tell you something you really want or need to hear, at the exact time you need to hear it.”

He stressed that, although almost 90% of all fraud is now online or through a phone call, it’s still not about technology, it’s about feelings.

“You take messages you receive in a certain way depending on how you feel in that moment,” he said. “Have you ever taken a text message the wrong way from a partner? Or an email the wrong way from a colleague? Fraudsters play on that, looking to use your hope, excitement, panic or fear to make you act in a certain way.”

Paul added: “It’s always worth taking a step back and thinking ‘what’s my emotional reaction to this?’. We’re not always very good at that. Pause, reflect and ask yourself if it could be a scam.”

We’re all vulnerable

There’s a common misconception that only some people could fall victim to fraud. But the panel stressed this wasn’t true.

Dylan Williams, Head of Affluent, NatWest – and event host – said: “So many of us believe it will be someone else who is scammed, but we could all potentially be vulnerable at certain points of our lives, with people from all walks of life being caught out.”

Panellist Vicki Ashworth, from NatWest’s Behavioural Science team, added: “There are certain circumstances where some people may be more vulnerable than others. But as humans, we’re all susceptible. Everyone will experience vulnerability at some point in their lives, and most likely at some point in their day as well.”

There are certain circumstances where some people may be more vulnerable than others. But as humans, we’re all susceptible. Everyone will experience vulnerability at some point in their lives, and most likely at some point in their day as well.

Vicki Ashworth

Behavioural Science Team, NatWest

While many worry about how their elderly relatives might tackle fraud, Paul said it was a risk for all ages.

“There is a different flavour of fraud for everyone,” he said. “The older generation can be targeted by things like romance scams as loneliness can be a factor, while younger people might see holiday or tax rebate scams."

“But no matter how old you are, if you’ve got financial anxiety and you receive an email offering you money, you may well focus on the money rather than any red flags.”

How often should you change your password?

Questions were submitted by the audience around the hassle of remembering multiple passwords, and how often they should be changed.

Paul said you didn’t necessarily need to change a password often, but recommended having a unique one for everything you do.

“If one company you deal with has a data breach and your email and password become public, criminals could use them. So if you use them for anything else, that’s at risk too.

“Using things like password manager is very important because it takes the guess work out of trying to remember your passwords. And then you only really need to change one if you think it’s been compromised.”

Five fraudster tricks

Paul talked through five key tactics used by scammers:

Context – such as the Covid or cost of living crisis
Authority – they’ll say they’re from your bank, the police or similar organisation as, instinctively, we trust authority
Urgency – they’ll apply pressure by saying you have to do something fast
Scarcity – you may hear talk of a ‘limited time offer’ that’s ‘just for you'
Emotion – feeding on how we feel when we see their message.

Read our guide to reporting fraud

Your questions answered

I have numerous apps and each requires a password. How would you suggest remembering/storing them? And how often should they be changed?

The crucial thing is to ensure you have a unique password for each account and application. The way to do this easily is to use a password manager such as Lastpass, Dashlane or Apple Keychain.

As long as you have a unique password, you don’t actually need to change the password unless you believe it to be compromised.

Can a password manager be compromised?

Password managers keep your data encrypted, making them incredibly secure ways to store your passwords. So the risk of reusing your passwords is greater than the risk of a password manager being compromised.

Password managers, like any account, require a username and password, so it’s important that you keep this confidential and set up multi-factor authentication (codes sent to your phone or app) in order to access it.

What is the safest way of communicating by email? Are there secure email servers you would recommend?

Emails and the security they rely on are much the same across the board, unless you have specific software or settings to ensure they’re encrypted. Email accounts, like any other account, rely on the security of your own account credentials – such as username and password. It is however important to set up multi-factor authentication on your email account (codes sent to your phone or app) as you use that to reset a lot of your security.

What do we do with fraudulent texts? How do we report them?

When we get emails and telephone calls from NatWest, how do we know it’s really from NatWest?

Our emails will always contain at least one piece of personally identifiable information, like a partial postcode or name, so that you can identify them as genuine. We will never ask you to transfer money to another account or ask for your full PIN, password or passcode.

If you’re unsure whether a phone call is genuine, hang up and call back using a trusted number, ideally from a different device. Similarly, with emails, if ever in doubt, don’t click on any links within the email and contact us directly using a known email or phone number.

You can download and register free for Malwarebytes Premium software to help keep your devices secure against things like viruses, ransomware and email scams.

Staying safe

How important is confidential disposal of personal finance paperwork? What’s OK to throw in your domestic bin or recycling? And what should 100% be confidentially disposed of?

What measures can the bank take, if any, when our personal information is stolen from somewhere else?

Whilst various teams ensure that customer data and information held by NatWest Group is protected and secure, any information pertaining to our customers that’s held by other organisations is the responsibility of those organisations to protect. It’s also their responsibility to inform those they believe have been impacted in the event of a data breach.

We wouldn’t necessarily know if your information has been stolen from elsewhere, so would encourage you to always tell us straight away. We also encourage our customers to use unique passwords across all their accounts.

If your card information has been compromised, we can cancel your card and re-issue another. You can request this by calling us, or through our banking app.

There are some useful tools to identify if your personal information has been included in data breaches, such as Have I Been Pwned, or Apple’s Keychain (for iOS users).

I had my account scammed and my identity stolen in April 2022. NatWest stopped my internet banking as a safety measure. Is it safe to return to internet banking, and how do I go about it?

To what extent does NatWest require hard proof of the legitimacy of payments?

Fraud alerts from the bank and blocked transactions can happen when away from home, when it isn’t so easy to contact the fraud helpline. Any suggestions?

Common sense goes without saying - but have we gone too far and become too open in sharing where we are and what we’re doing on social media sites?

The pace of social and technological change is increasing, which does open doors for those looking to take advantage of others. But when someone is posting on social media, a concern about fraud is unlikely to play a big part in deciding what they do or don’t share. In fact, there may even be some ‘motivated’ forgetting – or avoiding thinking about the risks – as this detracts from the pleasure of posting. It’s about having the right level of awareness, the right ‘pause’ techniques, to enable us to still share, but as safely as possible.

General

What can be done by fraudsters with just your account number and sort code?

There is actually very little that can be done with an account number and sort code, apart from deposit money into your account. However, they can be used in social engineering to convince people that they have the right credentials about a person. ‘Is this Mrs Smith of account number 12345678?” So it’s worth being mindful of that.

Can money be fraudulently removed from a bank account with no involvement or interaction from the account holder?

This generally comes down to the amount of data a criminal has access to – how much personal and financial information they have, whether taken directly from you or gained through a data breach elsewhere. This is why multi-factor authentication (codes sent to your phone or app) is there, to reduce these instances, so it’s important to keep those codes safe and not disclose them to anyone.

How vulnerable are iPhones and other phones in relation to fraud?

How and who should we report attempted cybercrime to?

This material is published by NatWest Group plc (“NatWest Group”), for information purposes only and should not be regarded as providing any specific advice. Recipients should make their own independent evaluation of this information and no action should be taken, solely relying on it. This material should not be reproduced or disclosed without our consent. It is not intended for distribution in any jurisdiction in which this would be prohibited. Whilst this information is believed to be reliable, it has not been independently verified by NatWest Group and NatWest Group makes no representation or warranty (express or implied) of any kind, as regards the accuracy or completeness of this information, nor does it accept any responsibility or liability for any loss or damage arising in any way from any use made of or reliance placed on, this information. Unless otherwise stated, any views, forecasts, or estimates are solely those of the NatWest Group Economics Department, as of this date and are subject to change without notice.

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