Fraud and scam events

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you so much for taking the time to join us for our staying safe online.

How to beat the Cyber Criminals event today.

Now on this topic, fraud and scams have been around for many years, but one thing that's changed over time is how criminals operate, particularly in the increases we've seen in cyber enabled crime.

Now, if you've not heard that term before, cyber enabled crimes are traditional crimes which can be increased in their scale or reach by the use of computers, computer networks or other forms of information and communications technologies.

With all this in mind at today's event, we're going to be sharing insight into the tactics being used by cyber criminals to target us and how we can keep ourselves and our personal information safe.

And that will include discussing topics such as malicious software, remote access, social engineering and public Wi-Fi.

But in addition to that, we'll also be sharing tips on how to protect you and your family by expanding your knowledge on those topics, which will include highlighting the resources that are available to help you continue to build confidence that can help you to beat those cyber criminals.

Now, with that in mind, to help us expand our knowledge on the subjects, today we are joined by some wonderful guest speakers.

So first things first.

My name is Paul and I'm going to be your host for the session today and I'm part of the Digital Eagles and Money Mentors team here at Barclays.

But we're also joined by Becci Hinchliffe, who's a senior threat intelligence analyst in our Cyber Fraud Fusion Center, and Liz Stanton, MBE, who's a senior trainer and family protection manager at Get Safe Online.

So they'll be helping discuss the topics today and also talking about the work that organizations, including Barclays, are doing to protect individuals and communities across the country from cyber criminals.

Now, before we jump into the topics today, I'm definitely eager to learn a little bit more about the roles that both of our guest speakers do So if we can, Becci, if you wouldn't mind, if we come over to you first, can you tell us a little bit more about what you do in your role as a senior threat intelligence analyst?

Thanks Paul, definitely sounds a fancy name.

So what does that mean?

So my team's role is to ensure that we are aware of the existing and emerging fraud and scam threats that target our customers and ultimately implement solutions and controls to reduce that customer harm.

Now we've built what we call a cyber fraud fusion center internally with Barclays, which is made up of 60 different areas within the business to ensure that we work collectively together to understand exactly what those threats are end to end.

Amazing and thank you very much, Becci.

And then if we can Liz over to yourself, tell us a little bit more about your role within Get Safe Online.

Okay.

Thanks, Paul.

Well, there's nothing really exciting about me, I guess, where I started.

I'm an ex-police officer.

I retired after serving 25 years and I and I got involved with Get Safe Online, basically, because I just love the work that they do and they're more than just a website.

Basically.

I'm one of the senior advisors.

I write and deliver the bespoke training packages and I also train the ambassadors there.

that we've got across the world as well and I also actually go to the live events as well.

So as I say, we're not just a website, we're a lot more than that as well.

The live events, which are absolutely brilliant, gives us the opportunity to speak to many people about the scams that they've been involved with, their identity stolen, and in many cases we are actually the first people they've actually opened up to as well.

It's very insightful and it helps us do the work that we do as well.

Amazing.

Thank you both so much for that insight.

And as I say, it sounds really interesting both of those roles and especially the work that you're doing to help protect people and communities across the country.

On what is an ever growing problem in fraud and scams.

Now, one of the reasons why scams continue to be such a problem is because cybercriminals have become very clever at manipulating people into behaving in a way that they otherwise usually wouldn't.

Now, cyber cybercriminals who are looking to harvest details will often use a process called social engineering to do that.

So to get us started with the topic today, if we could stop looking over yourself, Liz, do you mind giving us a little bit more insight into what social engineering actually means?

Okay.

Well, in simple terms, it just is basically when cyber criminals, they just try and manipulate you to reveal your personal information, really sensitive information.

They'll use psychological tactics to trick you into sharing this information.

So we're thinking about personal information.

So your names, your addresses, your dates of birth, your bank account details, login details, and so much more.

Really.

And it's not just through emails, which we know as phishing.

And we've also got a term called Smishing, which is a form of fraud that uses text messages that could be Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp messages, anything on that sort of platform.

They'll send these messages they’re there to prompt you to either make use the phone numbers that are on there or to click on the links there and all of them take you to a dodgy website or potentially download malicious contents as well.

Now what we've also got is Vishing.

Well, that's when somebody rings you and they can use voice changing software, even add background noises to make it sound more convincing.

And what really gets lots of people is the ability, the fact that they cloned the telephone numbers.

So they'll use this as a tactic to convince you that they actually are or seem to be genuine.

And then the other thing, obviously, you know, criminals are really on it are the use of the QR codes through Covid, we were using them a lot more.

Well, the criminals are doing their own fake QR codes now and again.

They're just going to try and trick you to go into their dodgy deceptive websites.

So instead of hacking computers directly, they exploit human weaknesses.

It's less complicated.

It can be instant and certainly far easier than trying to hack into somebody's computer or the device.

We just have to remember that scams come in all shapes and sizes.

We are in control and it's for us to make the decisions what we do and not be manipulated by these scammers and criminals.

Brilliant.

Thank you so much for sharing that insight, Liz.

So with that in mind, if we can come over to you, Becci, if you wouldn't mind sharing a bit more information about how those details are actually harvested and then how they're actually then used to commit frauds and scams.

So so let's start off with a few statistics.

So 40% of crime now equates to fraud, and that is only increasing year on year.

So safe to say that fraudsters are becoming more and more sophisticated but also very calculated.

So these cyber criminals will look for specific opportunities in terms of where we may let our guard down.

For example.

Now, if we just take a look at how we receive deliveries, for example, now 90% of Brits now use Amazon and Royal Mail delivered to 32 million households across the year.

So at least one of us on this call would be expecting the delivery today more than likely.

I know I am certainly this afternoon.

And with that comes messages from those delivery firms in order to keep you updated with where you're tracking in terms of delivery.

Now, fraudsters have used this as an opportunity.

If they send out mass campaigns, i.

e.

you waiting for a delivery, that they will at least reach one or two persons per day.

Now, you'll see from the screen here, So let's bring this attack to life.

So how does this attack look and how do these simple messages lure you went then for a victim of a crime, which is fraud.

So stage one will be you receive an SMS message sent on screen here.

This is Royal Mail themed where we may have missed the delivery.

It's asking you to click your link.

Now, upon following that link, which again isn't unusual for delivery firms to use, you will then land on what we call a phishing page, very much branded like Royal Mail in this in this instance.

And it will be asking you for credentials.

So your personal details, which is name address of where you want the delivery to go for, but more importantly, asking you for card credentials, which a delivery firm will never ask, so they'll never be a delivery fee if you need to reschedule your delivery fee.

Now, upon this stage, you're giving the fraudster access to your card details.

But as we know, card details alone isn't enough.

You may need a third stage in order to then use those card details.

So there's a couple of tactics here that the cybercriminals will do following this Smishing campaign.

So first off, there may be a third page, which is asking you to provide an OTP (One Time Passcode).

So you will receive an OTP to your device of what is assumed to be for your redelivery fee that you're paying through Royal Mail.

But actually what that OTP is doing is the cybercriminals in the background are registering your card credentials to a Apple wallet or a Google wallet for example, and then the OTP in the background is actually two authorize that wallet registration.

Now once the OTP is been planted on that phishing page, the fraudster now has access to your card on a wallet and can spend at their chosen stores or even online as well.

But there's also another route that the fraudsters may use in terms of these phishing pages.

They may then do a follow up call.

So using the exact Smishing campaign to say, Hey, I'm calling from Barclays, for example, we've recognized that your cards been compromised and use that to lure you in a false sense of security that you're speaking to Barclays.

So there's a couple of ways that that just a simple SMS expecting a delivery or missed a delivery SMS can then lead to a compromise to your account.

So a couple of tips There is if you are expecting A, expecting a delivery, always be wary of these URLs that are asking for card credentials as a delivery firm will never ask you to provide your card details and always use the genuine websites as well.

And if you do receive a call from an individual following a campaign or out of the blue advising that they're calling from Barclays or other banks that you may use as well, always call the number on the back of your card, but we don't always see deliveries.

So this is just one a theme, a theme that we've seen this week in particular is Telco themed, so EE and O2 or Three etc.

, have all been the latest lure in terms of attempting to get the victims to click on the link and handover their card credentials.

But also you'll see on the page here Barclays as well.

So our brand is no different to other brands being used in terms of lure.

And the third image there, where it’s saying Barclays, we have detected a payment.

This is exactly how we would communicate with our customers where we've potentially identified a risky transaction in that we need to check is genuine.

And again, we see this as an opportunity to lure you in in a false sense of security, that it may be Barclays.

So again, when in doubt, always call the number on the back of your card and be aware of Barclays messages coming from random mobile numbers.

So we'll always try and use our tags where it says Barclays at the top.

So always double check the message before you respond.

Fantastic.

Thank you very much, Becci.

and really interesting insight into some of the tactics that are being used to socially engineer people's information.

So I think off the back of that, Becci, if we can just go back over to yourself again, would you mind just showing a little bit more insight to some of the other tactics that criminals will actually use to target people?

Yeah, sure.

So following on the line of vishing call that, that Liz touched on earlier where you may receive a call from an individual posing to be might be a financial institute or it could be Microsoft or any kind of anti-virus company.

Now, fraudsters have recognized gaining access to a device is very valuable to them.

So whether that be your desktop or your mobile device, granting them access will increase their tactics and essentially increase their cash out.

So fraudsters often use what we call remote access software, and this is a genuine piece of software.

So a lot of firms use this.

For example, if you are a business dealing with an I.

T.

firm and you need to computer fixed, they might ask you to download a remote access which enables them to connect to your device and fraudsters use this technology in order to lure their victims in to gain access to the device.

And what this does is it enables them to navigate your online banking platforms or your mobile banking platforms and facilitate that transaction or of authentication.

So whether they might be targeting further card authentication or directly on your digital channels, they use this technology in order to connect and take over your device essentially.

So a top tip there if you receive a call from an individual asking you to download software, that's a moment to reflect and ask yourself.

Would my bank really do this?

So a bank would never ask you to download access software, but ultimately it's not the bank that's calling, if it is another third party, again, always challenge and refrain from downloading that remote access to your device.

But there's also other threats as well arise on these wonderful little computers that we hold in our pockets now.

So we have our life on our mobile phones and we are pumping more and more technology into that.

And they are a great piece tool, and we use them on our day to day, but that means it's becoming more enticing for the cybercriminals to target.

So we are seeing a rise in what we call mobile malware now.

This essentially again enables threat actors to directly access your device to try and attempt to access your card credentials, your personal data.

We don't have enough time to go into detail today on mobile malware.

There's a significant amount of information on our websites, but if people do want to learn more about that, we can do further session specifically on mobile malware.

So really interesting in Becci.

So it seems like that in addition to targeting personal and financial information devices may also be targets for cyber criminals.

So, Liz, if you wouldn't mind, could you expand on that topic a little bit and share some further insight into how criminals may actually be targeting our devices?

Yeah, certainly Paul.

Well I just want to really mention the Wi-Fi.

Publid Wi-Fi really, because it's it's certain that possibly everybody somewhere along the line in their life that they will have connected to public wi-fi, they may have done it without having to enter a password, but in some instances that you've actually got to put your email there as well.

We just do need to remember that hackers and identity thieves are on there as well.

And that brings us on to where some of these criminals, they will take it a step further and they will set up their own copycat hotspots.

So you really don't need to be an I.

T wizz to do this just by using some equipment freely available on the web as well.

Practically anybody can do it.

So just think of all the places you've been where they've offered free wi fi coffee shops, shopping centers, hotels, trains, practically anywhere really where, where you go nowadays there is that free wifi Now a hacker, they'll set it up, It's like an unsecure wireless network and they can just basically call it anything they like.

So for example, free airport wi fi.

Let's keep in the holiday theme here.

Anybody who connects to this wi fi, this this network, they'll have their data harvested by the person who actually set up the network there as well.

So what I say is just be, you know, stay clear of them, really use your own data hotspot off your friends data if you can.

But if you really must use it, just make sure that you are on the right wi fi network.

Ask the the manager, ask the person behind the bar what they what the password is, and use a reliable paid VPN, a virtual private network to connect to it as well.

This will give you extra protection because it's all about layers, but it will also make it extremely difficult for the attacker to actually gather any information because all your information there will be encrypted and also limit what information you enter on there as well and make sure that you're checking the websites genuine before you actually enter any information on there.

We've got a tool check a website on the website it's free to use.

And it's a very simple, quick way to use.

And one of the good tip you just just before you visit the website, when you're on that website, just make sure you read the terms and conditions before you actually agree to anything.

When you don't agree, when you when you do agree or you just just ignore it and just go straight on to it, just remember that your website to harvesting all the information and they will share that information with third parties.

And that's probably why you keep getting ads and pop ups and spam emails about everything and everything that you've talked about and looked at in the past.

So just just be mindful of all that as well.

Brilliant.

Thank you so much, Liz.

So again, it sounds like to me there's there's lots of different tactics that have been used to target us.

I said a variety of different ways.

So on that note, Becci, is there anything further that we can do to avoid compromising our information, sorry, or the devices that we use?

Yes, we've put a huge amount of efforts over the years to really protect our desktop devices.

So keep security up to date on there with antivirus, etc.

and we need to treat all mobile devices the exactly the same.

So always use antivirus software when you can on your mobile device and keep your security up to date.

But also when we look at where OTP is are being circumvented.

So where two factor authentication is needed, there's a really great tool, on mobile devices now that will also populate the OTP on your device and it's fantastic if you're in a rush.

But what that means is you can often quite overlook the actual message of the OTP.

So a lot of firms will give you an insight what the OTPs for.

So for example, Barclays, if we're sending you and OTP to register for Apple Pay or Google Pay or for a mobile app, it will tell you in the message that it's that specifically what it's for.

And what we really advocate is to turn off auto feature.

So where you've got that auto enablement, it might take you an extra 10 or 20 seconds to go back and read that.

OTP But it's a really powerful message to understand exactly what that OTP is that you're inputing.

But there's also a couple of other kind of tactics that fraudsters use to be aware of.

So we've seen a rise in what we call call forwarding.

So where victims have fallen for a vishing call and the fraudsters will ask you to call forward your message, your your number to a completely new mobile number.

And what that means is that you won't receive any calls to your mobile once you've facilitated that call forwarding feature.

And all the other calls will then go directly to the fraudster.

So that means if your bank or any kind of financial institution that you're in communication with is attempting to contact you, this will go directly to the fraudsters too.

So just one thing to be aware of.

If you receive a call from someone asking you to do a feature like start 21 hash, for example, and then follow in my mobile number, just take it to take the kind of step five and think, What is it exactly that I'm doing here?

Because this maybe facilitates it.

a call forward to your mobile.

Brilliant and thank you so much for that, Becci.

And just before we move on Liz, do you have anymore tips that we can share that can help people to protect the information that's held on their devices.

Well, yeah, absolutely.

Just thinking about your devices and all the information that's held on there, not just your information, by the way, because I'm sure you'll have got lots of pictures of your friends and your families on there as well, and possibly some sensitive documents on there as well.

So thinking about that and thinking about the increase in some areas of stolen mobile phones right out of your hands.

And so if you're walking along than you concentrated on your phone and not thinking about what's going around are criminals are snatching these phones.

And the problem is the phones are actually potentially still open there and they can have access to things.

So what do we do?

Well, firstly, we probably go into a meltdown.

If you break your phone, you can't access anything.

But there are simple ways and that is backing up your data, storing your data remotely potentially on cloud services as well.

There's so many cloud services out there.

What I would say to you is do your research and select one that offers robust security measures and it also allows you to access your files anywhere as long as you've got your Internet connection as well.

Now, what some people do say to us is that they are wary of cloud services against, you know, because they're unsure of it, they're not familiar with it and they don't know about it.

And what we would say then is make sure you store your data on separate hard drives or external drives devices.

I'm not saying you need to store absolutely everything.

That's not the case, just the things that matter to you and go through your information and start to look.

What would you miss if you didn't have access to it?

And if you are a business, what I would say to you is keep your emergency contacts and critical information on a hard copy and keep that somewhere safe.

But also accessible.

Because if you don't.

Time is essence when it comes to ransomware attacks or anything else there as well.

So it's just another couple of tips there for you to look at.

Perfect.

Thank you very much.

Liz and Becci as well for the insight that's been shared so far.

So I think a key theme that's come through in the discussion today is the value of the data that we, our devices and our accounts actually hold.

So with that in mind, if I go over to yourself, Becci, how else can we protect our personal or our financial data or our devices and accounts from cyber criminals?

Sure.

So avoid using the same password repeatedly is obviously key.

So we quite often use the same password repeatedly.

So if this does get breached on one website, then all your other websites that you've used or financial services that you've used that password are essentially compromised as well.

So really avoid and make sure that the password is unique to each login details that you hold, but also recognizing how much social media may enable fraudsters to access your data.

So I know it's great now that we've got all these platforms Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Telegram, there's all sorts, and we become quite freely with the amount of information that we share on there or even accept in terms of new friends requests, etc.

So just be wary of what exactly you’re putting online.

And if you put something on the online question, if this got in the hands of the wrong person, could they use it?

So birthdays and certain areas that you may be around because fraudsters really are targeted and if they see you as a target, they will sit and kind of circumvent that data and build a profile on essentially who they're targeting.

So make sure you keep everything private within your close network and also the likes of like marketplaces on platforms and social media.

Just be wary that not all of them are genuine.

So if it's too good to be true, it probably is.

And they often put advertisements on where it's slightly lower priced and then the rest is only it's only minor, you probably wouldn't notice, but it is still maybe ten or £20 off, they will lean on the fact that people will go towards them, types of adverts and sadly end up being scammed.

So yeah, just be wary on social media is a huge enabler to a lot of fraud and scams that we see.

And it's the front door essentially for criminals and a huge playground for them to be collecting data of individuals.

they may be targeting.

Fantastic.

Thank you very much, Becci.

And so naturally, in a modern digital age, we have so many different accounts, which would include us using lots of different passwords to access them.

So if we can, Liz can I come over to yourself just to get a bit more insight into how we can actually protect those passwords.

Yeah, sure.

Paul, we have got lots of information on the website, by the way, because I know we can only say so much in the time that we've got.

But two critical ways to protect your password is to consider using a password manager.

And basically these are a piece of software which store all your usernames and passwords in like a vault like a bank vault.

Really, all you need to do is remember the master passwords and then you'll get in there as well.

Now, many devices will have a password generator already built in, which is really, really helpful.

It's easy to use with the added benefits of creating strong, unique passwords for different services that we all have and what they can also do is identify and warn about reused or even weak passwords as well.

Just remember, there's always a caveat that nothing's 100% safe.

Even if you are using reliable password managers.

Think about social engineering.

You know, if you if you master passwords given out, then obviously they've got access to absolutely everything on there.

Now, the other thing to think about it has been mentioned is two factor authentication or two step verification.

It does sound quite complicated, but it isn't and you're probably already using it, but just don't realize that it's actually called that as well.

Now, when it's enabled, it gives you twice the protection.

So even if cyber criminals have your password, they can't access your account at all.

It works by asking for more information to prove your identity, basically.

So for example, you will get a code sent to your phone when you sign in using a different device.

And if you're trying to change some of your settings as well.

But it is important that you don't share any codes and I mean any codes with anybody.

Basically, there is another additional layer you could use biometric authentication on your devices as well.

So I think most people are using this now.

Fingerprints, face scanners, things like that.

Safety is all about layers, as we know.

And just, you know, think back when I mentioned about the phones being stolen or snatched off your hands as well.

If they do gain access to your phone or your device just because you've been using it, there, and then they'll have access to it.

But unless they have the passwords, they won't be able to access anything else on that device as well.

So it is important that we store them safely and securely.

Please don't store them on the word documents or in notes, because believe me, people actually do that and leave it open on their on the phones that are as well.

Brilliant.

Thank you so much, Liz.

And so I think one thing that's come through in all the insights shared today, it will seem like vigilance plays a vital part in our ability to protect ourselves in that online world.

But if I can have Becci just come over to your self to learn a little bit more about how financial institutions in particular ourselves in this instance, are helping people to keep safe and educated on how to protect themselves from cyber criminals.

Yeah, so there's a lot that goes on in the background Paul.

So not just Barclays across the whole financial news industry, we invest millions throughout the year to ensure that we have the right solutions in place to detect and prevent as much fraud and scams as we can.

But where it falls short, where the fraud and scam may be a lot more sophisticated, for example, it really comes down to education and being aware.

So some of the forefront education pieces that might be visible to you as a customer who is the likes of confirmation of payee.

So this tool has been delivered across industries to ensure that the sort could an account number that you're inputting in the payment, for example, is who who they say they are.

So if you put it in Mrs Smith it will confirm that that bank account relates to Mrs Smith And this is a really key tool to be able to identify you are paying who you say you are.

But also additionally to that we've got the payment purpose which we really advocate individuals to digest before sending the payment.

So this will give you some kind of key top tips of certain themes of payment fraud that might be around during that time.

So example, friends and family, you take the paying of friends and family.

There'll be some top tips on that to look out for where fraudsters might target that particular payment journey of luring you in as a friend, for example?

So really do digest that information on screen and keep up to date with the education that we put on our websites as well.

So we're continuously updating that and learning and evolving what the threats are and making sure that we keep you up to date with the latest of what we're seeing.

But also that detection piece as well, making sure that we're on top of the threats to ensure that we can detect and prevent as well.

Fantastic.

That's absolutely brilliant that it's great having the opportunity to hear more about how institutions are protecting customers.

And as we know, education is pivotal to empowering people to stay safe in the online world.

So to support with that in education, we do have lots of resources that we will share and at the end of the session through our Barclays.

co.

uk and Digital Wings Learning platform, in addition to the amazing external resources available through platforms like Get Safe Online and as mentioned, we will showcase all of those resources at the end of the session.

But just before we close off a move to the Q&A part of the session, if I can just come back over to you, Liz, for a moment.

So based on everything that we've covered today in the session, it sounds like that we are all potential targets and it seems more important than ever that we educate ourselves and the people around us on how to stay safe online.

But in recent years, we've also seen a huge increase in the number of young people being targeted by cyber criminals.

So what tips can we share with our audience today about how they can protect young people in the digital world?

Okay.

Well, when it comes to children and young people, everything we've chatted about today is relevant to them as well.

And we all have a digital footprint.

Many parents, guardians, grandparents, even our friends take great delight in sharing children's milestones.

So just think about baby scans, baby showers, gender reveal parties.

All this information adds up to the child's digital well value, and that's what the criminals are after.

Basically, they'll use the children's data to perform scams, including identity fraud as well.

So in relation to the children's themselves, they will be targeted by scams and pop ups to all manipulated based on what you as the adult has posted about them.

So think about swimming gala posts, football trips, themed birthday parties.

All these things are part of the jigsaw that the criminals will use to engage with the children themselves.

So make sure that you've adjusted your privacy settings on social media, on all the apps and obviously on all the devices there as well, and make sure you avoid oversharing and equally as important, limit who can see the children's posts and personal details that you're posting there as well.

For all the children that are using gaming platforms, just be aware that criminals use the same platforms.

It's essential that you consider who your children are interacting with.

Just make sure you're ensuring your children understand the importance of privacy as well, even from a very early age.

Discuss sharing personal details online and of course, the risks associated with it.

Absolutely.

And thank you very much for that, Liz.

And Becci, if we can come back over to you as well.

We touched on social media earlier as a platform being used to target people's personal details.

And would this also be a channel used to target young people as well?

Yeah, absolutely.

Especially the likes of Tik Tok.

Now that's on the rise where it really entices young people to them platforms.

But there's two kind of sites really where they may target young adults or children on these kind of platforms.

So firstly you've got what Liz has touched on in terms of the identity theft.

You know, there's not much of a financial footprint for these individuals.

So it's a really good kind of foot in the door for criminals to kind of build that and use it later down the line.

And it comes down to that opportunity that we touched on earlier on at the event that they will look for the opportunity of targeting these because they are vulnerable and more enticing.

And so they will be quite patient as well.

And now there's the other side where we've got the fraudsters being quite flashy online showing what we can make loads of money is all the cars that we can, we can buy.

And this is the kind of the advertisement I guess, that they put online to draw young individuals into their kind of organized crime world.

So they'll entice them in with that lavish lifestyle of get rich quick type activity and now unfortunately fallen into the hands of these kind of organized crime groups.

They don't care that there's an individual that that kind of goal is money.

So they will be very desensitized to who the individual is that they're pulling in.

And so that means they will get them to coerce them to either commit the fraud with them.

So bring them into their world.

And but there is kind of signs that you can look out for so if you and your child or friend's child or family child is acting strangely with receiving large amounts of cash.

And when explained where the money is coming from, for example, and or traveling with unexplained reasons of travel and hanging around with kind of older generation, it's kind of come out of the blue.

So just something that's kind of off really in terms of it's come out of nowhere, which could be an indicator that they've been coerced by these kind of organized crime groups.

But there's definitely things that we can do to prevent this and Liz touched on this earlier.

But talking about the dangers of joining such organized crime groups or being enticed, but kind of key that you might not necessarily as a young adult or child, notice that you're being kind of pulled into that world.

So just raising awareness on them kind of flashy lifestyles of what might draw them in and things to look out for, but also keeping that kind of safety net of monitoring what your child may be looking at online or keeping tabs and using those kind of safety features that the social media platforms offer for the parents and grandparents, etc.

, Make sure that they are in full use.

You can, to monitor exactly what's been undertaken on those platforms.

Brilliant.

Yeah, definitely a really important topic.

We have seen a huge increase in the number of money mule scams have reported in recent years and through the resources we share, we do actually have replays of previous events we've hosted across the business that will include a session that was dedicated to money mules.

So we will share those resources with everyone in case you're interested and then expand in your knowledge on that problem that we are seeing.

And just before we move over to the close of the session and the Q&A part, if we can just go back over to yourself Liz, it does appear that gaming and social media platforms are actually been used to target young people.

So what steps can we take to ensure that young people in our lives are protected in that digital world?

Well, gosh, how long do we have to Paul?

I just just want to go back to what Becci was just saying about the gaming side and sides of things as well.

A lot of the kids don't actually.

They're lured into it.

It's a grooming process and they don't actually realize until potentially it is too late.

And one of the ways is the challenge the criminals will will will engage with them playing the games and then they'll call them out.

They'll call them out in the sense that either as good as they say they're good and they will then set them small tasks, which are tasks which are against the law, but they're trying to prove their worth just to prove who they are.

And then once they've got them hooked, once you've got them in that, then blackmail and all sorts of other things can come in.

So what can we do?

Obviously, it depends on the age of the child and the earlier we can we can get them get involved in their online world, the better.

I always get asked about parental controls.

Well, they do have the uses like software to filter content, monitor online activity, set time limits even.

But we just need to be aware that they're not childproof.

Children will find great pleasure in finding ways around them.

So it is important that we encourage the children to use strong passwords, unique passwords like we do, and also to protect their own information by not just clicking on popups or downloading files from all known sources or from potentially a text from their new online gaming friend.

And we need to help them set up the profiles as well on what information they put on there and keep checking in on the settings and change together as as the kids get older really as well.

And if they don't want them anymore, if they don't want the apps, they don't want the games, and take the time to take your information off, there and delete or delete the the apps and the accounts as well.

Certainly start with having regular conversations.

Don't wait till something happened and make sure that we are part of the digital world and not the enemy that the kids think we are as well.

And I've just got a couple of things as well before you actually let your child download a new app, just ask yourself, is the content of this app age appropriate?

Obviously every child is different.

What does this app content give my child?

Who do what?

What does the app allow that my children to connect with as well?

What parental controls are on the and what's the app teach with children?

Let's face it.

You know the online world is absolutely brilliant.

There's some fantastic apps there and there is always two sides on that as well.

So if you do decide to go ahead with downloading the game of the app, download it together, be part of the child's life right at the beginning, and ensure that the settings are set for the child at that age and the ability of the child as well.

So there's lots of food for thought there for Paul.

Amazing.

Thank you very much for that, Liz.

I'm Becci as well for the insight and that's been shared throughout the session.

So just before we move on, we do have one or two questions we want to try and cover off before we share those resources with our delegates today.

So I'll just quickly go back to yourself, Becci, just to see if there's anything else you want to add about steps that can be taken to help protect people from the threats posed by cyber criminals?

Yeah.

So as part of our role in threat intelligence, we look at multiple sources to help us identify new and emerging kind of threats that target our customers.

And that means that you as a customer are at the kind of heart of receiving smishing campaigns or maybe vishing calls.

And even if you don't respond because you have been able to identify that that might be a fake text message or a rogue call, that information is really still important to us because there might be sadly other victims that don't recognize it.

That is this smishing campaign so, If there's one note that I would love for you guys to take on this today, is that sending that information to us so we have a mailbox which we'll share at the end.

internet security mailbox, if you receive a smishing campaign or a call with someone posing to be Barclays, we still want to hear about it.

So even if you don't respond, it's really very important that we get ahead of those campaigns because ultimately we can take them down.

We work quite heavily with the Telcos.

We work across the industry to take down those numbers, take down those you URLs that are being distributed and do as much disruption as possible.

But also we do a lot with law enforcement as well.

So you may have seen in the media recently around the law enforcement takedown of a group called LabHost, which was a huge SMS gang, essentially, And all of that kind of intelligence that comes from our customers really supports that kind of disruption as well.

So you do it more than you realize if you share that kind of intelligence with us.

And it really helps us shape what what the landscape looks like.

So really open for you guys to share more with us.

when you see it, Brilliant and thank you so much, Becci.

And again, the sharing of that knowledge and insight is so important that we will, again, when we talk to the resources, share a way in which you can report those phishing, smishing and vishing attempts to help to grow that network and help organizations protect people from the threat posed by cyber criminals.

But with that, everyone that does bring our topic to a close for today.

Now, we do have a couple of moments put aside for a Q&A and we have one or two questions that have come through, which I will share with our guest speakers now.

So I think really good ones.

To start off with yourself, Liz, if you don't mind, is someon said that some online competitions, wants information like date of birth or place of birth as part of the option to play.

So given that information must be considered a dangerous thing to do.

So if we can just expand on that a little bit, please.

Yeah, absolutely.

And the classed as farming posts and the the basically there to collect information and it may not be as obvious as you think it may be.

One, week just, you know, like a little poster comment on your, your favorite teacher or your favorite holiday resource and then a week later there may be something else.

So it's building the picture.

And a lot of the times people don't actually check where the post originate from or come from just because their friends have already done or entered the competition or whatever.

People just take it as a given that it's okay to do.

And why not?

You're only entering the competition, but you're not giving them any details.

But actually when you actually pick it, you're giving them your name, your email address, your potential telephone number, and then obviously you can it'll go down the lines of all the other spams and phishing emails that you may get.

So it is about checking and certainly unless you know the business yourself and again, I will check out if they're if they're advertise in a competition, go to the business website, it'll usually be on there.

Make sure you're on the verified Facebook page even before you actually enter any any competitions or any personal details because it is the start of the jigsaw and that's what they're doing.

The criminals will wait it out if, if you are an interest to them or a backdoor into a business or anything else like that, they will wait and collect the information over time before they actually strike.

Fantastic.

Thank you very much, Liz.

I think you're really important, though, there is that the information that's requested on those quizzes or they'll often come in the form of other types of insights that you share with them will be linked back to questions that are often used to access platforms or to reset and login credentials.

So again, I think the importance of being aware of those threats on those different platforms is so important.

And so with that, Becci just able to come over to yourself with before we share those resources is how can people stay up to date with the latest scams so that they have a heightened awareness of the threats?

Yeah, sure.

So we keep our fraud and scams pages as up to date as possible.

So when we are aware of new fraud and scam threats that arise and we'll be sure to put that on our fraud and scams pages so frequently I read of that page.

So even if we digest it today, in a few weeks time, there's more than likely going to be new information on there.

So keeping up to date with that is key.

We also supply kind of short videos on our social media pages as well.

So the good use of social media is really good for education as well.

And also the likes of the BBC do some cracking documentaries as well on fraud and scams.

Range fraud and scams.

So really advocate looking at you kind of major media outlets as well that really bring these to life in terms of video form as well.

Fantastic.

Thank you very much, Becci and Liz for all the insights shared through the session today.

So I think in summary, it does seem like the tactics being used to target us are constantly evolving.

And I think the key way of protecting ourselves is by continuing to stay up to date with what tactics are being used.

Platforms we're most vulnerable on is absolutely key to us being empowered to stay safe and protect ourselves and the people around us from the threats posed by those cyber criminals.

So with that in mind, that does bring the session to a close today.

So as promised, we do have lots of resources that we can share to help you to continue to expand on the knowledge that you've gained from the session today.

The first one that we will share is the Take Five to Stop Fraud website.

So if you've not heard this before, Take five is a national campaign offering straightforward, impartial advice and that helps people prevent email, phone based and online fraud, particularly in instances where criminals will impersonate trusted organizations.

Now, how do you do this is by emphasizing the stop, challenge and protect mantra.

So with stop?

It's taking that time to think before parting with your money or your information as that is absolutely key to keeping you safe.

Also challenging yourself.

It is okay for you to reject, refuse, or ignore any requests you may receive and remember, only criminals will try and rush or panic you into making a quick decision and then ultimately by protecting ourselves.

So if we are worried that our details or our accounts have been compromised in any way, contact your bank immediately.

And if you think you've been scammed, you can report that to action fraud through their website or on their contact number.

Now, in addition to that, another resource we've touched on in the session today is the Get Safe Online website.

Now, this is a brilliant platform which enables support and education for both individuals and businesses.

So whether you're looking to protect your devices, to protect yourself, if you're looking for insight into shopping, banking and payments, or if you're simply interested in safeguarding the young people in your life.

There are resources available through that website which include insight for those who are new to the digital world and also access to their monthly protect newsletter, which will share insight into the latest news, views and advice on staying safe online.

And they also have a variety of tools available such as their website checker and their self-help tool centre.

So definitely a resource I would encourage everyone to look into and naturally through our own platforms here at Barclays, we have lots of information as well.

So on our Barclays.

co.

uk website, we have our fraud and security section and this will include information and insight that could help you to avoid fraudsters, beat scammers.

Learn more about how criminals are actually duping people into moving money on their behalf illegally.

And of course, lots of information on staying safe online.

Now, in addition to those resources, we also have our latest scams hub on that platform.

The latest scams hub, will give insight into a lot of topics that we covered off today, such as mobile malware, safe account scams, call forward and amongst many other topics.

And we also have replays from all of our previous events available through the website as well that will include our recent event on Money mules.

So helping people to understand the threats posed by mule herders.

And we also have replays on our impersonation scams event and an upcoming Ask the Experts event, which we ran back in December.

So lots of fantastic resources available through the website.

And then of course, we have our Digital Wings learning platform as well.

So here at Barclays, we're not just about financial success, we're about making a real difference in people's lives.

And that's why the Digital Eagles and Money Mentors are here.

We're here to help you master both digital and money skills.

So our mission is to help give everyone the tools to navigate the digital and financial world with confidence.

And we're here to make learning digital skills and financial literacy straightforward, accessible and empowering.

So we have a combination of self-guided learning resources and online events available for people to join.

And but we also have modules dedicated specifically to digital safety and fraud and scam awareness that includes how to stay safe online and improving your digital safety awareness.

And both of those learning platforms sorry, those learning modules also have our online safety hub built into them, which will have even more internal and external resources that can help you to report.

And phishing vishing and smishing attacks or just generally expanding your knowledge around cybersecurity and fraud and scam awareness.

So with that, everyone that does bring the session to a close today.

But with that, everyone, we will have a brief disclaimer which will come up on screen.

If everyone could just take a moment to read through that, that would be absolutely amazing.

But with that, it does bring our event to a close for today.

So first of all, I want to extend a huge thank you to everyone who took the time to attend the event.

And sincerest apologies to anyone who experienced technical issues when accessing the session.

Today, we will have a webcast of the event that will become available off the back of this.

So we will contact everyone to share insigh on how that can be accessed, but also want to extend a huge thank you to all of our wonderful guest speakers today.

As we've seen, there are so many different tactics and so many different platforms that cybercriminals are now using to target us.

Vigilance is such an important tool as we heard from both Liz and Becci.

So the more we can educate ourselves and the more we can share that knowledge with those closest to us, whether that's friends, family members, colleagues, anyone who we think could benefit from an upskill, that is absolutely key to helping us become empowered to protect ourselves from fraudsters and scammers.

But with that, I want to extend a huge thank you again to everyone who took the time to attend the event today.

We hope that you found it informative and we look forward to you joining us for another one of our events very soon.

Thank you so much, everyone.

Have a wonderful day and we will see you all on an event very soon.

Good afternoon everyone.

Thank you so much for joining us for today's event.

Scams: how to safely navigate the digital world.

We really appreciate you all taking the time to join us today to learn more about this important topic.

So my name's Paul and I'm going to be your host for today's event.

We're fast approaching one of the busiest shopping periods of the year.

And while you may be busy hunting for bargains over Cyber Weekend and the festive period, cyber criminals will also be busy coming up with clever new ways to convince us to transfer our money to accounts in their control.

Barclays data shows that purchase scams were the top scam type reported in November 2021, 2022 and 2023, and further data shows that purchase scam losses increased 22% during the 2022 Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales period, with 41% of consumers saying they felt pressured to make purchases as quickly as possible during this period to avoid missing out on deals.

Now, during the event today, our guest speakers will share examples of the tactics being used by cybercriminals to target us and what we can do to keep ourselves safe while shopping online.

We'll also be sharing resources that can help you to continue to enhance your knowledge on the ever evolving tactics being used by fraudsters and scammers to target us.

Now, as we go through the event today, you will have the ability to submit questions for the Q&A at the end of the event.

We will of course aim to answer as many of those questions as we can.

However, in the case that we don't manage to get all of the questions answered, the resources that we're going to share at the end of the event will provide further insight into the topics being covered today.

It's also important to remember that today's event is for informational purposes only, and we're unable to answer any account related queries.

So if you do have any specific questions that relate to your accounts, we would recommend you get in touch with your financial institutions customer services team for further support.

But with that, today I'll start off by introducing our speakers for the event.

So as mentioned, my name is Paul and I'm part of the Digital Eagles team here at Barclays.

I'm also joined by Tina Quelch, our director of the Specialist Customer Care Team at Barclays.

And Doctor Nicola Harding, Chief Executive Officer of We Fight Fraud.

So first of all, I want to thank you both so much for giving up your time to join us for today's event.

We really do appreciate it.

If you wouldn't mind, to start us off Tina, if we could come over to you to get a little bit more insight into your role within Barclays.

Of course, Paul, and great to be here.

So my role in Barclays as a Director in Specialist Customer Care is to lead the fraud customer protection teams.

So what we do as a large group of colleagues is focus on fraud and scams prevention, detection, claims investigation and primarily sorting, supporting customers and clients through being victims of crime or aiming to prevent it happening in the first place.

I've been with Barclays, a few years, but my career in financial services extends over 35 years.

So it's fair to say I've seen a fair bit of fraud and scams in my time.

And as you alluded to at the beginning Paul, it's been a growing phenomenon in recent years.

Absolutely.

And thank you so much, Tina, for sharing that insight.

And again, it's great to have you on the call today to share your knowledge and experience when it comes to these important topics.

And Nicola, if you wouldn't mind if we could come over to you too.

Could you tell us a little bit more about your role and the work being done by We Fight Fraud?

Yeah.

Thank you Paul.

And it's great to be here with Tina and I know We're going to draw upon that our vast knowledge, as we move forward.

So it's an exciting session.

So I am the chief executive officer at We Fight Fraud.

But actually, the reason why I took on that role is I'm a criminologist, so I'm a Doctor of Criminology, and I specialise in serious organised crime and lived experience.

And that led me to working with the We Fight Fraud team that are a little bit of an unusual, crime prevention consultancy, basically because we draw from all different forms of knowledge, lived experience being one.

So one of my co-directors was known as Britain's greatest fraudster at one point in his career, but has since spent 15 years preventing fraud and scams, in the fraud prevention world.

Now, utilising what he learned actually as a fraudster and bringing that into fraud prevention.

So it gives us quite a unique perspective.

I also work with former hackers, former heads of police as well.

And obviously people like yourselves on the call today to, to give, a fully holistic look.

And we do an awful lot of victim work as well.

So when we try and understand what's happening in the scam, we're looking at it from every, every which way angle, really.

And then we can take that knowledge and give it to you guys and hopefully help you protect yourselves and your family members from falling foul of any, nefarious behaviour from criminal activity.

Amazing.

Thank you so much, Nicola and Tina, for sharing that insight into the work that you both do to protect people from fraudsters and scammers.

So amazing.

So with that, let's jump into the topic today.

So Tina, in the introduction we heard a lot about purchase scams which clearly present a huge problem for consumers.

But what actually is a purchase scam and how big of an impact are they having on consumers?

Thank you Paul.

I guess before I go into purchase scams, I think it's important to recognise the economic crime.

And when we talk about economic crime, we're talking about financial crime.

And fraud represents over 40% of all recorded crime in the UK.

So it's a phenomena, that there is some really big scary numbers.

And I think what's probably relevant about that in terms of purchase scams is purchase scams are the number one scam type, within that context.

So a purchase scam is essentially the most common type of scam.

It occurs when a customer makes a purchase from a seller, but either those products or services are never supplied because they didn't exist in the first place.

Or it could also be counterfeit goods, for example, from a platform that's been designed to create a replica of a legitimate organisation.

In a purchase scam, that could involve the victim using an online platform, an auction website, social media, or any range of activities.

But essentially the common denominator is those products or services are never supplied to in in the way that the customer intended to legitimately purchase them.

They will commonly be offered at a discounted rate, and the victim essentially intends to make the payment.

But that clearly under false pretences, in 2023.

So just last year, the industry losses and a total UK losses, as reported by UK Finance, with a record ever, losses in this scam type.

We talk a lot about numbers You can see some numbers hopefully on the screen, over £85 million worth of losses to victims.

With over 150,000 purchase scams reported in 2023.

But of course, we do know that's the tip of the iceberg.

Many go unreported.

And of course there is an impact.

We know from our customers and clients, that we speak to daily that the impact goes far beyond the financial impact to them and can often lead to victims feeling violated, leading to mental health and wellbeing issues.

And sometimes they don't even report the scam for fear of judgement and self-blame.

So it goes way beyond the numbers that we see on the screen.

But but contextually, you can see that 92% of purchases originate, those purchase scams originate online.

So it's a really big issue and something that we're delighted to help customers prevent, falling victim to.

And I think the other common theme that's probably worth bringing to life here is that, it also includes services such as potentially buying insurance on white goods, and you wouldn't know it was fake until you came to claim on it.

As well as traditional physical goods such as concert tickets, items this time of year, luxury advent calendars that just don't exist.

Paul.

Brilliant.

Thank you so much Tina.

So clearly purchase scams are presenting a huge problem, so educating ourselves on those tactics is really, really important.

Nicola, if we could come over to you now that we have a little bit more insight into what a purchase scam actually is?

What kind of channels have been used to support these scams?

And how are criminals actually convincing people to send money to accounts within their control?

Yeah.

So I mean, I don't want to what I really don't want to do is make people scared here of, of using the internet, especially to, to buy goods.

It's an essential part of, of what we do now.

But unfortunately it's, everywhere that, that we go and go about our normal activities where money is exchanged, that's where criminals are going to try to grab you really.

So there's definitely different channels being used, social media being one online marketplaces, e-commerce platforms, but also just regular websites that you might go to.

You know, everywhere that we occupy on the internet, unfortunately, criminals will also go there to try and find people to to manipulate or socially engineer.

And this can happen through a variety of different methods.

So I'll give you an example of how, so obviously way back when with the internet, it used to be much more, almost like a directory where you would go and find out information and then you could go and act on it in other ways, you know, make a phone call from the details you found on the internet.

When we had social media become popular.

Web 2.

0, what that allows is anyone in the world can go on the internet and put things up on social media.

There's no real like fact checking.

Although we would like to think that platform, social social media platforms are going through and removing, you know, scam posting that there is literally so many of them that that's really difficult to do with, with the accuracy that we require.

So because these, you know, online platforms, social media platforms, for example, or online marketplaces, it's not really them.

That's the problem in terms of they just facilitate the social interaction that is needed for criminals, to really defraud us.

So a couple of ways in which they can they can happen, and how you might see this in real life is if you think about online marketplaces, for example, it might be that something's been put up, like a product, like a car that's maybe quite rare and difficult to get hold of, or it's a really, really good price.

And you just think, can't pass that up.

You know, I really have been looking for that particular car.

I can't get hold of it, or I really need a car to get to work.

What have you.

That's an offer that, you know, I really should jump on.

What fraudsters will do, like the psychological tactics they do is it's called social engineering.

So what they'll do is engineer this situation, where they're going to put you on a time pressure, they're going to offer you something that's potentially a little bit too good to be true, too good to pass up.

So if you think about it, in the car example, what they'll often do is try and get you to either pay for it in advance by saying, I've got loads of people that are interested in this.

If you want to grab it, you can have to put a deposit down or I need you to pay in advance and I'll get it delivered to you.

So one of the things to, you know, buyer beware is, is someone asking you to put a deposit, for something that you haven't seen in real life.

Other types of scams like this in the, in, in terms of purchase is not just you physical goods as, as Tina said, but things like, if you need to rent a house, for example, someone saying, yeah, I can rent you the house, you know, I can show you around, but actually I'm not going to be in the country for the next couple of weeks.

How about if you send me a deposit, I can post you the keys and, you can go and have a look at it.

You know, they’re the kind of the social engineering tactics that criminals use in, in these spaces, because they're playing on people's need, you know, how rental housing can be quite scarce in certain areas?

Cause, a really common one because, you know, it's big bolts of money that they can ask you for.

You know, you may not put a deposit down on, you know, a computer game or something.

But a car it can seem a lot more reasonable.

So it's watching out for things like that.

But equally, things like that computer game, especially in the run up to Christmas that we've got now where your kids might be, you know, oh, we want the latest release of something.

If you can't find that anywhere else online, you know, they're all sold out or there's a there's a waiting list or whatever, and then you see it pop up on, on social media that someone says, I've been able to get that.

And, I've got like five for sale or whatever.

It's more than likely going to be a scam because they're playing on the fact that you really want to get that product for your child.

So they'll put things like fear, you know, a fear of missing out, urgency But they'll also use things like trusted brands to make the scams appear more legitimate.

So just to beware of, like I say, if there's, you know, trusted brands that are going out or they're trying to make themselves appear to be the trusted brand, a key thing with it, though, that is often you may have heard these kinds of messages before that I'm saying to you might think, well, I already know that, but some of the more hidden stuff that I know from the testing that we do is how these scams, particularly where they've either asked you to pay for deposit or car scams in particular, they'll use our own systems that are built to protect us, against us, essentially.

So one of the things they may say if you go to buy a car online is, yeah, sends us the deposit over, we'll get it delivered to you, or we'll hold it for you until you can come and get.

But what we need to process your order is to satisfy money laundering regulations.

Is we need to get your ID from you, be very, very wary of anyone asking you for more information than your delivery address.

And you know how it is to facilitate payment.

You shouldn't need to share things like official documents, particularly over things like, an online messaging site.

You know, such as, like WhatsApp, Telegram or whatever, or through messaging on social media.

No legitimate company is going to ask you for your sensitive personal documents in this way.

So they may try to manipulate using things like, oh, we've got to satisfy our own regulations and whatnot.

But ultimately, what the criminal is trying to do is get your data so that they can use it to defraud you in other ways.

So you may think, oh, well, here's a purchase scam that unfortunately, I've missed out on the product.

I've been able to go and report it to your bank, which is what you should absolutely do, and get their advice of how to deal with it moving forward and how best to either try to get it refunded or report to the Police or what have you.

These professionals here, this is what they do day in, day out to be able to help you.

But ultimately think about hang on, why are they asking me for this?

And if they are legitimately asking you for it, why isn't there a secure platform in which you can share that data with them and know that that data is safe?

Your data is way more valuable to the criminal than often the initial purchase scam is.

So it's just to be aware of what would normally happen.

You know, if you buy your food delivery from Tesco's, for example, they're not going to ask you for loads of personal information.

They're going to do what's necessary to just get that product to you.

So why should anyone else online, particularly someone you've never heard of, not a trusted brand over an online marketplace?

Why should they be asking you for that?

And just let that, remember that your data is just as valuable as the money that they're trying to take out of you for that initial product.

Thank you so much, Nicola.

And it's really interesting to hear how much time and planning cybercriminals are actually putting into purporting these frauds and scams, and both in the short and the long term.

And so now we have a little bit more information around the channels and the tactics being used by cybercriminals to target us, Tina if we could come back over to you for a bit of insight into what banks are doing to protect consumers from fraudsters and scammers, of course, Paul.

And of course, it's never been more important to try and do that.

As fraud has risen, as you would expect, all banks, are putting record levels of investment into detection and prevention.

We work with organisations like Nicola's.

We share intelligence with each other across banks and payment service providers and agencies, the police, etc.

and combined to get a phenomenal amount of intelligence that we build into our platforms and activities that we do.

So some of the ways that might present, to a customer or client in the last couple of years, all banks have confirmation of what's called confirmation of payee where if you're making a transfer online to another person or organisation's bank account, when you put in the account number and sort code, it will give you a match indicator as to whether the account number and sort code is in the name of the person that you think it is.

And it's a warning sign.

If you put something in, and it doesn't come back with a match, that that's, one of the tools that all banks have introduced in the last couple of years.

One of the particular ways we operate more and more is through transaction profiling.

That's using all sorts of things, like machine learning, artificial intelligence, and looking at billions and billions of transactions and looking for ones that are out of character with your normal spend patterns.

And where we where we intelligently model something that's out of character for your spend model.

Often we will put friction purposely into that journey, interrupting the payment, so that we can often have a conversation with you, and actually reach out.

So we do make outbound calls, to customers as an organisation.

Importantly, when we speak to a customer, if you talk to somebody and we call you and you're not expecting us and you've made that transaction, we are not offended in any way.

If you want to call us back and you want to verify that we are who we say we are, we have no concerns about that, in any way.

And that's because scammers often will call pretending to be, a bank, because it's something that we commonly do.

So we're not offended in any way.

If somebody wants to verify that we're a genuine bank, their genuine bank calling them, we suggest hanging up and calling the number on the back of their card if their card is available.

We also sometimes suggest waiting ten minutes, in case the fraudster is still on the line.

So that that disconnects or also call somebody else before you call your bank.

So it disconnects any, fraudster who might have been talking to you.

And clearly, if it's us, we're genuine.

We're very, very happy for customers to do those checks.

We will never ask you to provide a PIN, a password, your bank details, anything on a text.

We will only ever send an SMS that requires a yes or no.

And then we will always contact the customer in person through telephony.

And it's incredibly important to us that you're open and honest with your bank.

If you're happy that you're talking to us.

Please, please be very, very open and honest.

Because scammers work in incredibly manipulative ways and in very sophisticated ways, and will sometimes have a customer or client under a spell.

They will think they're talking to the bank.

So we're creating that interruption purposely to create a stop and think moment about whether what you're doing.

Sounds plausible is plausible.

And we will have that discussion.

And sometimes our intention is to break the spell that the clever criminals clearly can do very successfully.

And we will aim to break that spell by just asking you to come out of that situation and that payment that you're making and think about.

Does it feel right?

Does it sound right?

We will ask you questions that are all designed to help you decide what you want to do with your money, on the basis of the information that we provide to you and the guidance that we provide.

Recognising that it is the customer's money.

And what we're trying to do is help protect it and help make sure that it's for a legitimate purpose.

And what we commonly find more and more is that scammers might coach customers to lie to their bank.

They will even give them ideas of what to say.

And of course, no bank or legitimate organisation would ever do that.

So it's definitely something to look out for.

And we warn people if that happens to you, please, please don't proceed.

And please contact us.

And be especially wary if you haven't seen the goods before paying, and especially wary if somebody is asking you to pay in an unusual way.

But in that way, we're doing more interruptions.

We recognise how inconvenient that is.

When you're in the middle of making a purchase.

Your money and your well-being.

And and it's incredibly important in our collective attempts to prevent this crime.

Amazing.

Thank you so much, Tina.

So again, just I think it emphasises how much work cyber criminals are putting into targeting people.

But amazing to see the great work being done across the industry to protect consumers.

So in terms of that, Nicola, if we come back over to you, so we've heard about the amazing work being done across the industry to help protect people from fraudsters and scammers.

Is there anything consumers can do themselves to offer further protection?

Oh yeah.

Check.

I think honestly, it's so good to hear Tina say like what the bank's doing, but also that reassurance around how open the bank is to, to doing things like putting the phone down and calling back because it just takes all the power away from the fraudster.

So what I would say in terms of what customers can, you know, consumers can do to protect themselves, it's really everything is about taking time and putting the power back in your hands.

Really.

It's, you know, being able to draw upon the resources that are at your fingertips, obviously the bank being one of them.

And so being able to kind of say, you know, I won't be rushed into this, actually, now's not a convenient time.

I'll call you back, though, and, and speak to them and not be kind of, scared into proceeding with something because the fraud or potential fraudster has made you feel like, no, you've got to deal with it right now.

Such good advice.

from Tina, is your bank is never, ever going to do that to you.

Your bank’s there to serve you, not tell you what to do.

And so that that is like the first thing really is thinking about as a consumer.

Put it back on yourself.

Take control of the situation yourself and put that back in your hands in terms of purchase scams, coming to things like today, really engaging with the material that’s there for you.

Again, the bank, companies like myself and Stop Scams, if you're if you're in the UK, there's loads of you know it's BBC Scam Awareness Week at the moment as well.

So there's an awful lot on the media for you to engage with.

Soak it all in and you can't be an expert.

It's not your job as a consumer to be an expert at preventing fraud, but allow us to be your safety net and give you the information that's most pertinent to you so that you can then, you know, you can just bear that in mind when it comes to it.

So there's upskill events using educational resources, but ultimately taking time to think, not being rushed into any decision.

And ultimately realising that your data is, is sacred, you know, it belongs to you, and no one should be forcing you to share that in ways that could make you feel uncomfortable or make you think, hang on Should I really be doing this?

The key thing of it is as well, and I see this a lot with victims.

Is especially if it if a scam is being prolonged.

So say it's not just simply, you know, your card details were stolen because you entered them into a site that wasn't 100% legitimate and you didn't, you know, you didn't realise it at the time when it's the more, intricate, scams that the criminals have done where they've perhaps engaged with you, where they've done that social engineering, and you feel like you got to know them a little bit in those circumstances, you know, like the the car scams that we're seeing in online marketplaces, it can feel to the victim almost like, well, I've already got involved this far.

I've already, you know, I've already believed up to this point, so I should follow it through.

So what I would say is, at the first level of doubt, just stop.

Just take a second and say, hang on I've got someone at the door.

I'll have to call you back if it's over the phone or step away.

Your bank and other organisations are there to help you with this.

They are the experts who can say, hang on, I'm so glad you called about this.

Let me give you some advice and here's what you can do next.

And never feel embarrassed or ashamed because you’ve, you know, fallen for it you haven’t fallen for anything.

Criminals, this is their job, they’re experts at it.

They do it all day, every day.

So it's nothing to feel ashamed of.

Ultimately, the first little glimmer of doubt that's in your mind, because if it is legitimate, no one's going to be angry.

You're not going to have lost out.

The person that’s selling to you is going to go, oh, fair enough, you know, yeah, you should have, you know, you should have checked it out, should have taken a moment to protect yourselves.

There is one thing that I want to highlight, though, because we've looked at this very much from a bias perspective.

And obviously online marketplaces are there so that we can sell products.

We can, you know, if we got bought a concert ticket that we can't go to anymore, you know, to be able to share that and get some of the money back or secondhand goods or what have you.

They are there to help us facilitate, you know, that for us too.

But there are some things you need to think about in fraud from being a sellers perspective.

And that can be where someone perhaps approaches you and says, you know, oh, great, I'll send the payment for that.

Now, how would you want to do it?

And maybe you've picked a secure way of, of them paying your money, or hopefully you will have, you've done that and then you realise or they send you a message.

I've apologies.

I've sent you too much money by accident.

Can you do me a favour?

Take what I owed you and refund it back on.

And so the, what that is, is it can make it look like.

Well, accidents happen.

They’ve put an extra zero on, you know, maybe they were supposed to send you £50 and they sent you £500 instead.

Of course, you're a good honest person.

So you want to refund the extra £450 that they sent you.

What, I would say at that point is if anything happens in the payment process that you're not expecting, ring your bank and ask them for advice, because what criminals will do is buy a product for a small amount of money over send the money to you then when they want a refund, you have to ask them for the bank details and that, what they can do there is make you an unwitting money mule or they can make you refund money that hasn't cleared properly just yet by doing it quite quickly.

And then, and then take the money back and you can end up completely out of pocket.

So what you don't want is either to be out of pocket and, and be, you know, lose out that money.

But you also don't want to end up potentially as an unwitting money mule, and helping facilitate the laundering of criminal funds.

So if you're selling anything and there's ever anything weird in the process that you think hang on, even if it looks like it's to your benefit, just hold and go and get some advice from your bank.

Brilliant.

Thank you so much, Nicola.

So again, lots of brilliant tips that we can embed to help us stay safe in the digital world and avoid falling into the traps set by cyber criminals.

So off the back of that, Tina, I just want to come back over to you if I can.

So just before we kind of move on, start opening up to share some tips and some questions from the audience.

If someone does end up the victim of a scam, what steps should they take to remedy that?

Thank you.

Paul.

I guess the first thing I would do and recommend is contact your bank immediately.

If you suspect you've been a victim.

And the promptness is the thing that's really important here.

Do it as fast as you can.

And that's because that gives us more of a chance to help support, any funds recovery that is possible.

Because we will always act quickly and promptly when we receive that contact.

If somebody thinks they've been a victim.

I think what's probably helpful here is to also remember that somebody can reach out to their bank before they make a payment to get advice.

So if there's any doubt prior to the transaction, occurring, it's important that someone doesn't feel silly for doubting that, you know, that extra assurance and verification, particularly on a purchase scam, where you've not seen the goods, I think is is very relevant in purchase scams, to think about it quite carefully.

Before you part with your money, and reach out to us before.

But certainly, your bank will always share appropriate insight for the transaction that you're doing to guide you on whether you want to continue to make that transaction.

And I guess the urgency piece that Nicola spoke about earlier, often it's, you know, a push to buy now, pay me now.

It's really urgent.

They're selling out fast type stuff that Nicola, spoke to earlier is a red flag to potentially call before you make the payment and seek guidance from your bank in those, types of scenarios.

Other things that you can do as well as contact your bank is share knowledge with friends and family.

The more networks understand how criminals operate and the types of frauds and scams that people fall victim to, the better awareness we all have socially, which is probably one of the best prevention methods that there is.

Is because, these, and those are not things that everyday people think about or are familiar with.

So sharing what happened to someone else is really helpful.

And contacting your bank is incredibly helpful.

So we can also educate other people.

But the faster you act, the faster you contact the bank, the more chance there is of funds recovery.

And obviously you can also call Action Fraud which is the police, element Action Fraud.

Take calls.

And if you're uncertain of your bank, many banks, including Barclays subscribe to a service.

You can call 159 and get through to your bank.

In those circumstances and many, many, high street banks.

Subscribe to that service of dialing 159 as well.

So if somebody feels a victim, that that's exactly what I would recommend is, is make that contact as soon as possible.

And going one step further, if you've just taken a call and something's happened by a phone, try and use a different device to make that call back.

You know, if you've answered it on a landline, call from a different mobile or or call, you know, use another device if you have one available.

To make that call.

If you've just been on a call that's made you a little bit nervous.

Brilliant.

Thank you so much for sharing that insight Tina.

So it seems that if you are the victim of a scam, there are lots of steps that can be taken to help to get support and to resolve those issues that occur with your accounts.

So we've obviously had lots and lots of really useful information shared throughout the session today, and it's definitely a lot to digest, in terms of helping us to navigate that digital world safely and also preventing ourselves from falling victim to fraud and scams.

But before we move onto the Q&A part of the event, I wonder if I could just come back to you both to reiterate some of the top tips you would like everyone to take away from the event today.

So Nicola, if we could just start with you by sharing your top tips for fraud and scam prevention.

Yeah, I think obviously we've covered quite a lot today.

And so to kind of summarise from my perspective is, is the products advertised on social media and other platforms.

Just remember that basically anyone can create that advert.

You know, just because the platform is legitimate doesn't mean that the advert on that platform is going to be.

And that can be stuff that's in, you know marketplaces, which you do know is created by other people, but it can also be the advertising material as well.

So just have a level of kind of scepticism, which kind of pulls me into the second one really, which is if a deal or offer sounds too good to be true, unfortunately, it probably is.

You know, we're always looking for a bargain.

I know I am an absolute bargain hunter, but we have to do a level of cynicism here of, actually, you know, if it's not available anywhere else, why is it suddenly available here and a lot cheaper?

You know, just keep your wits about you in terms of that, and know it’s everyone's feeling the pinch.

But, you know, we don't want you to be pinched further by kind of getting drawn into one of these too good to be true deals.

Be wary of unsolicited officers offers as well.

So thinking about things that like maybe drop into into your messaging, dropping into your WhatsApp and stuff like that, or phone calls that are being made to you.

Just think before making any purchase like have a look at customer reviews.

Check to verify seller's reputation.

There's different ways of doing that online, you know, whether it's Which?

or one of these other platforms where people get to review.

I mean, even now, if you Google a company, generally there's usually Google reviews, and that's actually really good sometimes to find out if it's been a scam because people can put it on there if they feel like they've been scammed.

I've definitely looked up a company before because I've thought, oh, can I get this dress or toy or whatever from there?

And then I've gone to just literally googling the company.

People have put no, no, no, scam scam, scam.

So it's good to just have that like extra wariness if you've never heard of it before.

And what we need to remember is even with all this information out here, is that sometimes scams do happen, even when we’ve done everything to try and mitigate them.

If you are a victim of a scam, Tina’s advice here is brilliant.

You should contact your bank and then report the incident to Action Fraud so that and do both of them.

And I really do implore you to do that because what Action Fraud does is that it takes the information, all the information that you've experienced, and it's able to disseminate that to all the different police forces and build up intelligence of where there might be, you know, pockets of specific types of crimes going on, which when you do report it to the bank, they can deal with the immediate kind of help you get through this process.

But by reporting it to Action Fraud as well, it builds up the intelligence that can help, particularly for serious organised crime, can help the National Crime Agency, the City of London police and law enforcement across the world to targeting on these particular scammers and build that intelligence that they need to take action which will ultimately reduce fraud and take them out of the picture in the future.

So it's as much as it can feel a faff to you bank and Action Fraud really does help prevent other scams to other people.

Brilliant.

Thank you so much, Nicola.

And Tina, if we come over to you as well to recap some of your top tips and key takeaways as well.

Please.

Of course Paul, I guess I'm going to say the first one, but please, please don't lie to your bank.

Criminals coach.

Incredibly successfully.

Customers to do that.

And it and it really should be a huge red flag if somebody is asking you to select a different payment purpose online, you know, asking you to select different things, and anything that involves somebody telling you not to do something should be a really, really big red flag to me.

And we see it all the time.

I think we've both spoken today about, you know, please don't be ashamed to admit that you've fallen for for some of these scams are incredibly, clever, manipulative tactics that are used and often when I'm talking to victims later, which I do fairly frequently in my role, people look back and think, they can't imagine that they’d fallen for it, and then they feel rather foolish, and they can't believe that they've done it.

But in the moment, it's incredibly easy to do.

And there is no perfect system.

So, so, so I implore someone, I guess, first of all, to not do that.

Then I guess the second thing, we often use an acronym stop, challenge, protect.

And if and if you'll allow me a couple of minutes to go into that Paul.

You know, stop is essentially take a moment to think about parting with your money that you've worked really hard for.

Just stop and think about is my money well spent here?

And is it safe and that stop is is the first principle really because that can keep you incredibly safe and in the same way, stop and think about why is somebody asking me for this personal information?

We heard from Nicola earlier about all sorts of different things that don't quite look as they appear.

And why would somebody be asking me for this information when all I'm doing is looking to purchase some goods?

You know, why does somebody need my date of birth?

Why does somebody need any of this information?

Is a really good one.

And then the challenge part of stop challenge and protect is just question yourself.

Could this be fake?

Is it, is it possible it’s not real?

And trust your own judgement around it.

It’s okay to reject, refuse or ignore a request only criminals will try and rush and panic somebody into panic buying something.

And that's, that's incredibly important to sort of challenge your own thinking around am I getting caught up in the wave of this, to protect yourself.

And that brings me on to the final one, which is protection, which is contact your bank immediately if it happens.

Contact Action Fraud contact your bank You're hearing that consistently from myself and Nicola.

It really does, make a big difference if you do that very, very quickly.

So that's what we mean by stop, challenge and protect I guess another couple of things from me.

We see, your bank or a reputable organisation is never going to ask you to become involved in an investigation, with any alleged wrongdoing.

And we see that happen.

We see, customers approached to purchase goods to help catch a criminal on behalf of a bank where criminals, pretend to be banks.

We see that happen.

It sounds when you step back as if, that doesn't sound like it would happen.

I can tell you that happens a lot.

So, so that's really important is to just think about that type of thing.

And then finally and I think some, some of our customers have probably asked this in the chat.

My final advice is be aware of the different protection levels you have with different payment methods, Paul, because, different payment methods have different protections built in when you pay for goods or services.

So firstly, someone asking you to pay in an incredibly unusual or in a very specific way might be a red flag to think about.

So if I pay by bank transfer, it's like paying by cash.

It's instant, you know, a bank transfer and, and cash are very, very similarly.

You've just done one online and you've, you've moved the money straightaway.

If you have the opportunity to think about, does this or does the way someone's offering me to pay.

are they varied and all those different things, like a credit card has different protections to a debit card, which have different protections to paying by Google Pay or Apple Pay or any of those type of payment methods.

And all of that becomes important if you have been scammed in the way that we can work with you as your bank to help try and get your money back.

Whether it's a dispute or a scam or a purchase scam, they can look very similar to a customer.

But sometimes it isn't a scam at all.

It's a dispute.

And somebody might have received those goods or services.

Not quite to the quality of what they were expecting.

Work might not have been done to the standard that people were expecting.

They might have received slightly different goods to what they were expecting.

And we will work with a customer or client to help them navigate the difference between a dispute and a scam, online, because some of the characteristics can look really quite similar, to a customer.

And I think the different methods that you choose to pay need to be appropriate to that transaction.

And of course, the more information you pass out, if you respond to something through WhatsApp, and you're putting your account details in WhatsApp or you're sending an email to a large group of people with all of your bank details on through an unsecured network or a Wi-Fi in a coffee shop with the public Wi-Fi, all of those things can be intercepted when you're paying for goods and services, so, as Nicola said at the outset, it's very difficult on a topic like this to not scare people too much because online purchasing is the way we do business.

And online purchasing is the way of the world very often.

But it's just think carefully about is this the best payment method?

Am I rushing, stop a little bit and don't lie to your bank.

That's kind of my little package.

There.

Brilliant.

Thank you both so much for sharing that insight.

And we've actually answered a lot of the questions that have come through from our attendees today, which is absolutely amazing.

I know that will be reassuring to everyone.

But it sounds like ultimately taking that time to think and taking precautions and continuing to educate ourselves and those around us is pivotal to helping us prevent fraud and scams.

So if you do know anyone who you think would be interested in learning more about any of the topics covered today, the webinar will be made available through the Barclays.

co.

uk website and also our Digital Wings Learning platform in the coming weeks, and we will signpost both of those resources at the end.

But before we go into closing off the session, we did have a couple of more questions that have come through throughout the event that I was hoping to share with you both.

So if we could run through a couple of them now for the next few minutes, and then we will, of course, share all those resources with our attendees.

So I think, the first one, Nicola, if we can come over to yourself, I've heard that fraudsters can mimic numbers of genuine organisations to make scam attempts look more genuine.

Is this correct?

And is there any insight you can share into how we can ensure we're speaking with the genuine organisation in any of these circumstances?

Yeah, unfortunately.

So it's a tactic called call spoofing.

And unfortunately the, the materials and the ability to spoof calls is, is available.

It's quite easy.

It's a legitimate technology.

So essentially when a bank calls you when a number shows up and it shows, up as the bank, they're probably using this technology themselves because they'll have multiple calls going out from different numbers.

But what they want is to show that it's coming from one number, which is your bank.

What criminals have done is taken that technology and using it against us, as they often do.

They'll take something that already exists and they'll subvert it for for their own gain.

It's freely available technology, it is against the law for someone, so it's almost like it's against the law for them to use it.

But it's very difficult for police to crack down on it.

So there was a major operation about 18 months to 2 years ago, which was a global operation where they took down one of the main sites that criminals were using these, call spoofing, you know, where they were basically buying the technology to do this call spoofing and kind of doing it digitally.

So what that did was, it, you know, it did wipe it out a little bit for a short amount of time and created, you know, there was major arrests and it was a huge operation and a successful one.

But ultimately, where one of these sites is taken down, another one pops up.

So going back to Tina's advice earlier on of if someone calls and says they're calling from your bank and when you look, maybe a number came up and it flashed up with Barclays or one of the other banks.

Is to think about are you expecting the call?

So obviously, if you've just spoken to someone about a mortgage, they ring you back and say, hi, it's Paul from Barclays.

I'm calling about the mortgage and they've got all the details.

Even if you are still worried at that point you can say, oh, great to speak to you again, Paul.

Do you mind if I just call you back in five minutes and do exactly what Tina said?

Use the number that you've got for him and call him back.

If someone calls you out of the blue again, unsolicited calls.

You know why they calling you.

What's prompted that to happen?

There's some banks, that will say, okay, well we'll send you a message In-app first to say, we're about to call you.

Even then, though, what if you haven't seen that message?

What if it seems, still seems out of the blue The bank and any organisation that's trying to get you is just going to be glad that you called back because they need to speak to you.

But they'll be happy that you're reassured that you've called the number that's on the legitimate website for the bank or other organisation, or is on the back of your card.

So yes, criminals can do that.

And what they hope is going to happen is that you're not going to realise that there's such a thing that exists and that you're going to take that as feedback.

And they may even say to you, well, if you look at the number I’ve called you from and look at the number on the back of your call, they'll be, at the back of your card.

They'll be the same thing.

If someone says that to you, they're probably a criminal because they know they've done that purposefully to try and prove that they're legitimate.

Any bank and any organisation that is legitimate is going to be fine with you calling them back of the off the main number.

So yes, unfortunately it does exist.

It is an attack vector that criminals do.

But the way that we can get around it is very simply by cutting them off and putting the power back in your hands, and you calling them and it may be a little bit more inconvenient, but ultimately, it's going to be far safer.

And if someone is able to get into your accounts this way, or take over your identity it can take between 3 days and 200 hours to reclaim your identity back, and lots of phone calls and lots of paperwork.

So whilst it might seem a little bit frustrating to go, you're right, I've got to ring them back now and be in a hold queue for five minutes.

That five minutes could save you a whole load of pain.

So it's a sacrifice worth making.

Amazing.

Thank you so much Nicola.

So again, just really emphasises the importance of questioning every single contact.

And remembering that golden rule that we should always contact organisations back on a number or through a channel that we know to be genuine.

So that's absolutely brilliant.

So I suppose one more for yourself, Tina, just before we share those important resources, for people to continue to enhance their knowledge on these topics.

Are there currently any new emerging scams that we're seeing that people should be aware of?

See, scam types Paul elaborated all the time.

They tend to be a common theme however.

At this time of year, you see purchase scams where people are offering so Cyber Monday, Black Friday, we spend a lot of time getting ready for that, in Barclays.

Because clearly there are a high volume of transactions, but we also see pop up at this time of year in particular, adverts on social media for products, purporting to be legitimate products.

More commonly perhaps than you do at other times of the year that are not legitimate products.

I think, you know, you see things like luxury, advent calendars that, that you’d struggle and have sold out in the shops.

You know, people will advertise, that they've got a proportion of those.

You know, my sister works at X, I've got lots of them really friendly, adverts suggesting that somebody can get something that may be in scarce demand or at this time of year, things are unusually, low prices.

Is something else that that we see particularly at this time of the year, because it's a very expensive time of the year for people.

So people will, in the purchase scams space, be doing, criminal's will be doing a lot of that, at this time of the year.

And I think it sort of just comes back, to concert tickets, you know, that sold out concert.

We see that at this time of the year, Paul, because what an amazing Christmas present to get somebody who is a massive fan of a particular artist that's expensive, sold out.

So that particular type of scam, a ticketing scam, is also quite popular in the purchase scams at this time of year, I would say look out for those ones in particular.

Fantastic.

Thank you Tina.

And I think again, it just emphasises the importance that we remember that cyber criminals will change their tactics based on, you know, the time of year, what's happening within the economic climate.

And again, we are going to share some resources in a couple of moments, but through our Barclays.

co.

uk website, we do also have a section dedicated to the latest scams where you can find information on the current typologies and different tactics been used by those cyber criminals.

But yeah.

So again, some amazing information shared today.

And although we have come to the end of the session, I just want to extend a huge thank you to both Tina and Nicola for sharing your time, your knowledge and expertise with myself and the audience today, we really do appreciate it and lots of information for us to take away that can help us to stay safe in that digital world.

So just before we close off the session, I am just going to share a couple of the resources that that have been touched on in the session today.

So you've heard, Tina mention the Take Five campaign earlier on.

So Take Five is a national campaign led by UK Finance that offers straightforward and impartial advice to help everyone protect themselves from financial fraud.

And that includes some of the topics that both Nicola and Tina touched on, such as email deception, phone based scams, as well as those online fraud and scams, particularly where criminals are impersonating those trusted organisations.

So lots of insight available through that platform.

I did also mention our Barclays.

co.

uk website, so through the fraud and scams section of the website, our Barclays.

co.

uk platform has lots of resources available to help you stay one step ahead of fraudsters and scammers.

That includes insight into specific types of fraud and scams, tips on how to stay safe online and of course, access to recordings of all of our previous fraud and scam events.

So this event will also go live both on the Barclays.

co.

uk website in the fraud and scams section on our Digital Wings learning platform.

Within the next couple of weeks.

So if you want to recap of any of those tips, or you want to share that with your friends, your family, your colleagues, we will have that available through both of those platforms.

And with that, that takes us to the Digital Wings learning platform.

So as part of our mission to help give everyone the tools to navigate the digital and financial worlds with confidence, we have lots of resources available through Digital Wings to help make learning digital skills and financial literacy straightforward, accessible and empowering.

And that'll include helping you to enhance your knowledge on keeping your money safe, securing devices, managing your digital footprint and just increasing your general fraud and scam awareness.

So again, there will be links to those resources in the chat that you can access, and we would definitely encourage you all to go away and continue to enhance your knowledge on the ever evolving tactics being used to target us by those cyber criminals.

But with that, everyone that does unfortunately bring us to the end of our presentation today.

So we will have a brief disclaimer pop up on the screen.

If everyone could read through that for me, that would be absolutely brilliant.

And while you're reading through that, I just want to again extend a huge thank you to both of our guest speakers, but also to each and every one of you for taking the time to join us for the session today, as we've have right from the get go.

Purchase scams are a huge, huge problem this time of year, and the best way for us to protect ourselves and those closest to us, is by continuing to enhance our knowledge on these topics.

So hopefully everyone's had some tips that they can take away today that will help protect you from those cyber criminals.

And then finally, you’ll see a QR code appear on screen and also a link in the chat.

This will take you to a brief feedback survey.

So all of the content we’ve covered today and all the content we cover through all of our Digital Eagle and Money Mentor events come off the back of people like yourselves sharing insight into what you found went well and also topics that you’d like to see us cover in the future.

That survey will take approximately 2 minutes to complete and if you could take the time to share your thoughts off the back of the session today, that would be absolutely brilliant.

off the back of the session today, that would be absolutely brilliant.

But with that everyone, that is the end of the session today, so again a huge, huge thank you to you all for taking the time to join us.

We hope you found this session useful and we look forward to seeing you join us We hope you found this session useful and we look forward to seeing you join us for another one of our Digital Eagle and Money Mentor events really soon.

In the meantime, have a great day and stay safe everyone.

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to this Barclays virtual event.

Scams, do you really know who you're talking to?

Impersonation scams is a really hot topic, and we could all be a target.

So a little bit of context before we get started.

Criminals or experts impersonating people and organisations we trust, such as the police, your bank, a delivery or utility company.

They take advantage of current affairs and the economic climate and maximise the opportunity to target you, hoping you'll let your guard down for just a moment.

Today you'll learn from our experts about the latest trends in impersonation scams and how to help protect yourself and your money.

So just some introductions.

Firstly, I'm Ross Martin, head of Digital Safety for the Barclays Digital Equals Programme.

And I'm really pleased to say I'm joined today by our guest speakers, Samantha Cooper, head of Fraud Prevention at Barclays.

Samantha will be providing an insight into what Barclays are doing to proactively support our customers to protect themselves through education and awareness and give you some examples of scams we have seen to bring them to life.

I'm also really pleased to say I'm joined by Catriona Still, head of fraud prevention at the dedicated card and payment crime unit.

Catriona will be sharing her knowledge and expertise on the tactics techniques used by today's criminals and how changing your mindset, and some behaviours can reduce the risk of losing money to this crime.

And we want this to be a really interactive event.

So please submit any questions you have throughout the event using the option in the top right corner of your screen.

I would then look to share as many of these questions with our speakers towards the end of today's event.

So without further ado, I'm now going to hand over to Catriona Still amazing.

Thanks very much, Ross.

Thanks for the update and the intro and good afternoon.

Thank you all for taking the time out of your busy days in order to come and hear what we have to say when really here to try and change your mindset and try and prevent you being the next victim of a scam.

I've been in fraud now for 20 years, and it's fair to say I've seen a lot change in that time.

The criminals are getting very sophisticated.

They're very clever, very, very good at what they do.

And so I genuinely and I'm saying this from the bottom my heart, I genuinely believe any one of us can be the victim of a scam if caught at the wrong time for us and the right time for criminals That's something we call situational vulnerability.

It might be that you're busy arranging, I don't know, a meal for your elder parents or your parent responsibilities.

And if you're caught at the wrong time and they're putting pressure on you, I genuinely, genuinely believe that each one of us can be the victim.

So don't think this can't happen to you.

I genuinely think it can.

And I've seen it happen to everyone ranging from barristers, law enforcement, and anyone of us can be caught at the wrong time.

So the first thing I want to concentrate on today is I just want to give you a little bit of an idea about what we're talking about.

So give you a little bit of context.

Have a look at some of the industry stats.

Just have a bit of an idea about what that looks like to us.

So when we look at how much fraud and scams are costing the industry, that's not just the Barclays customers that to all financial industry.

The UK finance statistics are showing us that £609.

8 million £609.

8 million was lost to authorised and unauthorised fraud and scams in the first half of 2022.

That is absolutely staggering when you think how much money that is, that is a significant amount of money.

The point I want to make on that when I talk about authorised and unauthorised, just so you have a bit of an understanding about what that is, an authorised payment is one where the criminal will coach you into making that transfer.

So for example, you might receive a phone call telling you that phoning from the police and that they need to move your money to to a safe account or phoning from your bank and needing to move money to a safe account.

If they get you to do that transaction themselves, that's called authorised because it's you doing it from your own device.

Unauthorised will be where criminals are doing that transaction themselves.

Just so you got a bit of an understanding about that.

Now interestingly, if we look at how much was actually prevented in the first half of last year, £584 million was actually stopped.

That's using the advanced security systems of the banks.

That again is a significant amount of money.

And on average we're preventing about 67.

3 pence in every pound.

It's roughly around that that amount.

So we're not doing a bad job.

But the truth of the matter is this always that more can be done, always more that can be done.

And I can give you my guarantee that together we are doing what we can to try and prevent the scammers.

Now let's have a look at one of the scam types.

This is something I want to concentrate on today impersonation scams.

Okay, Now impersonation is split into two different types.

One is impersonation of bank staff and police, and then the other is impersonation of utility companies, Something like that.

Impersonation scams are a major problem for us at the moment.

This is where somebody will be claiming they are someone when they're not so let's use the example of impersonation of bank staff or of police staff.

I want to again give you a little bit of an idea about what statistics are looking like this just so you can get a flavour of how much this is costing the industry.

Again, we're going to look at the first half of last year because we've got this, that's for this at the moment, the first half of 2022 industry figures from UK Finance are showing a loss of £59.

6 million on impersonation of bank staff or of police.

Okay, impersonation of utilities, mobile phone companies, etc.

We're looking at £30.

9 million and then romance frauds.

Again, I see that as a type of impersonation that is £16.

6 million.

Okay, This is how much it is costing us.

These are the cases that we know about that have been reported in in the first six months of last year.

Now, we do have some up to date statistics which UK Finance just released earlier this week.

This week because it is this week take five to stop fraud week.

This is where we do planned action to try and reduce people becoming the victim of scams and we've got some up to date industry stats, which I'm pleased to be able to share with you today.

The the whole of 2022 impersonation scams have cost 177.

6 million.

Look how much that's jumped from the first half of last year up to £177.

6 million.

That's around about 45,000 cases reported in to us.

And like I said, that's only what we know about.

That's not the cases where people haven't actually reported it to their bank.

Some people feel embarrassed or ashamed or guilt and don't report it.

Please do not feel ashamed or embarrassed.

As I said, I genuinely believe anybody can be a victim of a scam if caught at the wrong time for you and the right time for the criminals.

I talk about five different pillars that will cause this effect.

This is what the criminals use in order to target you.

So if you receive a phone call out of the blue, you'll always have they'll provide a bit of context for you.

They'll use authority.

So they'll say, Hi, it's Cat calling from the dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit.

I need to talk to you today.

We've arrested somebody that's got so-and- so they've got this and they've got cards or whatever it might be in your name.

And I need to speak to you today about it.

They'll use urgency.

They'll say something along the lines of You must act now, because if you don't, all your money will be gone.

So they'll really pile that pressure on you.

They might use scarcity, they might say, but if you don't act now, you're going to miss out on this or you're going to lose more money.

This we often see this with investment scams where they will use scarcity.

You know, we've got a great offer for you today, but if you don't take this now, then this carbon credits, for example, they're going to rocket through or the Bitcoin are going to rocket through the costs an awful lot more.

Take that now, you know, take that opportunity now.

And the biggest one I concentrate on is that emotion.

They will turn this into something where you feel even nervous, scared they'll put you into that fight or flight mode you may have heard people talk about before.

They are just piling on that pressure in order to try and take advantage of you during those those moments where you might otherwise be really quite busy.

So what you'll see is that the stats are really quite frightening.

What we've seen over COVID certainly is we saw a slight increase from 2020 when it went up quite significantly and then it slightly dropped.

But as it happens, romance fraud has really, really taken hold.

And this is this is an area that certainly within the policing and within the banking industry that we're concentrating our efforts on try and prevent people becoming victims.

So if you receive unsolicited phone calls or emails that the tactics the criminals will use is they'll either be phoning you, they'll be sending you text messages, emails.

They may well even have fake websites or social media, social media posts, because the truth is their aim is to trick you into handing over your personal details, your passwords.

So what they'll then use with that data, they'll use that information to then target you and then to convince you to authorise those payments.

So it is certainly an area that we are genuinely concerned about and we want you as the customers to take back the autonomy to make the decision to say, you know what, stop, stop what you're doing, don't go any further.

It's okay to say no to the criminals.

If you receive an unsolicited phone call or an email or text message, you do not have to respond.

Okay.

The second thing we talk about in the Take Five campaign is to protect yourself and to protect your data.

If you've accepted a call, you've started passing some information over.

Don't worry, just stop.

Don't go any further and then phone your bank.

That's the first piece of advice I want to give you.

Make sure that you speak to your and speak to your bank and then also report it to action fraud.

We talk within the police world that within our police unit we look at organised criminal gangs that are responsible for these types of crimes.

And if we didn't have each of the jigsaw piece puzzles to build that picture, to go after the criminal gangs, it would make our lives an awful lot harder.

Every piece of that jigsaw will make that picture.

And so what I'm also going to be today is if you have been the victim of a fraud or a scam, report it to your bank or your financial institution, but also make sure that you're reporting it to action fraud.

Because if we don't have all of those pieces to that jigsaw puzzle, it does make it a very, very difficult landscape, a very difficult picture to get after those criminal gangs.

Now, when it comes to some of the work that we're doing in our police unit, we are targeting those criminal gangs that are going after you and after your data.

We deal with all sorts of different cases, and I know Sam will give you some examples of this in a little while, but I just wanted to give you a few that I'm hearing about a lot within our police department at the moment, within our police unit at the moment.

One of those is people calling, claiming to be from the police.

Now very clever how they do this because you automatically think, i’d know if it was the police that not hang up or put the phone down, I wouldn't speak to them.

If they call you and say hi, it's Cat calling from the Serious Fraud Office.

I believe somebody has got your data and I really want to make sure that they don't steal any more of your money.

Automatically.

I spoke about that cause it puts you into that kind of that they grab your emotion, they make you feel nervous.

Already, you're feeling like something's got to happen quickly.

They'll be putting the urgency on you.

They're really clever in what they do because what they will say is they'll say something like, But before I go any further, you need to check who I am.

Don't give out any of your data.

You must never give your data out over the phone.

What they'll ask you to do is to dial nine, nine, nine and ask to speak to the police to check who I am.

Now, what they'll ask you to do is to do that immediately so that the phone line is not disconnected.

Now, as far as you're concerned, you'll think you've put phone down and that the phone will be disconnected, but actually what they'll be doing you’ll phone through thinking you’re dialling nine, nine, nine and you'll hear somebody say which service you require today.

Was it the police, fire or ambulance.

So you think you've gone through to a call centre?

They might even have the background noise of a call centre.

Very, very clever in how they do it.

Then they'll have a different voice answer and then they'll put through to police.

When you've asked the police and they'll say, Oh yes, what was the warrant number of that officer that called 991325.

Let me just check.

Yes, I can confirm Catriona Still works for the Serious Fraud Office and that is her warrant number.

So you can continue that call in faith.

Now they automatically then when they go back to the criminal, think that they're speaking to a police officer.

So they will think they're involved in a police investigation, maybe looking at somebody working within the branch.

They might claim that it's to do with counterfeit notes being handed out.

And what they'll ask you to do is go into the branch and do a withdrawal.

Now, what you'll notice with this, they won't let you put the phone down.

They'll be on the phone with you all the way, coaching you, getting you to say the right things to the branch counter staff because the branch counter staff are wise to this and they will try and stop you in your tracks from doing those withdrawals.

It's a really good system that the banks have introduced right across the whole of the UK.

It's called banking protocol and it's trying to safeguard you from the scammers.

It's trying to prevent you from taking the money out and handing it over to a scammer.

So you might find if you go into your branch to do a genuine withdrawal, you might get a series of questions asked of you.

That is another security measure that the banking industry have introduced to try and prevent these scammers in their tracks and since inception is saved.

I must admit I don't know the exact figure off the top of my head, but I believe it to be around about £600 million.

That's just in the last few years.

That's a significant amount of money that it's blocked.

But that's why the criminals are now diverting their tactics and trying to go to the customers directly to do these withdrawals.

So if you are asked to go into a branch, you're told it's part of a police investigation.

I can guarantee it won't be okay.

I'm reading around about ten reports of this just in the Metropolitan Police area alone per day.

I dread to think what that is countrywide.

Okay, so any unsolicited phone calls?

Please don't go ahead with it.

Please take five.

Stop what you're doing and think about what it is they're asking of you.

It's okay to say no.

It's okay to hang the phone up.

And then what I would ask is that you phone your bank immediately, preferably from another phone, if you can, just in case that that phone line open or give it a few minutes before you then phone out.

What the criminals will do is try and keep that phone line open as long as possible because they don't want you phoning the bank.

Okay.

That's another tactic they'll use.

So you can see these are quite sophisticated scams and I genuinely believe a lot of people can be victim to the scams.

And like I said, the loss is significant.

£177.

6 million on this alone on impersonation frauds in the last 12 months.

That is a significant amount of money to be losing.

And we want you to take back that take back the autonomy.

It's okay to stop.

It's okay to say no.

The other thing I'd like to touch on Ross, is around data.

Criminals have access to data online.

Now they can purchase this.

It's like a business.

If I'm honest.

We've seen a business set up, so they will have an actual call centre.

They'll have people working for them who may not even really understand that they're involved in this.

They might think they've got themselves a part time job phoning out customers, trying to help them.

It's it's crazy that the data that is available online can be easily purchased is a driver of these frauds.

Okay?

So it's not just people getting the data off social media.

A colleague of mine that works in used to work in counter terrorism.

One of the things he's always said to me and when we do these presentations, he said all the training in the world showed me that I don't actually need all the training in the world in order to trace people.

People easily, readily hand out their data without thinking twice.

I don't know.

Another another way of looking at it is if you're in the in, I don't know, walking down the high street.

I'm in Uxbridge in West London today doing a presentation to branch staff and customers on theft of money and you see somebody with a clipboard.

What's the first thing you'll do?

You're a massive semicircle around them because you don't want to give your personal data out or, you know, you'll avoid eye contact, for example, because you don't want to give your data out.

You're too busy, you're nervous about who they are and what they're asking for of you.

But yet online, if somebody were to say, here's an offer for a £500 gift card to enter that all we need is your name, your email address, and your telephone number.

Would you do it?

I think a lot of us would.

I'm just asking you to challenge the amount of data that you share online on social media with these gift cards, because quite often that gift card is non-existent.

All they're doing is harvesting your data, taking your data.

They've now got your name, they've got your telephone number, and they've got your email address so that you can become their next target, their next victim.

So today, change the way you're working.

If you receive phone calls, it's okay to challenge, it's okay to stop.

And then most importantly, if you do receive one of those phone calls, make sure you protect yourself, phone your bank, let action fraud know any information that you can names that they've given, they might claim to be.

DC John Smith from Hammersmith Police Station.

Any information like that really helps us in our investigation work within the law enforcement unit in which we work.

That is it from me for now, Ross I will be coming back a little bit later just to talk through some of those key takeaways at the end.

But without further ado, I will pass back to you for now.

Ross.

Thank you.

Thanks so much.

Caitriona.

Just those numbers you've shared really show the size of the problem, it is something, isn't it?

And the techniques and tactics just also really bring to life how we can all easily fall into that trap even if we are au fait with technology.

So thank you so much, Caitriona.

So we’re going to hand, straight over to Samantha from Barclays, Head of Fraud Prevention.

Thanks, Ross, and thanks Cat, for providing all that information.

Really, really insightful.

I think challenging the data that we share is really, really key.

So I think it's great that we've been able to talk about that so afternoon everyone.

My name's Sam and I'm head of fraud prevention at Barclays.

I'm really, really happy to be here today taking part in this event and talking to you all about impersonation scams.

So our personal finances are more important than ever at the moment with the rising cost of living.

And many of us are looking at ways to reduce what we pay and to ensure that our money is safe.

Scams in general are on the rise and this is due to many factors when talking specifically about impersonation scams.

If we take the increased cost of living, there'll be many reasons why we could be more susceptible to being the victim of a scam.

For example, lots of us would have received a text message, presuming you’re with an energy provider that you are entitled to a rebate and for you to enter your details in order to get that rebate.

Now, factually, that is correct and that was correct, but we were entitled to that rebate.

However, these were automatically applied and not something that you would have had to have given your personal information for.

So the message would have actually been a scam.

Impersonation scams on the rise.

And this is one of the highest reported scam types which we see at Barclays.

So, Cat’s shared some really good examples.

And I'm just going to bring to life to you what we see within Barclays and how people can be targeted by these criminals.

So the first example that I'd like to talk about is where somebody impersonates your bank.

You may receive a text message or phone call advising you that your money is somehow at risk.

Now, obviously, if we received a message like this, of course, we would be in doubt straight away thinking, oh my God, what what's happening with the money in my account?

We want to make sure that it's safe.

Now, this would be a major, major concern if somebody is telling you this.

So I'd like to stress at this point that the number showing up on your phone might actually show as a Barclays telephone number.

So this is known as spoofing numbers can be easily spoofed to look like the real phone number.

And therefore, if you have any concerns, you should hang up and call the number on the back of your card.

You may also have been told by that person to just simply Google that number so you would have your phone gone to Google, type it in and yes, it will show as potentially being from your bank.

It will show as being from your bank because they have spoofed the incoming number to you.

So just keep that in mind on telephone numbers and calls that you receive.

So you may also be told by that person as well that your money is at risk and they have asked you if you've spent £300, for example, at John Lewis.

They'll ask you if you've spent that money, to which you would say no, and they would then pressure you into moving your money.

A bank would never, ever ask you to move your money to somewhere else.

And in this example, you would have been scammed into believing that you were talking with a member of staff.

Other impersonation cases, unfortunately, are where we see the elderly being targeted with someone pretending to be from the bank or the police will contact you advising that the branch staff cannot be trusted and that you must visit that branch to remove your money.

What would happen then is a courier will be arranged to meet you and to actually hand over that money to you.

Now, I just wanted to let you know about that scam type because as I said, it does target the elderly and people who may be more vulnerable to believing that the police or the bank want you to withdraw your money and to hand it over to somebody.

The next example is where scammers are impersonating children and targeting parents to give them money to help them out of a situation.

So this would be via a messaging service and quite common on WhatsApp.

I myself have received a message.

I have a two year old, my parents have received the message as well.

This is so, so common for people to receive this and to think, Oh, a child needs some money, I'm going to transfer them, transfer them some funds.

So the message will say something along the lines of Hi mum, I hope you're okay, This is my new number or I've lost my phone.

so using the friend’s.

I’ve an urgent bill that I need to pay, can you transfer some money?

We've seen in some instances customers responded and actually asking which child is sending the message.

And the scammers have replied, is your favourite or it's the youngest.

So if you receive a message like this, the easiest thing to do which is what we try to advise customers, is to stop, think and ring.

If you receive a message saying, This is my new number, I need some money, call the old number.

That's the easiest and quickest way to validate that it is your child sending you that that text message.

So I've seen examples of parents responding, asking if they're okay.

And of course, if your child is asking you for money, you're going to try and help them out but this scam is so, so common.

I know so many people have received this message.

My own mum's received this message.

And then later in the day she's asked me if I've sent her a WhatsApp asking for some money, to which I haven't.

The final example I want to talk through is HMRC scams.

So you'll be contacted by someone pretending to be from the HMRC or Ministry of Justice advising that you owe unpaid taxes and that you're going to be arrested if you don't pay.

Now this.

is absolutely not true.

So if you receive a message like this, you'll probably receive a link where they'll ask you to click on that link and fill out some personal information.

So again, stop, think could ring.

Easiest thing for you to do is to find the genuine contact details of HMRC and give them a call yourself.

So from the examples i’ve talked through, many of you may have been thinking how easy it can be to be scammed or you may have been thinking, I wouldn't have done that.

I would have spotted it straightaway.

So scammers are really sophisticated experts in what they do in customer service.

They're absolutely experts and they will make you believe you are speaking to a genuine person from an organisation.

So I'm going to talk through some warning signs now and what to look out for, which will help to prevent you being a victim of a scam.

So as Cat described earlier on, an impersonation scam is where a criminal will pretend to be someone from your bank, the police, a trusted organisation, or even a friend or family.

The sole reason is to convince you to send them money or provide your personal details which they can later use to target you with.

There are some things which I'd like you to be aware of and to look out for going forward.

And so you contacted out the blue by someone claiming to be the bank or the organisation requesting you to transfer money urgently or advise that your account is at risk.

Remember, nobody trustworthy will ever, ever ask you to do this.

So of course I just spoke about the family, children and parents scam type.

You already can have an element of trust if you think it's your child messaging you.

So just be careful if you receive anything out of the blue, just think that doesn't seem right.

I want to have a further look into that.

And as Cat said, it's okay to say no, so please just take that away.

If you've been contacted via suspicious email or text message or even a phone call, please avoid clicking on links that have been sent to you.

Never, ever download software, which somebody said to you that you need to download in order to, for example, move money to a safe account.

If you download that software that can give a scammer access to all of the information that you have on your phone laptop, or any device that you've got, they would have access to it.

Never feel rushed, pressured or forced into making a payment.

Always make sure you're comfortable and are happy with the requests being made.

If in doubt, use a trusted source such as the company's website, or if someone is claiming to be from the bank, simply call the number on the back of your card so that you can make contact yourself in order to avoid an impersonation scam.

One of the things that we say is the easiest thing for you to do is to change the method of communication.

And so if you've received a text message or if you've received a phone call, just go and verify that yourself and make new communication.

So that will stop scammers being able to keep you on the phone.

As Cat said, they want to keep you on the phone so that you don't ring the bank.

So change the method of communication, which will help.

At this point.

I'd like to highlight another growing scam type, which we see and you may have seen this on the news as well, which is romance scams.

Now, romance scams differ to impersonation where the scammer has emotionally manipulated you into believing that they are in a relationship with you in order for you to willingly give them money.

Now, as you can imagine, this is extremely upsetting for customers who have been a victim of a romance scam as emotionally this can be absolutely heartbreaking.

It's shockingly cruel what they do to people and is something that we are working hard to tackle and to break the spell that these scammers are putting people into.

So some top warning signs for romance scams are when you've not physically met the person very often have not actually met them face to face.

Most likely wouldn't have spoken to them even, and the most communication that you would have had would be via a text message or email.

These payments will often be low in value, very high in volume, and the reason for the request will always differ.

So it might be, for example, they need some money for medical bills or they want some money to actually buy a plane ticket so that they can come and see you.

And of course, that will never happen.

Something will come up and they'll ask you for more money so that they can make a fresh attempt to come in, come in to meet you.

If the person you're communicating with is giving you instructions on how to get the payment through our bank systems or coaching you on what to say to us as the reason why you are transferring money, then ask yourself two things.

One, why and how do they know this?

And two, if it's legitimate, why would you actually need to do this?

This is the same for all scams.

So the examples I've gone through are not an exhaustive list, so I'd encourage you all to visit: www.

barclays.

co.

uk/fraud-and-scams to see more details on how you can protect yourself and for more information on the latest scams.

So i’d next?

Like to talk to you about what Barclays are doing to protect you.

So we have specialist systems in place which will monitor payments 24 by seven.

And we have highly skilled colleagues who will sometimes make contact with you where we feel we need to talk about a payment and understand if it could potentially be a fraud or a scam.

We will have a conversation with you to determine if there are any scam concerns and determine if it is actually a genuine payment.

So we would like to have an in-depth conversation with you about that.

When you make payment for the first time to someone new we’ll ask what the payment is for via your mobile banking and will provide guidance which we encourage you all to follow before making that payment.

It's really, really important that you answer the reason for that payment truthfully as this will help us to prevent you from being a victim of a scam.

If you have already been a victim of a scam, we will provide you with additional support where you can seek guidance and speak to an independent charity that would be able to help people who have been a victim of a crime.

And remember, please be mindful.

This is something Cat suggested earlier as well.

Please be mindful of the information that you share online.

I see a lot of accounts on social media where phone numbers are listed.

For example, in a profile section, it will say that they are a brother or a sister or a mother and going back to the child and parent scam type, this is really easy to use that data to target people with.

So please do your own independent checks as well.

When making payments, we would want you to be comfortable with who you are paying and that you've verified that information yourself.

So I'm going to hand back over to Cat now to talk about Take Five.

Thanks, Sam.

Just a couple of bits I wanted to pick up on because you raised some really valid points there.

One of the things on romance fraud from a police perspective that it's always worth doing, if you've got an image of an individual, you can actually copy and paste that into a Google search or Bing search, whichever one you want to use, and to what's called a reverse image search that will show you if that image is popping up elsewhere.

Okay.

So from a romance perspective, it's not a bad idea just to give it a go if you're in a relationship.

And as Sam said, that they're so, so good at this.

This is what they do day in, day out.

And with unfortunately, quite a few different people.

And another point on romance fraud.

This is affecting people of all ages and it certainly increased significantly during COVID.

And I think part of that was down to isolation, people being isolated from their friends and family and not necessarily talking to anybody else.

And, you know, people looking for company and friendship.

And the scammers genuinely think that they're doing something, doing you a service by speaking to you.

It's it's insane.

I've been speaking to one of our police officers who's investigating this.

And in a faraway land, I won't say which country is.

And yeah, that their children that are children that are doing this, they I think they're doing nothing wrong.

And that's the way that they make their money.

Unfortunately, it has a devastating impact on people speaking to victims where they, you know, they genuinely lost their independence.

That too embarrassed.

They don't talk to anybody about it.

They won't tell their family because they've you know, they feel shame, guilt.

We've spoken already about this this morning.

And I genuinely just want to make the point that you should feel absolutely no shame, guilt or embarrassment if you're the victim of a romance fraud or any other scam, because like I said right at the beginning, genuinely, this can happen to any one of us.

So please do report it.

Do a reverse image search.

Just another method there just to try and stop them in their tracks.

And the other bit I just wanted to point out you spoke about data as well.

Sam, and I mentioned that in my talk too, because it is if they don't have the data, they can't be phoning you, they can't be making contact with you.

So do you please really think about who you're sharing your data with?

Data is sold online and in a marketplace a bit like eBay.

If any of you have done eBay and people have reviews on how well or how good their data is and if the card is blocked, they bought the criminals bought, they give them a refund.

You know, it is a marketplace.

I just want you to understand that this is happening, day in, day out, online.

Law enforcement do as much as they can to try and prevent it, but it still sneaks through.

It's a bit like with the banking industry.

They'll do as much as they can, but unfortunately, there is always going to be a way round for the criminals.

I'm so sorry, on that point.

Getting back to the Take Five to Stop Fraud campaign, I did mention already that it is take five to stop fraud week.

This is a whole week of of different campaigns that we're doing to try and educate the public on how they can prevent themselves Being the victim of scam and fraud.

And you can look for this information if you go online on to take five to stop fraud, you can do a search and it will tell you all about it.

We've covered off what those three key parts are here.

And I'm going to say it again because I think it's really, really important.

It's okay to stop.

Okay.

It's okay if somebody is asking you or you're in a relationship with someone that you're now thinking, is this okay?

It's alright to stop, it's okay to speak to somebody about it.

Okay.

You don't have to continue.

You can stop.

Is it fake?

It's okay to reject.

It's okay to refuse it.

And it's okay to not answer the phone if you choose not to.

And then finally, it's about making sure that you protect your account and your data.

So if you know, if you've received a phone call, you've received a text message or an email, you can send that on.

Let your bank know immediately.

First point of call is always going to be your bank, your financial institutions, so they can protect your accounts.

And then as I've said before, I need your jigsaw piece puzzles.

I need those pieces of the puzzles so that we can try and put them together to get after the organised criminal gangs that are making an awful lot of money out of this and unfortunately funding some really horrific crimes.

So we need your help.

Everybody on the call today, take heed and do what you can to try and prevent yourself being the victim of a scam.

Thanks, Ross.

Thank you so much, Cat.

And thank you, Sam, for sharing all of your insight.

I think I just want to make the point that impersonation scams are the second highest in terms of all the scam types we see, and that's in terms of the volume.

So there are so many different variations, and this is why we have to not let our guard down.

So what I'd like to do now is move onto the Q&A section.

Thank you so much for your questions.

We have had hundreds of questions, and I'm going do my best to get through as many of those as I can.

So keep your answers fairly brief.

But I will be coming onto some of the resources where you can find answers to the questions that we might not be able to get through today.

So let's move on to these questions.

And Cat, Sam, I’ll pose these to both of you, and it's really good to get your thoughts.

So, Cat, if I could start with you, what should I do If I think I've spoken to a scammer?

Yeah, unfortunately, I think we've just covered this one off.

The first thing you can do is put the phone down.

If you think even halfway through the conversation, I almost think we're too polite as a nation.

If you're feeling uncomfortable, you don't think something's right, or you just having listened to our advice, you now take a call, It's okay to actually hang up on them.

It is okay to put the phone down.

And it's quite interesting when you do that because their language changes.

They go from being this ever so amazing.

Sam spoke about how good they are at customer service.

They go from amazing customer service to the worst customer service you can ever experience.

Just very briefly, I read a report just yesterday that came through the met, of a 92 year old lady who had taken a call.

She didn't believe it was right.

She put the phone down and they called her a horrible horrible word and she's actually quite traumatised by the whole experience.

So we have got some specialist officers that are now supporting her through that.

So it's okay to stop and it's okay to hang up on them.

And then the first thing to do is to contact your bank, make sure that you secure your banking information Thanks, Cat.

And a two part question for you also.

So the first one is I receive a large number of texts claiming to be from Royal Mail or HMRC.

Who should I report these to?

But also who should I report the emails to as well?

Yeah, great.

Great question that one, Ross.

Thank you.

I haven't brought this up yet, but I was going to if it didn’t come in the Q&A.

That's great.

If you receive a text message that you believe to be scam, it could be from HMRC.

DPD Royal Mail.

You probably all have them.

I know I have.

The first point to make is, the banking industry have been working with the mobile network operators to try and stop this.

So actually I'd like to think you've all seen a massive reduction in this, which in a way Sam was speaking earlier about the WhatsApp scams.

It's moved it to WhatsApp.

The bonus is now that you can forward any text messages you get to 7726.

Now it's spells spam on your keyboard.

You know how your numbers have got letters as well.

It spells spam: S-P-A-M.

Okay, so please do forward any text messages that you get to spam.

The thing to do is with emails is to report them to or send them on to report@phishing.

And that's spelt P-H I-S-H-I-N-G .

gov.

uk and then the National Cyber Security Centre will make sure that that is investigated too.

That's me.

Did I answer both of those?

Ross, Covered them both?

Yeah, that's great.

And what I do know is that information obviously helps the likes of law enforcement to to take down these sites and to stop other people falling victim.

So yeah, as it happens, our police unit.

Sorry to interrupt you, Ross.

I do apologise.

Cutting over you.

The police unit in which I work, the dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit, doesn't take reports from the public.

We're looking at the organised criminal gangs that we're trying to get up the chain as it happens during COVID times.

I think it was 24 arrests we made of people sending out those text messages, those Royal Mail scams, etc.

And if you want to look that up, you can look it up on its website called UK Finance.

And if you look up DCPCU press statements, you'll be able to see all the great news and all the work we do.

You can also follow us on our Twitter account and our LinkedIn pages too.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Cat.

So sorry.

No, absolutely.

There's some great, great stories and resources there, I can definitely vouch for that.

Sam, I'm coming over to you if I can.

So when I received a call from the bank, you ask for my personal details, but you've called me.

Why do you do this?

So, yeah, that’s a really good question.

We do get this a lot from customers.

So firstly, I think as I said earlier, if we're suspicious of a payment, we will want to make contact with you so that we can protect you.

So we want to have a conversation about that payment.

So we will need to identify you obviously, so that we can be sure that we are talking to the genuine customer and that your mobile phone number - Your mobile phone hasn't been stolen and we get through to somebody else and it's a fraudster that we then end up talking to.

So the easiest way for us to verify you, and for you to be sure that you're speaking to a member of staff from Barclays is using the Barclays Mobile Banking app and you would be able to authenticate on that application on your phone and confirm that you are speaking to Sam, from Barclays.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Sam, another question for you.

How do I know an email I've received is fake?

Okay.

So I think we all receive a lot of emails, don't we?

A lot of spam.

So so much that we've got coming through.

Now.

If I was to receive an email from HMRC saying that I owed tax and I was going to be arrested if I didn't give them the money and if I double click on that email, it will give you the full email address in there.

So it won't just say HMRC.

If you go into it, you'll see the full address.

And if that email address was from a Hotmail account, I would think straightaway, why would HMRC be using a Hotmail account to email me?

So straightaway I'll think that suspicious.

So if you receive an email, just have a look at the full address, and then have a look online If you think it's suspicious and find out what the actual email address is.

Excellent.

Thanks again, Sam.

I'm actually going to answer a question here myself that's come in.

I think it's a really key question.

So someone's asked what is the most prevalent type of scam?

So in terms of Barclays data research that we've done in the last six months, the most prevalent type of scam by volume would be purchase scams.

So this is things that we buy through potentially fake websites, fake social media adverts.

And then in terms of the actual value and the most prevalent scam types are actually romance scams, which both Cat and Sam have touched on.

And also investments scams.

These really important for people just to know the the most popular type of scams we're seeing both by volume and by value Sam could I also ask you one question we've had is my mobile has the Barclays app and if my mobile is stolen, how do I ring?

So if you have if your mobile is stolen, give us a call on the number on the back of your Barclays debit card.

That would be the easiest way for you to get in contact with us.

And you know that you'll be through to the correct area.

So I think and I'd stress that as well, if you receive the call from us or someone pretending to be us and you're really not sure, call the number on the back of your card.

yeah, definitely.

Over to you Cat.

Is it possible to receive a call showing it's from England, but the original call is from abroad?

Yeah, absolutely.

So Sam picked up on this one earlier, and I'm really glad that she covered it off because it is one of the biggest precursors to fraud.

It's an enabler.

It's happening.

They they will identify a phone number.

They can they can spoof a phone number for it to be whatever they want it to be.

Again, the banking industry have done a lot to try and prevent this.

So actually, these days, somebody can't spoof a bank's telephone number.

I'm saying that with my fingers crossed.

I know there's been a huge amount work done on this.

I'm pretty certain now they cannot now spoof any of the bank numbers, which is great.

Of course, what they can do is try and spoof other numbers that look like it and they can spoof utility companies or they can spoof police, etc.

So there's a huge amount of work being done in the background to try and stop that.

But absolutely, somebody phoning from abroad can make it look like it's a call in Newcastle or Edinburgh or wherever it might be.

I had one.

I was out doing some branch training last week on again, thefts, because this is a big problem in certain parts of London at the moment where people are doing cash withdrawals over the branch counter and then people are being followed and then having their money stolen.

It's pretty awful.

And when I was in that branch doing that training, I had exactly that happen.

I had a phone call supposedly from Nottingham and it wasn't.

You know, I'm kind of fortunate I can pass that on to our cyber gurus to have a look at so they possibly phoned the wrong person.

But absolutely.

Yep.

Anybody can.

You can phone from a different country and make it appear like it's from any number.

Thanks Cat.

So staying with you, this is the $64,000 question.

Very popular question.

Whenever we run, these events are scammers ever caught?

Can you tell me why it's difficult to identify scammers?

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, yes, scammers are caught, but boy, is it difficult.

And as I said, part of this is down to a lack of reporting.

We know that the statistics we've got are probably only the tip of the iceberg is the truth of it.

So it is a is a massive challenge for us within law enforcement.

Fortunately, you do have a dedicated card and payment crime unit, the police unit in which I work, and we are paid for by all the banking industry and our purpose is to go after those organised criminal gangs and we do a pretty sterlingjob of it.

As I mentioned, you can have a look on the website UK finance website under press news releases and you can hear about some of those stories.

But it is a challenge Ross.

I do feel like we're constantly fighting a battle and one of our biggest challenges is indeed the fact that a lot of this is originating abroad.

I would love to have our officers working out from abroad and as I said, I know some that are trying to do work with some of those countries, but politically there's a lot of corruption in some of those countries.

So if we plough some money into trying to prevent it, is the money going to the right place?

There's there's an awful lot of challenges that I won't get into today that we're meant to be keeping these answers quite brief.

So, yes, there is great work being done by organised police units and we have economic crime units, the economic crime units around the whole of the UK that are trying to target some of these organised criminal gangs that are in the UK.

But just for context, I think 46% of all reported crime in the UK is fraud or cyber enabled, 46% of all crime, but yet only 1% of police resources goes on to it.

So we have some massive challenges, really big challenges, and I can only tell you that the officers that I work with, we are dedicated.

We genuinely want to stop them in their tracks and we work with the banking industry very closely.

In order for us to do that.

We're very fortunate that you've got a bank sponsored police unit that are going after these organised criminal gangs and we do a pretty good job of that, but we are only scratching the surface.

I wish we had more resources.

Thank you, Cat.

So this question potentially for both of you, I'll come to you first.

Sam and then Cat, be good to get you your view.

Somebody asked what responsibilities do the receiving banks have so we would make contact with the receiving bank.

If so, for example, if we know that there's been a payment that has been transferred, we would make contact with them to make them aware and they would carry out their own investigation as well.

So there is a responsibility on both parts to ensure that there's checks in place for payments going out and then subsequently the payments coming in.

So we would look at it from both angles, for example, within Barclays fraud operations and similarly, the other banks would do the same.

So there's prevention checks in place.

A point I'd like to make on this one is if you've not heard of the term money mules, it's worth having a look at money mules.

Do a bit of a search for a money mule.

What is a money mule?

One of the biggest problems we have, Sam and Ross will know this well themselves is that criminals will launder those funds through numerous bank accounts.

So a lot of people might think, well, why don't you just phone that the money's gone to NatWest.

Why don't you just find the NatWest and get the money back?

But what will happen is the money will go there pretty quickly and then it gets dispersed very quickly out to lots of different accounts and then that money's gone.

And then again, if it goes abroad, if it's, you know, out to cryptocurrencies, for example, it can make a big challenge going after those funds.

So money muling is a big problem.

That is where people will allow other people to use their account.

They might get paid £50 if they actually get the money in the first place to allow that money to be filtered through their account and they won't realise that what they're doing is facilitating money laundering.

So that is one of our biggest problems is the fact that money mules are facilitating these crimes.

Very difficult for us to stop because ordinarily it's everyday accounts, you know, if money just goes in and out of somebody’s account that’s always using their account it’s very difficult for us to spot.

So they're not just opened to facilitate this.

They might be somebody’s account that they're just allowing the criminals to use.

So it makes it very, very tricky to to spot, detect and block.

And just on that as well Cat, I was just going to mention so we do see reports I can see it myself online on social media.

These messages are getting out there.

So if you go on to Snapchat now, you could see something on there that is trying to entice you to sell your account to somebody.

So while social media, is it its reach is just incredible.

So young people, for example, may think, oh, that's a very, very quick way to make some money.

Potentially and may sell their account.

So just be careful.

That's really valid.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A good part on that.

Say in our police unit we have got something called trusted status with Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, where if we identify those accounts, we can get them closed down by those organisations.

So we do a huge amount of work trying to stop that.

But of course it pops up time and time again.

So I think that's a really valid point.

It is widely available as a resource for people who are criminals to use.

Thank you both.

Really appreciate all of your, your insight, your knowledge.

There are lots and lots of questions.

So a huge thank you.

Unfortunately not time to get to all of them.

But what like to move on to now, which will help to certainly answer some of those other questions you have.

I'm just going to mention a couple of really useful Barclays Resources.

Now, the First one is on our website.

So simply search for Barclays fraud and scams.

And this will take you to our fraud and security hub and as it says, help you stay one step ahead of the criminals.

You've got the the link on the page as well.

And there's also a QR code.

So if you've got your phone to hand or a spare device, you scan the QR code using your camera or your QR code app, you'll be able to get straight to to that home page.

Now, on this particular hub, there's info on the latest scams and you can learn more about specific types of scams.

Some others that we may not have covered today and really crucially, how to protect yourself.

There are some best practices to stay safe online.

There's a lot more to think about when it comes to using the Internet, using technology, thinking about passwords.

So lots of useful information that covers staying safe online.

There's a great jargon buster, lots of terminology that we use.

So do have a look at that.

And also at the bottom of this page that you'll come to, there is an other resources section where you can get help and support from other organisations.

And one in particular I would like to point out is victim support.

So if people do unfortunately fall victim, it's a great organisation that can help people because when we talk about scams, it's not just the financial impact, it's the physical and the mental impact that it has on people.

So that's the Barclays website.

And then just moving on to the website, Barclays Digital Wings, this is managed by the team that I work in, the Digital Eagles.

It's a free platform and I'd like to draw your attention to and by using the menu across the top, our digital courses, when you scroll down, you'll find a particular course called Being Safe and Legal Online.

So this is one of the essential digital skills that we all need to to have to help protect our data and our money.

What you'll find here and across all of this platform is interactive content.

There are quizzes that you can take to really embed the knowledge that you need in order to protect yourself.

Well, you'll also find on this platform is lots of other useful content on all types of digital skills, not just talking about fraud and scams.

So please do immerse yourself in the platform.

Please share this with family and friends in order to help other people grow their digital skills.

One other thing I'd mention again, it's on the top menu is why not think about signing up to become a digital champion?

One of the big things we focus as part of this programme, again, it's a free programme, is how to improve our knowledge on fraud and scams.

So you can pass on all of that knowledge to to other people.

So that's how Digital Champions Program, what I'm going to do now is we just come to, to towards the end I'm going to hand back to Sam and Cat to share their key takeaways.

We've covered an awful lot today, but both Sam and Cat have three key takeaways they'd like to share with you.

So thank you.

Just very quickly, because I know we're short on time now, but if you've been a victim, please report this to your bank so that we can investigate it and that we can also help and protect other people from being a victim as well.

If you receive a suspicious message, as I've said earlier on, please try and verify that communication independently.

If you if you've received a text message, have a look for the genuine contact number and make contact that way instead.

And the third thing is please discuss what you've heard here today with your friends and your family to spread the word.

It's just get the message out.

Thank you.

I'll keep mine really brief.

I'm conscious of time.

And one thing we haven't mentioned, but I do want to make this point to treat your passcode the same as you with your pin.

So one time passcodes are for you, for you alone not to hand out over the phone.

So never give out a one time passcode over the phone.

The criminals will tell you they need it in order for A, B and C they don't.

The bank will never be asking you for a one time passcode.

And if you feel any pressure at all, I spoke about five things to look out for context.

They're using the here and now add authority, urgency, scarcity and emotion.

If you feel pressure stop what you're doing, it's okay to say no and hang up.

And finally, back to the same point, report your cases to your bank and to action fraud.

Please.

Many thanks.

Sam, Cat, thank you so much for those those are some really as it says, important key takeaways for everybody.

And two last things for me.

The first one is following today's virtual event, you will receive an email from Digital Eagles events that will be the subject title, I can assure you can trust this email that has come from us and there is a link in there.

We would really appreciate your feedback on today's event.

It's a very quick survey, really helps us shape future events that we will be running later this year.

So you will see those promoted.

So if you can take the time to complete our survey, much appreciated.

We'll take on board all the feedback for future events.

And the last thing is just to say a huge thank you.

First of all, thank you to Sam and Cat, excellent guest speakers for your insight and knowledge.

It's been so useful.

I'm sure it's added a huge amount of value to the audience and a huge thank you to everybody who's joined today, who's taken the time.

As I said at the beginning, it's a really hot topic and we had a huge interest in this event, which really just confirms that it's on people's minds.

They want to learn more.

I guess what we do ask of everybody is to to share this with friends and family, as Sam said in her key takeaway.

Take five.

It will be a very good way to to protect yourself.

If there's one thing you do is take five and pause.

So thanks again, everyone, for joining.

I hope you enjoyed the event and we look forward to seeing you at a future Barclays event.

Good afternoon everyone and a very warm welcome to this Barclays event.

Money mules.

What are they?

And how to avoid the trap.

So firstly, some introductions before we hand over to our guest speakers.

Firstly, I’m Ross Martin, Head of Digital Safety at Barclays and I work in our Barclays Digital Eagles Team.

I'm delighted to say I'm joined by some excellent guest speakers, Sam Brooker from our Barclays Mules Team.

And I'm also delighted to say we're joined by Ebony King, Youth Advocate and Founder of Elevate Her UK charity.

Earning extra money for doing very little may sound attractive.

The promise on offer of easy money with no strings attached would lure many people in.

But what's the catch?

Today you'll be hearing from Sam, who'll be providing an insight into what the banking industry are doing to monitor and detect suspicious mule activity and what Barclays are doing to help protect and educate our customers.

You'll also be hearing from Ebony, who will be sharing her own story, how she was targeted and the consequences she has experienced as a result.

Towards the end of today's event, there will be a Q&A session.

So throughout the event, we would really like you to submit your questions using the functionality you see on-screen.

And we'll do our best to pose as many of these questions to Sam and Ebony.

So in the top right corner of your screen, you'll see the option to type your question and then simply click ‘Submit’ for us to receive your question.

So now I'd like to introduce our first guest speaker Sam Brooker, from the Barclays Mules Team.

Over to you, Sam.

Thank you, Ross, and welcome everyone, and thank you for joining us today to talk about this very compelling subject.

Money mules, so what are they?

I'm here to talk to you about how criminals use money mules to move money.

So let's start at the beginning and try to explain what a money mule actually is.

A money mule is someone who lets criminals use their bank accounts to move money.

Often that mule doesn't know what's really happening and has been manipulated into believing a cover story or lured by an offer of a repayment.

There are two main types of money mules.

One of those will be witting.

Witting mules are generally complicit with the crime.

They are aware of the criminal source of funds and typically they can be recruited using social media platforms.

Most commonly Instagram, WhatsApp or Snapchat.

Account holders are generally lured by quick cash opportunities and will disclose their account security details, payment cards and PINs in exchange for monetary rewards.

They may also receive and send on criminal funds themselves, but generally they're aware that what they're doing is actually wrong.

Then on the flip side, there’s the unwitting.

These individuals engage in mule activity generally under false pretences.

It could involve exploitation, where they're duped into distributing payments, while actually being scammed themselves.

You might also have heard the term ‘mule herder’.

So what is a mule herder?

Well, they are the key support to the criminal gangs as it's them who recruit the actual money mule to do the job for them.

They do that by searching your social media profile for information and then use it to befriend you, or trick you into receiving stolen money into your bank account.

That's the key thing that a mule herder is looking for - you to have a bank account.

They might approach you online through a messaging app or actually in person at the school gates or in the workplace or at university.

They are importantly the link between the mule and the organised crime gangs, or OCG’s as we call them, along with law enforcement.

These OCG's could be funding terrorism across the world like drugs or human trafficking - sexual exploitation.

And it scares me to think of the innocent people encountering these dangerous individuals.

So what does money mule activity actually look like?

Mule herders tend to lie to get what they want.

They might say it's quick and easy and, you know, no ramifications involved in doing it.

And it's an easy way to make money, or that they urgently need to receive a payment.

And you're the only one who can help them.

But they can't use their own account for whatever reason.

They might even offer a cash or gifts as a reward or incentive.

The herder will use that cover story as an excuse to pass you that stolen money.

They might ask you to open a bank account yourself, if you don't already have one.

They might transfer money to you or give you cash to pay into your account.

They could ask you to pass it on by a bank transfer, or withdraw it as cash, or even ask you to buy, to purchase a high value item in exchange for the money.

Importantly, passed back to the criminal network.

They might ask for your online banking details so that they can do the activities themselves on your own account.

Or they might ask for an activation code to access your banking app.

But importantly, it lets them access your account and use it to clean their dirty money.

Which means to essentially confuse the origin of the funds and to make those funds appear genuine.

They also could actually buy an item from you and ask to pay by bank transfer.

But the important thing is they tend to pay from a stolen account and you give them the item and often you can lose those funds once the criminal nature of them is understood by the banking system.

So is it a crime to act as a money mule?

Well, absolutely.

Yes, it is.

Unfortunately, handling money that comes from illegal activity is a crime, even if you don't know what you're doing.

Money can often be traced to someone who has been the victim of a scam or a fraud.

I'm sure we all know someone who has been affected by a scam at some point in the past.

Whether they're old or young, vulnerable or not, UK Finance, who are the trade association for the banking industry, have advised that over £1.

2 billion was stolen through fraud last year.

That's the equivalent of over £2,300 every minute.

Most importantly, if we didn't have mules, there would not be a route to take a lot of those funds from those victims.

They simply wouldn't be able to operate.

If you are a mule, the consequences can range from your bank account being closed, to even going to prison.

But what is the reality of getting caught and what impact could this have on your lifestyle or your future?

For most people, getting caught means that your bank account could be closed and you'll have problems opening a new one.

That makes paying your basic living expenses so much harder, removes any independence that you might have.

You could find it difficult to get credit like a student loan, phone contract, or a mortgage or a loan.

You could end up with a criminal record and that could affect your ability to get a job or to go to university.

But you could also go to prison for up to 14 years.

So it's important that you know the warning signs - the red flags to look out for.

This can help you identify mule herders and avoid falling for their tricks.

Or contact from someone that you don't know trying to befriend you, especially online or through a messaging app.

Look out for someone you may also, who may also ask you to move money for them.

Always check that you know where the funds have come from.

Look out for anyone you've met online, offering deals that sound too good to be true.

It often is.

Be suspicious of jobs offering quick and easy money with no experience necessary.

Be wary of anyone who asks to transfer money to your bank account for you to pass on to another account.

And take care when selling an item, where the buyer insists on paying by bank transfer or pressuring you for a quick sale.

Or even paying over the odds, that's not usual.

So what are Barclays doing to target mules?

We focus on prevention.

If we can prevent a mule, we can prevent a potential scam, and that means less victims.

We do this by providing targeted education to our colleagues and customers on how to protect themselves.

Our priority is to protect our customers as well as society in general of the dangers presented by criminal gangs who are at the heart of this problem.

Last year, 43% of mule cases identified by Barclays were individuals under the age of 25.

So we tend to do lots of targeted messages in those younger age categories.

The children's digital banking market is expanding.

UK finance revealed that the number of 14 to 18-year-olds misusing their bank account rose by 73% in the last two years.

There are even reports of children as young as 12 being persuaded to comply with the misuse of their accounts.

If we can't prevent someone being recruited, we do also monitor payments and react in the moment as time is of the essence to trap criminal funds before the mule can move them.

We also work with many suppliers who provide a range of ways to detect money mules.

But more than ever, we're sharing more information across the banking industry to jointly tackle the problem.

There is more government regulation coming to banks, which compels the whole industry to collaborate and work together.

Over the first six months of 2023, 17,286 cases involving money mule activities were filed.

And that includes 3,881 people under the age of 21.

A growing number of other age groups are also being recruited by criminal gangs too.

Between 2017 and 2021 we've seen a 34% increase in the number of accounts belonging to 40 to 60-year-olds displaying money mule activity.

That's really unusual.

But obviously, in trying to target all areas and all age groups in which mule operates, we know that genuine customers can sometimes be impacted as we try to look for suspicion.

So it may be that we have to delay payment sometimes just to check that we feel that the origins of that payment are genuine.

But a key priority for us is always to limit the impact on genuine customers.

We want Barclays to make money work for the genuine people, not the criminals.

And with that I'll hand back to you, Ross.

Thank you.

Thanks very much, Sam.

Really insightful.

Lots for us to think about, but really good to understand the size of the problem and what we're doing to really address it.

Thank you very much.

So, we're going to move on to our next guest speaker.

Ebony, thank you for supporting this event today, it’s much appreciated.

And I'm sure the insight and thoughts you're going to share will add so much value for everybody who's attending the event.

I'd like to ask you, first of all, if we were to rewind 12 years ago, can you share what happened to you?

What was your experience?

Thank you, Ross.

Good afternoon everyone.

What happened to me was that I actually trusted a friend, someone that was very close to me who was like a brother.

We were so close.

He was like an older brother to me.

And I had borrowed him some money.

It was something as little as, I think, £50 or something.

I had just finished sixth form college.

I was going into uni and I borrowed him £50.

He said he needed it desperately and in the past I've helped him.

He's helped me.

We had like a good relationship.

So I had no reason to think anything of it.

So I borrowed him the £50 and then I kept asking him, you know, when will you pay me back?

It took a while for him to pay me back.

And then one day, when he was ready to pay me back, he called me and told me that he has paid me back into my bank account because he had asked me for my bank account a few weeks before that.

And then I, you know, I went to the bank, not on the same day.

I can't remember exactly the timescale, but I eventually went to the bank to go withdraw some change out so that I can buy some things for my son and I, because I had just become a teenage mum as well at that time.

And it's important to note that this account was a savings account, it was a passbook account.

Therefore, I had no access to online banking.

I had no access to mobile banking at the time.

So when he did say that he had paid the money in, I couldn't check using my phone.

I couldn't check using laptop or internet.

I didn't have any internet access for this.

So I had to go into the bank with the passbook and go to the cashier and ask to withdraw some money.

So all this time, I'm just thinking like 'it's legitimate money' I didn't know it has you know, where, I didn't know the source of where the money would come from.

I just thought it was from him.

It wasn't until about I think six to nine months later, I was at my mum's house, and very early in the morning, I got the loud bang at the door and it was the police knocking on the door.

And so they basically they came to raid my mum's house.

And I was just in shock because I was literally the teenager.

I had just had a child.

And I was just thinking, what's going on?

So they took me - so when I got to the station and I found out what it was about, like what it was for, for fraud.

And I was still shocked because I didn't know what was going on.

And then when I had to go to court, that is when I found out that the money that my so-called friend had put into my account, had belonged to someone else who they had scammed.

So I was used as, my account was used, and I was used as a mule without even knowing, you know, without having any knowledge.

I was vulnerable and naïve.

I didn't know.

And then after that, I was very lucky because the judge just, they just gave me, they gave me community service and a fine.

This was, I was very lucky to not go to prison because I had just become a mum and I had no previous criminal record.

I had good character, you know, I was just, a student going, getting ready to go to uni with a young son, like I was not, I am not into the life of crime.

Yes, I was, you know, around, I had friends, I lived on my own.

But I didn't, you know, everything was just new to me.

So, I was lucky to not go to prison.

However, my DBS, which is formerly known as a CRB, was stained for over 12 years.

It had only become clear the beginning of this year, which is why I'm coming out to tell my story now.

And yeah, so, it was not a good experience for me.

I was lucky because I actually was able to still get a job, to get jobs.

I had a job within the NHS with a local authority before, but that's because when I explained my story to each manager, they could understand and they could sympathise with me and see that it wasn't even my fault.

But there are some other young people out there who they don't have, they don't have these opportunities and they don't get these chances.

So yeah, it's a very unfortunate thing that happened.

Ross, over to you.

Ebony thank you so much for sharing all of that detail, your experience.

I can tell, just listening to your story, you went through an awful lot, especially for someone of such a young age.

That's a lot to deal with and obviously a lot to, to take in.

I’ve got a couple of follow-up questions for you specifically, if that's okay.

Firstly, were you aware of any other young people in your circle of friends that were perhaps allowing their bank account to be used?

Being, were they approached at all?

Was that something you saw sort of at the time?

To be honest, it wasn't, it wasn't as, I think it was going on, but it wasn't as rampant as it is today.

So, you know, there was no cause for concern for me because I didn't think it would happen to me, because it wasn't obvious like how it is today, basically.

So I think there were few people that had been used as mules, but it wasn't anything significant for me to be worried about or to be, to know about basically.

Yeah, sure.

And I guess in your particular experience, in your scenario, you were effectively lending somebody some money and that was sort of how simple the, you know, the sort of agreement, the transaction was.

I guess, a question, a good question to ask, if we can is, would the benefit of hindsight and just looking back, was there any one thing that you would say was a red flag for you at that time, in terms of the conversation that was being had what was being asked of you any, specific red flag?

To be honest, there were no red flags at the time.

However, looking back on it now, a red flag would be the fact that the money that my so-called friend had repaid me with was more than the amount that I had borrowed him.

If that happened today, that is going to be a red flag, because why would you be paying that three times more than what I paid you?

And also another red flag, I mean, if back then, you know, the whole, it wasn't, the whole online banking and mobile banking wasn't, we didn't really use it that much back then, so.

But if it was now and if I had mobile banking, I will be able to check my account to see what, you know, to see the name on the account of where the money came from.

And then that would have made me think I'll contact him be like, you know, this is not in your name.

Whose name is this?

Whose account is this?

And then I probably would, then I would have called the bank as well and found out, and where's this money coming from?

So yeah, those, that would probably be the red flag.

Yeah, thanks Ebony.

And would you agree, with technology now, we can manage our bank account obviously via our smartphone, we can do that online, we can do that 24/7.

That makes it really easy for us to stay on top of you know, the things that go in our account, the things that come out.

But I guess the other side of the advancements in technology means that actually young people, it's so much easier for them to be targeted.

Would you say that's the case?

Definitely.

The access to social media that young people have, whether it's TikTok, these apps, a lot of these criminals target them through that.

So, yeah, it’s very bad to be honest.

Thanks Ebony.

So I guess from your point of view, there's lots that you would really like to do to help others - young people who may be vulnerable, may be at risk.

What from your point of view, what can teachers, parents, guardians, carers, all of those people, what could they do to help prevent these young people falling victim?

Parents, educators, teachers, the community, to be honest, should do more of talking to the young people, raising awareness, educating them.

Showing, even if you can just show them a video online, show them videos, awareness videos, you know, constantly remind them to be checking their accounts regularly and to be very cautious, you know, just constant education, they need financial education.

Yeah, awareness, I'll say.

Yeah, absolutely.

I guess it's making sure young people feel comfortable with actually having that open conversation with a parent, teacher, especially if they feel they're involved in a conversation that just doesn't seem right, feels uncomfortable.

I think that's key.

Just before we move into the other questions we've received during the event, so I mentioned the beginning of your charity.

So Elevate Her UK, I know coming up later this year, you've got a campaign launching on protecting young people from financial exploitation.

Could you just share briefly why you're launching that campaign, what are you looking to achieve?

Okay.

Yes, that campaign is actually called ‘Don't Get Finessed’.

For those that don't know what finessed means, don't get scammed basically.

We want to raise awareness, like I said, raise awareness on these issues because not every young person is aware of the consequences.

Not every young person is aware of how to avoid these situations.

So that campaign will be raising awareness.

It will be educating not just young people, it will be educating everyone in the community, teachers, parents.

The campaign is also there to we're trying to see if we can get some policy changes as well because some of the young people, they are vulnerable and they are, they don't even know, like in my case, I didn't know what was going on.

And I don't think it's fair that I got punished for something that I didn't do or I wasn't aware of.

I think they need to stop punishing the, like they need to actually do proper investigations and find out the people at the top of the chain and punish them.

And I think there should be more safeguarding measures for young people or vulnerable people, more early intervention, especially in the hotspot areas in London.

Not a lot of them have this financial education in schools, so it's good that our campaign video will be used in the schools that we go to, which are in London.

We’ll be playing these videos in school, in the workshops that we go to, to educate them.

Yeah, and that's it really - the campaign’s just to raise awareness and to see how we can find solutions.

Yeah, that's amazing Ebony.

I would definitely recommend everybody have a look at their websites, so Elevate Her UK.

You'll find that online.

Amazing work that you do there and much needed and I think just an example of how we need to come together across the industry, across all organisations to make sure that we can reach those people who need the education, they need that support.

So thanks again, Ebony for sharing your experience, your story your recommendations in terms of making sure we protect young people before they even, you know, start being involved in these conversations, these interactions.

So we'll now move on to some of the other questions that we've had.

So thank you for the questions you have submitted, I'm going to pose these questions to both yourself, Sam and Ebony, depending on the question and I guess what's relevant from your sort of positions.

So, let me start with one of the questions we've had.

So one for you Sam.

In Ebony's case and we can't talk specifically about the case, but in cases similar to this, would the bank not ask questions as to the money coming in, going out of the account, which is not in line with normal activity?

What's your view on that?

Yeah, it's a really good point.

One of the concerns from hearing Ebony's story myself was that, you know, she's the one who's had all the impact and the criminals got away scot-free, who's done the actual act.

And that is often the case with our money mules unfortunately, you know, you're the front person then, the only person who can be traced and the criminals stand behind that, unfortunately.

What I would say is the more information that mules can tell us about how they got recruited, who was involved, any details they can tell us all adds to our ability to take action potentially against the real people, the real perpetrators of the crime.

And we can feed that information to law enforcement, you know, and hope that there could be some broader action taken.

But again, the more information that mules can give to us, we can take that into consideration.

You know, if there's any vulnerability, exploitation of that particular individual, we want to know about it.

And we want to give our mules, the opportunity to tell us, you know, if there's any other circumstances involved, that's really, really important because, you know, unfortunately, some of our young people are very, very vulnerable, as Ebony has pointed out.

And, you know, it's not fair that they should feel the brunt of a criminals act, essentially.

So, yeah, that would be my advice.

Tell, tell as much as possible.

Thank you Sam.

I guess a follow-up question to that one is, if Barclays were to uncover a money mule, what is our standpoint?

Do we close their accounts with notice to close?

Would we ban customers from re-joining in the future?

What's the standpoint there?

Yeah, so typically what would happen is that when we receive a report that an account has received the proceeds of crime, we have to firstly secure that bank account.

We have got a duty to obviously try to prevent those criminal funds from being dispersed and we have a duty the victim of that crime.

Then we would investigate our account holder.

That often involves contact with the account holder, again, to give them the opportunity of telling us what's going on.

There could be another side to the story.

But the typical action that we would take would be that depending on what story we do get from our account holder, it would tend to result in the forced closure of their bank account.

Sometimes immediately, if we find that the risk presented by the account holder is too great, that we need to get them off our books really, really quickly.

But often we do give them notice or we do give them another opportunity to sort of prove that they can turn, especially if they're open and honest with us, turn, you know, their banking around and, you know, and use their banking accounts exactly how they should do.

If we do exit a customer, we do mark fraud databases.

We're also compelled to do that amongst our industry partners to ensure that we're sharing information between ourselves and that everybody in the banking industry can see what potential risk a mule presents to them if they're opening, if they're deciding to open another bank account elsewhere.

And that's why some customers will find it difficult to get a bank account elsewhere, because obviously reference to those industry databases are referred to within the application process for a new product.

Thanks again Sam.

Ebony, just coming over to you, so did you admit to being a mule, to the police unknowingly or were you coerced into accepting a caution?

Is there any way you could have appealed the action that was taken based on someone taking advantage of you?

Just wonder what your thoughts are on that one.

The thing is, I actually said not guilty all the way.

And I actually did, in the interview, I told them everything.

I told them the truth and I told them that it wasn't me, but still that it was what, I mean, I have spoken to officers like years down the line recently due to the charity work that I do with other young people that go through this.

And I asked them, officer, like, you know, why?

Why does that happen?

Why did they do it?

And they said, unfortunately, because investigations take too long and are too costly, they usually use the account holder as the scapegoat.

So basically I was used as the scapegoat.

Yeah, sure.

Thanks again for sharing Ebony.

Just a quick question, follow-up as well Ebony is, in your situation, you're the person who you were talking with borrowed £50.

How much did they actually put back into your account?

I think it was like £250.

Of course, that now might look like a little bit, because I know now a lot of these scammers are they put four figures or more, but then it was still, it was still something and it's still, you know, the way it was, the source of the money was not right.

So yes, I bought them 50 and I think they put they would put 200 or 250 back in.

I'm not sure.

The thing is, I don't even actually know the exact because when I went to the bank, I just went do what I needed to do for the shopping and I never ever got to clear anything.

The bank just closed the account and I couldn't even take the money out.

So yeah, it was at the, in the court, at the court hearing that I heard, you know, what had happened and this is how much, I think it was like 250, yeah.

Sure, thanks Ebony.

And what we do know worth sharing is that in some cases people are given incentive to keep obviously some of the money, or it could be that they're offered a particular item, whether it be the latest pair of trainers or something of value.

So we do see different examples of where people perhaps are given motivation in order to help somebody to move this money around.

A question for you, Sam, if I can, are we looking at biometric patterns, new tech to see if different people, mules, are accessing the same accounts?

That's a really interesting question.

We, one of the stakeholders that we're, suppliers that we're working with at present, is one that offers biometric capability.

So it is an opportunity for us in the future and probably a lot of the industry as well.

So, yes, it's definitely something that is becoming increasingly more and more interesting to us.

We can't say that say any more than that right now.

That's great.

Thanks, Sam.

Another question for you, Sam is do you get business accounts being used for mules as these have different limits and are they perhaps harder to detect the patterns?

Yeah, absolutely right.

We do.

We do.

And you've hit the nail on the head.

The reason being higher transfer limits generally, you know if you have a business account that is expected to operate, you know, with a lot of transactions going through it, then I guess the feeling is that that will go under the radar a little bit more, you know, from a monitoring point of view.

But I can to tell you that we do catch an awful lot of business banking money mules, as well as personal money mules in Barclays.

So yeah, we try to manage our defences across those segments quite equally, depending on the risk that they present us, because in one side of the business, they will present us more in the way of volume and the other side will present more in the way of value.

So we do manage the risk effectively across the two segments.

Thanks Sam.

Just another question for you as well.

Would you say due to the cost of living that we need to be even more conscious and aware of offers, of easy money and the use of our bank account, pay more attention as both of you have already mentioned, to what goes in and out of your account, yeah, due to that cost of living that we're seeing?

Absolutely.

From my point of view, I think I mentioned earlier that we've seen a 34% increase in the number of accounts being used by 40 to 60-year-olds.

That's a really unusual age group to be involved in money muling.

If I can be honest, normally it would be it would be our, very much younger age groups that would become involved.

So that to me could indicate that people are feeling the pinch a little, you know, potentially looking at this as an opportunity to make a little bit more money.

So, yes, it's absolutely a risk for those age groups.

And, you know, for anybody who is feeling the pinch, my advice would be easy money is not always the best way of making money.

Yeah.

Thanks again, Sam.

So a question I'm actually going to answer here is, how do the so-called scammers get one's landline number?

We get numerous calls that are obviously a scam.

So we're talking about the general theme of scams here.

And I think to answer this question, is good just to raise awareness that in terms of any of your data or personal information, including telephone numbers, this can be accessed in various ways.

One of the ways could be the number of data breaches we see.

So if an organisation's details are hacked, if they can get access to that information, that could very easily be shared or sold on what we call The Dark Web so organised criminal gangs may be using that information and passing it on.

But also the other piece of awareness we should definitely promote is be very conscious about anything you share online.

So people tend to share too much information on social media or they're not verifying some of the details they've been asked to share in an email or a text message.

So we just need to be extra vigilant, careful about what we share online, because that information, again, could just be harvested by a criminal.

And that could even just be someone who's being very spontaneous, or it could be a more organised sort of targeting of certain people.

There are also directories online where you find lots of personal information.

192.

com is a directory.

If you're on the electoral roll, there's a good chance your details are going to be visible.

And that could include things like your address, your telephone numbers.

So it's a really good question, I think, just on the theme of scams in general, good for that awareness to be shared.

I’m just going to check if there's any other questions that we've had.

Thank you for the ones that have come in, lots to talk about.

And one of the questions we do have is do you go to schools to educate young people from year seven upwards?

So we absolutely do proactively educate not just our customers, but people across local communities and that's across all of Barclays touchpoints.

So that could be through a virtual event like you're seeing today, that could be students joining from their classroom, an event that we deliver virtually.

I'm going to comment on some resources just very shortly and I'll pinpoint some of the content that we have there, which is available for all different age groups.

So certainly lots of proactive work that we're doing and I know lots of other organisations are doing as well.

So with that, again, thanks for everybody's questions that have come in.

We're now going to move onto some useful resources.

So let's just move onto the first resource.

So the first one is the Barclays website.

So if you go to the Barclays website, this includes a fraud and security hub page, to really help people stay one step ahead of the criminals.

Now, within this hub, we have a specific page all about money mules.

This is the one screenshot that you can see on screen now.

And this really does provide some excellent content and guidance.

Everything from what are money mules?

How can you be approached?

How is social media used?

What advice do we have for those people to support young people?

So do visit the Barclays website.

You can scan the QR code that you see on-screen and you can simply search for ‘Barclays money mules’ and that will take you to the page, that's the first listing that you see in the search results.

So do have a look at the Barclays website.

The next one, one that the team I work in, I’m proud to say have been managing and creating all the content for what's called our Barclays Digital Wings platform.

So this is another great resource which is completely free for anyone to use, includes lots of great content on fraud and scams.

And when you're on the main homepage, which again you can access through the QR code, or by searching Barclays Digital Wings, you'll see on the top menu there's an option ‘Online safety’.

If you click on that one, it takes you to what we call our ‘Staying safe online’ hub page.

This signposts to lots of great content, lots of tools, resources that you can access to help you protect yourself in many ways.

So do have a look at Barclays Digital Wings.

Click on ‘Online safety’ for more information.

And then just a couple of others, in terms of further support, the first one being Victim Support.

This is a brilliant charity that helps victims of crime providing free, confidential support.

It’s one that Barclays has a really good relationship with and why I think this is such a great charity.

When you think about any scams, any fraud, the experience that you go through, it's not just a financial impact on people, it can be physical, it can affect your mental health.

So this charity does a huge amount, offers lots of great services to help people who may have fallen victim to crime.

And this includes the hugely challenging navigation of the criminal system and people understanding their rights as a victim of crime.

So do have a look at Victim Support.

And the second one is the ‘Don't Be Fooled’ campaign.

So Don't Be Fooled is a collaboration between UK finance and Cifas.

It aims to inform students or young people about the risks of giving out their bank details and deter them from becoming money mules.

So lots of great content again.

There’s an excellent short video that you can play to young people, which really highlights the dangers, the consequences that you need to think about.

So do have a look at the Don't Be Fooled websites as well.

Now, as we draw to a close, I'm now just going to move on to what we feel are some really key takeaways both from Sam and Ebony.

So first of all, we've heard lots from you Sam, lots of insight, lots of guidance, lots of work we're doing.

But what would be your key takeaways for the audience?

Yeah, thank you Ross.

So my main takeaways would be that if you're receiving any money into your account, make sure that you know where those funds are coming from.

And don't be afraid to question the person who's paying it to you, even those you trust, given Ebony's experience, unfortunately.

A genuine person won't mind a little bit of questioning.

It's valid in today's environment.

The second item would be to be really wary of urgent requests, particularly to withdraw funds.

Just pay to you really at speed.

Mules absolutely need to operate quickly to move their criminal proceeds around the financial ecosystem.

And you'll just be supporting them if you do that.

So don't make it easy for them, you know, be very wary of those types of request.

That would be it for me.

Thanks Ross.

Over to you Ebony.

Thanks Sam.

For me, yep, be careful who you trust.

Friends and family could be recruited by criminals, so be very careful when doing favours that involve money.

Always check your account regularly.

Obviously, in my case, I couldn't check my account regularly because I did not have access to online bank or mobile banking.

But nowadays, most of us do so please check your accounts regularly, your bank statements check them regularly just to see, you know, where money's coming from.

You might not be expecting some form of money.

Make sure you contact your bank immediately to find out where it came from before spending it.

Because if you withdraw or transfer any money that comes from a criminal source, you will be, you know, punished, like in my case.

And then the last thing is do not be fooled by the thought of making quick money.

You know, there's a cost of living crisis right now, so if you are looking for an extra income, contact your local jobcentre because there are various job opportunities out there.

Over to you Ross.

Sam, Ebony, thank you for that.

Obviously, lots we've spoke about.

So, I think it’s really important that we just highlight what are those key takeaways, the things that we need to share with young people.

I think if we just reflect on some of the things that we've touched on today, what we do know is historically money mules used to visit the school gates.

They used to approach young people in person.

The world has changed.

The use of technology means that actually people people can now sit behind a laptop, they can sit behind a phone.

They can do this targeting of young people in a different way, which obviously makes it even harder to catch these people.

So I think that's something we really need to bear in mind.

Young people are exposed to so much online.

Social media has a real part to play in terms of what we see being shared in terms of adverts, posts but in the meantime, we just really need to make sure that young people are aware of how they can be targeted.

So, I just want to say a huge thank you both to our guest speakers for all of your insight - Ebony, the experience you've shared has been really important so thank you so much for joining as well.

Really encourage you to share the resources with your wider networks, family and friends, in schools, across the education sector, to make sure that we can prevent more people not to fall victim.

Such an important topic.

So a ‘big thank you’ for everybody who's joined.

All of those people who've registered for today's event, it's much appreciated.

In the near future, there will be a playback of the event.

So do keep an eye on the Barclays website on our Barclays channels for more information to be able to view the playback and share with other people.

But again, big ‘thank you’ for everybody who’s joined.

and we look forward to seeing you at a future Barclays event.

Welcome, everyone, and thank you so much for joining us for our event today, which will be focusing on a really important topic.
We're currently in one of the busiest shopping periods of the year, but scammers are also busy coming up with clever new tactics to convince us to part with our personal and our financial information.
UK Finance have recently published their Fraud and Scams figures for January to June 2023 and compared to the same period in 2022, the number of scams report have actually increased by 22%.
Now, one of the best tools we have at our disposal to protect ourselves from cyber criminals is our ability to identify scams, which in turn will help us to avoid falling victim.
Now we understand that being targeted by scammers will impact us all in different ways.
So today, we wanted to give you all the opportunity to tell us what's on your mind by submitting questions around fraud scams and cyber crime.
Through our scam, Ask the Experts event.
We're also extremely lucky to be joined by some industry experts who will help to answer our questions and will share insight into how we can avoid falling victim and ultimately beat the scammers.
So first of all, for myself, my name is Paul Martin and I am part of the Digital Eagles and Money Mentor team here at Barclays Bank.
Our team are passionate about helping people to enhance their digital skills and also to manage their money in a digital world.
I'm also looking to be joined by Ryan Pallett from our Scam investigation team.
He'll be providing us with insight into the latest fraud and scam trends and how we're proactively supporting our customers to protect themselves through education and awareness.
And we'll also welcome Paul Maskall from the dedicated card on Payment Crime Unit who will be sharing his knowledge and expertise on the tactic, techniques and psychology used by today's criminals, and how changing your mindset can actually reduce the risk of falling victim.
Now, before we get started with answering your questions today, I wanted to come over to both of our guest speakers to share a little bit more insight into the work that they're doing and why, of course, this is so important.
So first of all, if we wouldn't mind coming over to you, Paul.
Thanks, Paul.
And yeah, good afternoon, everybody, and welcome.
And thank you very much for being on the session today.
So I'm a little bit different.
I tend to come at it from a very much more of a psychology point of view and a perspective point of view is that very often is that fraud and scams is often seen as as an issue that happens to other people.
Very often it's a crime type that people fall for in these sorts of situations.
But what we often forget in these sorts as a kind of context is that, well, actually everybody's been told something that they wanted to hear at probably the wrong time, that you should have heard it.
That could have been your last relationship, your last job, your last marriage.
It could have been 101 different contexts as to how that happened.
And the problem is, is that very often when it comes down to the way the world works now, from a society point of view, is that we are very often on our technology a lot where either through text messages, through social media, through emails, through phone calls, we're both simultaneously more connected, but also simultaneously more isolated.
And as Paul said, we've seen this massive rise in scams reporting and these kind of different elements.
And very often fraud is very often expedited by the use of our technology.
So from my point of view, I am one of the National Take Five spokespeople and very often is I can give you all of the education in the world and I can give you all of the top ten tips, but unfortunately, I can't make you any less emotional in the moment and very often is that and there is a flavor of fraud for everyone.
There's a flavor of scam for everyone, no matter what your age is, who you are, where you are, what your perspective is, how confident or savvy you believe you are.
And unfortunately, everybody is being told something that they wants to hear.
So first of all, from a take five point of view, it is taking the three aspects around stop, challenge and protect.
Because in any given situations, if you having a contact, a text message or an email like stop, do you think that it could be a scam?
Is this legitimate?
Because if you now think about today's world, is there actually, in order to verify who I am in any given situation, I don't really need that much, whether it's a product or a piece of information or even if I'm trying to impersonate somebody.
So first of all, stop it.
Take that moment.
And just like that argument you've had with a partner or a family member, taking that time to take a breather to think, okay, well, hold on a second.
Am I really saying this in the right way?
Take letting that emotion sort of cool down, but also challenge you, challenge the person on the other end of the phone if they're a legitimate organization.
Very often it's about an online being made sure that very often actually, if they're Barclays, if they're a bank, if they're law enforcement or they're a telecoms company or somebody an organization, they're not going to have a problem with you having that moment to say, you know what, I think this could be a scam or to have that piece of mind.
But very often the third aspect is about protection.
So, again, stop, challenge and protect that from a protect point of view.
If you do think you have been impacted and targeted by a criminal in these sorts of situations, it is about contacting your bank immediately in order to have that rectified or that then to assist you, but also to contact action fraud and report it.
So that is really the framework around the Take five to Stop fraud campaign.
And again, is it's very often it's about that emotional mindfulness.
And this is where it comes into, well, how do I identify it in the first place?
How do I go about if what is an email or a phishing text or or something along those lines?
Well, I believe in what's called cause.
So it's very often C.
A.
U.
S.
E.
And no matter what the flavor of fraud, whether it is a Royal Mail scam, whether it is a DPD parcel scam, whether it's somebody talking to you online or engaging with you through online dating or any other platform, is that generally speaking, as a criminal, I will use a combination of these five things, potentially all four or five or at least some weight on different ones.
So first of all, I'm going to use context.
So why is that the reason I'm talking to you, whether that be an investment opportunity, whether that be I'm in love with you or something along those lines is very often the context is really crucial for to give you a certain element of, well, this is this is a legitimate communication because of this reason.
Now, very often it then leads into elements of authority.
So hello, I'm from Barclays.
Hello, I'm from the police.
Hello, I'm from the NHS.
Hello, I'm from I don't know your telecoms provider or something along those lines.
It's giving you that context, but also giving you a certain amount of trust that I am who I say I am.
And you can trust me because I am your organization in which you work with.
Now, very often people turn around and say, Well, I got contacted by a certain bank, but I don't even bank with them.
Yes, but if I contact it, contact 150 people during that day and only one person actually does bank with that bank, then that's a good return on my investment from a criminal point of view.
So very often it's high volume, low return, but also urgency in any of these given situations.
Very often I want to make you do something very, very quickly.
So whether it's if you don't act now, then this horrible bad thing will happen.
Or if you don't act now, then very often it's this you will lose out on the opportunity for.
So whether that's investments or again, a problem with your account or something along those lines, generally speaking, and a legitimate, legitimate organization will not pressure you in that kind of urgency on that tonality.
And again, being able to challenge them and say, you know what, this is not something that I'm comfortable with and taking those payments.
But also scarcity.
Now scarcity, human beings, generally speaking, when we look at the kind of the high rise in in again, the kind of the time of year where we're all wanting to buy Christmas gifts, we're looking to get deals, Black Friday is just past the Christmas sales coming on, etc.
Very often we are hardwired to overvalue scarcity.
So when you see a web website saying, well, it's a limited time offer for you to be providing this, fantastic.
Very often when it's only a few left in stock, it provides this kind of nudge to go, I'll just buy that, or I'll get that.
So very often criminals would use elements of scarce scarcity to support that and get us to commit or to do something in those situations.
But more importantly than all of these things, and again, I will use a combination of those first four, but generally speaking, I will absolutely weigh upon.
The emotional aspect is that very often I will want to make you panicked.
I want to make you depressed.
I want you to make you anxious.
I want you to make you fearful or I want to make you excited.
I want you to make you hopeful.
I want to make you again in any of the spectrum of generally want to use the two ends of the spectrum, whether that be really positive feelings or really negative feelings.
Because you know as well as I do, we don't think overly objectively when we are emotional.
So in these situations I'm reliant on especially the urgency aspect.
I want to get you to do something within that finite emotional window, whether it is to give me your information in your data, or it might be to transfer some money through a bank, transfer for a product or for an opportunity or an investment, or even to help out what you believe is somebody that's very close to you, especially in things like romance scams as well.
So that emotion is really, really crucial.
And very often it's more of fraud and scams is much more about emotional mindfulness than many other things because I can give you all the education in the world, but I cannot get you to actually consciously take that moment and think about those emotions as well.
So stop, challenge and protect.
And I'm looking forward to answering those questions as well.
Amazing and thank you so much, Paul and really insightful because we know there is a lot of psychology that goes into fraud and scams.
And one of the reasons why scams continue to be such a problem is because scammers have become really clever at manipulating people into behaving in a way that they would always usually wouldn't.
So end some really good insight.
There am a great introduction to the sessions and thank you so much, Paul.
And with that, we're going to come over to you, Ryan, if you wouldn't mind telling us a little bit more about the work you do to help protect and educate people.
Yeah, of course.
And thank you again.
Like the other two had already said.
Thank you very much for joining us today.
So my name's Ryan and I'm part of the fraud and scams investigation team here at Barclays.
So in a nutshell, what my role ultimately is, is almost first point of contact with customers to ultimately try and protect themselves from potentially falling victim to a scam or potentially fraud or something like that.
What we ultimately do within our role is we will basically investigate a payment that's been flagged on our fraud system that it suspects is potentially fraudulent or potentially something that is maybe a risk more than maybe usual payments that you might potentially make.
This could be down to a number of different things.
It could be sort of digital footprint like what Paul mentioned a second ago.
It could be the fact that, let's say for instance, it can see that you're maybe transacting in a different area from what you usually do, a different country, something along those lines.
That would be a cause for our risk.
It could be the fact that it's a larger amount than what you usually potentially make.
What we ultimately need to do is we need to come to a conclusion as to whether the payment is potentially genuine or not.
And if we don't feel we have enough evidence to be able to do that, we simply call the customer and try and have a conversation around the payments.
Now, what's involved in that is obviously a number of detail questions, and every agent along with myself, we are specifically trained to pick up on what we class is red flags.
So these could be sort of certain things where maybe you've been forced or pressured into making the payment exactly like Paul mentioned a minute ago, It could be something where you've made it in promised a certain offer or a return or something like that.
And you've been told that if you don't make the payment now, you're going to miss out on the opportunity or something like that.
It could be the fact that maybe you are making a purchase.
It's not like we set this target time of year, very, very prevalent for scammers to basically pick up on potential purchase scams or forcing people into trying to buy a specific item is picking up on those conversations.
And those potential may be key sentences that are said during the conversation.
So ultimately determine whether we believe a payment is genuine or not.
Scammers, exactly like what we said a minute ago, are unfortunately adapting and evolving every single day to basically overcome sort of certain situations and parameters for for us to basically have to ultimately come to that conclusion as to whether it is, again, fraudulent or not.
This is a bank we speak obviously with other banks and we sort of discuss trends and patterns and different scenarios that we see quite frequently.
It could be a number of different things.
Like I mentioned, it could be purchasing items, it could potentially be cryptocurrency, which is what we see a lot of recently.
There are so many different things that we can potentially spot.
The sad truth is anyone it's actually like what we said a second ago, anyone can unfortunately be a victim nowadays, as much as like what we've said, people can be more savvy and more aware and we can we can try and educate people as much as what we potentially can.
The reality is, as things are ever changing, it's our duty as a bank to try and provide as much information for you, our customers, to to basically try and make sure that we're giving you the opportunity to take a step back, realize if there is something that's maybe not quite right.
And basically, hopefully having that conversation with you, maybe sometimes towards the the sort of perception as to whether it is real or not, we do tend to use the term breaking the spell.
And it's actually like Paul mentioned a minute ago, sometimes it is the emotional aspects where we have to have those difficult conversations with you.
We have to try and make sure that obviously the situation that you're in is potentially not making you sort of more susceptible to a scam or to potentially becoming a victim.
But as I say, ultimately what my role is, is to basically stop those scams or prevent those payments before they actually get released for fraudulent purposes.
Along with that, there is also part of my role to sort of detect our own customers that we believe are potentially fraudulent themselves and basically raise a investigation against those customers.
So ultimately we can help protect our customers.
And those people at other banks, too, to basically stop them from happening again.
Brilliant.
Thank you so much.
Ryan.
And again, it links perfectly to what Paul thought was true earlier on.
We do know that fraudsters do look to harvest people's details using processes that are referred to as social engineering.
And this is the act of tricking someone into sharing information or taking an action or, like Ryan mentioned, just acting out of character.
But naturally, as technology evolves, we have lots of channels that are available for cybercriminals to use to scam people.
That could be social media platforms, dating applications, online marketplaces.
But I think the psychology and the tactics are really important to understand.
As a starting point, because scammers will prey on people who are looking for the best possible deals and exploit them.
They will create that sense of urgency and try and force people to make poor decisions.
And they will also harness that sense of authority to instead instill fear in their victims.
And I know this is very common across a lot of their impersonation scams, purchase scams that we're seeing them at this time of year.
So we really do appreciate that introduction and give us a bit more context into the work you do to educate and protect people.
But with that, we do have a few questions that have come through that we would love to get your thoughts on.
Now, the first one, I think we will direct up Paul So how do cyber criminals actually obtain our details?
Has there been any link made between signing up to services and these compromisations?
And also when contacted by people purporting to be these organizations, how do we actually know we're speaking to a genuine company?
I think it's interesting because again, from a from a data point of view and how do they get our details now?
First of all, I have a question and a kind of a reflection is that if you see somebody armed with a clipboard in your local high street, what do you do now?
Now, most people, if you're anything like me, will either do this massive awkward semicircle around them or that really awkward eye contact said, no.
So I'm okay.
I'm very busy, I'm doing something else, I'm walking elsewhere, I'm shopping or whatever.
But actually very often if I stop you and say, well, actually why do you not want to talk to this person?
There's like, there's a number of different reasons.
You're busy, you're distracted, you don't want to give your data and information to this person.
You don't necessarily feel comfortable about giving your email information now in in person in that sort of aspect.
But the problem is over the past, probably about 20 years, maybe, maybe even less, is that we've been conditioned to give our information and personal data away for pretty much everything.
So whether that's an online account, whether it's an online platform, whether that's an online form or a 10% offer from from a website, is that data is incredibly valuable to organizations, both legitimate and not legitimate.
And very often it's the case of where because we have been conditioned as a population for so many years to give away our information, is that how do cybercriminals and fraudsters obtain the information while actually incredibly easily so it's there's still a situation where whether it is through our own habits.
So if I say to you, when was the last time you changed your personal email address or when was the last time you changed your personal mobile?
Now you I've just basically detailed two of the main things in which I contact you as a fraudster.
But if you haven't changed it for a decade or two decades, very often in some cases, is it?
I'm not saying change them, but it's just that exposure over time and also the amount of our accounts and things like that we fill in is it increases the amount of data that we've ended up giving away.
So every time you fill in an online form or an account, etcetera, you are trusting that organization to look after your data.
Unfortunately, some organizations have found things like data breaches, so data breaches have kind of exposed that to a lot of organizations.
Data has been then released into the public sphere, again from a data breach point of view, but also from a social engineering point of view.
If I give you a 10% offer or open an account or send you an email, for information that social engineering aspect is because we've been conditioned to give it away, we don't necessarily have any sort of intuitive emotional hook to say, well, who is it that I'm giving this information to?
So very often we give it away in when when ask to in in very limited circumstances.
So it's that aspect of both the social engineering.
Again, the aspects around data breaches, but also we actively put our data out most of the time through things like social media.
So when I used to work in law enforcement and I still do in various guises, but I also work for UK finance and the dedicated card and payment crime unit, it highlights the fact that actually all the training in the world that that showed me the ability to find data, information about somebody.
Turns out you don't need any training.
It's incredibly easy and accessible.
So it's about understanding this conscious choice of who you are giving the data away and when who you're engaging with it, especially online through its online portals and accounts.
But also how do you know when it's a genuine company?
Well, sometimes you don't in these sorts of situations, it is about stopping challenging that information and not necessarily taking it at face value and being able to confirm in other ways.
So whether it's a purchase company or online will actually look for reviews and look for these sorts of situations.
But also if it's an organization like Barclays, you're able to then actually, you know what, I'm going to call you back.
I'm going to engage with you.
I'm going to use the number that I already have in order to contact that organization and do so through another means.
So very often to ensure that we are genuinely talking to the people we want to normally takes a little bit more action on our side, unfortunately.
Brilliant and really insightful and again, it seems to emphasize just how busy those cyber criminals are coming up with a variety of different ways to harvest personal and financial details.
So just following on from that question, another one that's come through in the chat is, is there anything individuals can do to proactively protect their data from cyber attacks?
Well, do the kind of in-person test, because if I came up to you in the middle of the street with that clipboard just out of the blue completely and just said, can I have all of your personal information?
Can I want to know your name, your date of birth, your address, everything about you, and potentially maybe your National insurance number to boot as well.
Now, if I was to do that in the middle of the street, what would your response be?
Now in these sorts of situations is that very often you have this kind of defensiveness.
I'm like, No, I'm not giving you the information.
Why would I give that information to you?
But online, we don't have face, we don't have space, we don't have context.
We don't have that sort of intuitive hook of somebody randomly coming up to us.
But that's exactly what happens in a social media direct message.
That's exactly what happens in a social media advert.
It's exactly what happens in a phishing email.
For instance, if I'm contacting or if I randomly phone you.
So very often it is the equivalent of me just running up to you in the street with a clipboard and asking you for that information.
So it's very often is like, Well, do you feel comfortable about giving this information to them?
So very often it's that mindful process of going, well, actually, do I trust this person?
Is this is this somebody who I can trust in these given situations?
So that is the best advice because unfortunately, in today's world, asking you to never give out your data to anyone is basic.
The equivalent of asking you to live under a rock in a cave somewhere.
And fortunately, because if you do, you want to buy anything or do anything, then unfortunately it is the nature of the beast.
But very often it is taking that moment.
Do I trust who I'm talking to.
Do I trust this message?
Do I trust this contact?
And if so, how do I confirm that trust and how am I able to get that data away?
Yeah, absolutely brilliant.
I think that ties into a lot of the questions we have actually seen coming through in the chat mentioned.
And you know, when we complete online forms or we enter online competitions and we're naturally asked to put a lot of information in that can include things like date of birth.
So I think the message there is clear it really just take that time, do research, check for the organizations that you're in that you're actually utilizing or about your thinking of doing business with and also getting in contact with them through genuine channels.
But if you're unsure, the best thing to do is probably to avoid sharing that information for risk of being targeted by criminals.
So that is brilliant.
So thank you so much for that.
Paul.
So with that, I think can we come over to Ryan next?
We do get a couple of questions through that.
We think, why am I perfectly to the work that you and your team do?
Ryan So when we have a question that mentions that they receive a large number of texts that claim to be from organizations like the Royal Mail, HMRC, etc.
, so who do we actually report these to?
So realistically you can kind of report them to us if you have potentially fallen victim to one of these yourself.
So the trouble is, is they look so realistic and especially this time of year, you can also report them too.
Obviously the Stop Think Fraud at those at the top of organizations and stuff like that from if you're looking at it from a from a bank perspective, like I say, especially at this time of year, that's so, so prevalent because the reality is everyone's expecting parcels this time of year.
Everyone's sort of buying gifts and presents and whatever else it would be for family and friends and that type of stuff.
So there's sort of a few things to to kind of watch out for.
So first sort of main thing would be the reality is a lot of these ones, especially from like the Royal Mail or DPD or these other sort of courier sites or company sorry, there'll always sort of in always be something along the lines of you need to pay X amount for a release fee for your parcel or something along those lines.
The reality is you will never be asked by these companies to pay a small release fee.
Air Quotes “Release fee” because if you've bought the product from a legitimate merchant, so let's say you bought it from Boots or John Lewis or whoever else it would be, they will always add the the postage to the actual final bill.
So you should never be paying an additional amount on top of that.
So there's a few things to sort of spot.
The first thing, especially if you get it from a an actual email, is check the actual email itself.
So check the email because nine times out of ten a guarantee, you check the actual email where you when you type on the actual email itself or the name of who it's been sent from and it will be nothing to do with the Royal Mail or nothing to do with HMRC or something along those lines.
Most of the time it's actually quite funny because it does actually have someone's actual name.
So the scammers actual name in the email followed by maybe a load of numbers or digits or something.
The other thing that you can also do is if you get it from a text or again, if it is an email, have a look at the grammar and the punctuation and stuff like that.
Because sometimes what you will find is when you're reading it, don't randomly be sort of a double spacing or an extra letter or one of the words will be spelt wrong or something like that.
Now I'm not saying go away and, and read in detail every single one of these, but if you look and it just doesn't look right straight off, right off the bat then obviously there's cause for concern that what we would advise is if you ever have potentially submitted details to one of these, like what we mentioned a minute ago, call your bank as soon as you can, because the reality is the faster you get in contact with the bank and the quicker you let us know, the quicker we can ultimately do something about it.
So if you've potentially contacted or given out information to one of these one of these sort of texts or emails or whatever it would be, simply call us, because it might be a case that we may need to reissue a new card to you or something like that, because maybe you've given out the long number on your card or whatever else it would be.
But the reality is, especially this time of year, these are always all over the place.
And it's not just the HMRC or Royal Mail It could be anyone.
Funnily enough, I had one from the DVLA.
I know that my car tax was coming up soon, so there you go.
I'm looking at that straight away thinking could it be genuine?
Like say, stop, have a look at it, do a little bit of investigation and it's still not entirely sure.
And like I say, there are websites out there, even our own Barclays website, if you did want to have a look at what to sort of look for in order to try and protect yourself a little bit further.
Brilliant.
Thank you very much Ryan.
I think that actually leads perfectly into our next question.
So legitimate calls from financial institutions like Barclays, for example, and those fraud teams can sometimes seem suspicious.
Can they be linked to some sort of a code within the Barclays mobile banking app to clarify that they are actually real?
Yeah, definitely.
So it's actually a really good question because most of us are taught that if you ever receive a call from from “the bank”, then it's probably suspicious or you've probably got cause for concern or something like that.
That's just typically how everyone's raised is if we ever get something like that, ignore it.
What we would always try and do, at least from from a Barclays perspective, is we will always try and take you through If we do potentially need to make outbound calls yourself.
So like I say, that's what I do.
If we have a duty to contact you, we will simply always try and take you through security using the Barclays Mobile Banking app.
So you don't need to give us any details.
You don't need to give us your card details or answer security questions or something like that.
We will always try and do that where possible.
And it's simply a case of just sending a notification to the app and it'll say, you've got a call from Barclays.
You're speaking with Brian.
Is it you on the call?
And you just simply confirm that and it allows us to continue our call without having to actually divulge any personal information or like we mentioned, given our email addresses and stuff like that.
The other thing as well is like what Paul mentioned earlier is we will never, ever try and put you under pressure to continue the call.
So if you ever receive a call from the bank or from someone claiming to be from the bank, we would never turn around.
You would say, Well, you have to continue this call.
Otherwise these funds are going to get released or something along those lines.
You never get that.
What we would simply advise you is if you don't feel comfortable on the call, call us back on a legitimately sourced number.
So the numbers on the back of your actual debit card, the number from the official bank website, so from the official Barclays website or something like that, we will never try and force you to continue with the call because as I mentioned at the beginning, it's it's talk that you should never get a call from the bank.
Yeah, that's absolutely brilliant.
Ryan really insightful and I think it links back a lot to what Paul mentioned earlier on.
If we are unsure, we take that time, we do our research and we contact those organizations through a channel that we absolutely know to be genuine.
And it's great that some of those digital tools can actually be used to help people in those situations.
Excellent.
So I think now we will come back over to Paul.
I've got a couple on True Paul that I think might be brilliant for you to share some insight on.
So we've heard a lot about remote access on malicious software recently.
If someone gets access to your computer and you are of course aware of it, what steps can you take to cut them off as quickly as possible?
So there's two parts to this.
One is that the first part is, again, any device, for instance, again, if you're on a computer, for instance, is a first of all having, say, for instance, antivirus and firewall, whether that's the free version that say for instance, comes with Windows or different platforms, having something like that installed on your computer, whether it is the free version or, again, the paid for version.
Generally speaking, I like a paid full version because it comes with a number of a suite of other security softwares, etc.
So very often it comes down to the fact that actually having those sorts of things in place at the time is incredibly good.
Also make sure that, for instance, if you you're an iOS device or an Apple device, for instance, or an iPad or any device, always keep them updated.
So nine times out of ten, pretty much all updates require or are included with some sort of security update.
So, for instance, a vulnerability in software or a vulnerability in the hardware, etc.
So very often keeping these things on automatic update, for instance, from a public point of view is really, really good to keep that security going.
Now, again, that's great, but generally speaking, sometimes from a remote access software or malware, it's required on us to be vigilant as well on top of it, unfortunately.
So very often if I send you an email or a text message or or trying to get you to take an action on a link or a website, very often then I can download some sort of malicious software or indeed remote access software directly onto my computer.
Now having the antivirus and firewall and also updated machines in the first place will go a long way to to again being you're almost your last line of defense if you have clicked on that link.
It's also the advice that Ryan gave you is around on trying to avoid going onto those links in the first place.
But when it comes to it, if you've actually got to the point where it's now happening, is that especially for remote access software, very often criminals, especially in things like investment scams and they will I will guide you through the process.
So if you go to this website, say, for instance, teamviewer or a number of different products out there as well, they are completely legitimate platforms.
The software you're your platform, your your antivirus won't flag it because it's again, legitimate software used for things like it support and all these sorts of things.
So they are used.
But the problem is it gives whoever is actually kind of directing that individual complete access over the computer.
So very often I will guide you through the process, but actually in the background I could be taking information, taking data, downloading something on the app on your computer, something along those lines.
So if you do get to that point, unfortunately, it does come down to the fact that if you then realize, hold on a second, something's going on, you don't have necessarily direct access over your computer at that moment.
So very often it is turning off the computer because you want to get shut access to that person as quickly as humanly possible.
Or it could be if you're closer to the router, cut the router off, etc.
, to be able to stop the connection.
If you are literally in that moment of realization of going holding the second somebody's done it, if you've got malware downloaded on your platform, it's about running a scan with your antivirus and firewall systems.
And again depending on the severity of the malware, then you may need to get support for that as well.
But generally speaking is that I am still going back to the C.
A.
U.
S.
E was going back to the Context of Authority, Urgency, Scarcity and Emotion is that that's how I'm going to get you to download it in the first place.
So in those moments is yes, we've seen lot of these rises of different malware and ransomware and all these sorts of things.
But generally speaking, it does come down to that emotional mindfulness in the first place because our intuitions doesn't necessarily have a great deal to go on in those moments.
So it's about stopping.
Brilliant.
Thank you, Paul.
And again, very insightful and great advice on how to protect ourselves and become more aware of things like suspicious links, fake websites and of course, malicious software and should use following of not both.
Further advice can we give to protect vulnerable individuals from scams?
Because as we've seen already, just in this session alone, how much we've covered off.
But when we look at all the different types of scams out there, impersonation scams, purchase scams, money, mules, what can we do to support maybe those different age demographics or people who may be too trusting of these types of contacts?
Yeah, I think first of all, it's about realizing that we if we are human being, if you are a human being, you are vulnerable to scams.
Unfortunately, is that very often we have this kind of overconfidence that it isn't just elderly people, it isn't just well, it is purely on the basis that after probably nigh on nine years of looking into the behavioral science around online manipulation, online scams, social engineering, I realized that actually we're all susceptible.
We've all been, like I said before, we've all been told something that we wanted to hear at probably the wrong time.
And especially in an online environment, we we often project our own feelings.
So for instance, in things like romance scams, what am I really exploiting?
Well, actually I'm lonely and isolated.
I feel depressed.
I can be anxious.
I can be I have a number of emotions that are going on for me.
I might be isolated from my family or these or situations, but very often somebody coming out of the blue and going, You know what?
I think you're incredible.
I want to spend my life with you.
That that can be incredibly powerful and very often is that.
Have you ever had a friend that has been in a relationship that they shouldn't be in?
Have you tried to tell them?
Again, it's an incredibly challenging situation and that is no different to what Ryan was talking about in relation to what we try and do from a banking point of view in, you know what?
This is the point where you're transferring money.
This is the point where we believe that this could be a scam.
And very often people will be in that situation where they go, I'm in love with the person.
I'm I'm I'm involved in an incredibly investment opportunity.
I want to buy this product.
Why should I believe otherwise?
So in these sorts of situations is it's first of all, realizing that we are vulnerable and human beings aren't great at admitting that most of the time.
But this is very much the case and that's the first real step.
But on top of that is that again, think about the level of trust that we can have in our information.
So whether it's an online product or a holiday or all these sorts of things, I only really need an image that I could have stolen from anywhere else on the Internet, put it onto a marketplace or social media, and then basically, you know, this this much.
So very often it's the case where actually there's very little verification needed for that.
So very often it's having that kind of healthy level of cynicism, realizing, how do I go about making this trust much stronger?
How do I that's terrible English, but you know what I mean?
But it's again, it's about verifying.
It's trusting and verifying in those situations.
And very often things like again, when we are asked to give away access to whether it's our information, our data, but also often it's about our bank accounts as well.
And so in recent years we've seen a massive rise in what's called money mules.
So individuals who have relinquished a certain amount of control over their bank accounts and allow criminals to essentially launder and funnel the funds into those bank accounts and utilize them for criminal purposes.
Now, some people, some people that we arrest will have 45, 50 banking apps on their phone.
They're completely witting in these sorts of situations.
They are a criminal in and of themselves and they facilitate it.
But actually the grand majority of people that are unwitting in these situations, they're being groomed, they're being coerced in these situations.
They may have been incentivized with gift cards or money or a percentage of it to give access away from it as well.
So very often it is about can you can't go through life without trusting some people, but it's also about verifying that trust in the first place.
Amazing.
Thank you so much, Paul.
And again, one really important topic that you touched on there was that element of money muling in particular.
And this might be one for you, Ryan, that you could share a bit more insight on.
If you do inadvertently facilitate money laundering, can you actually be prosecuted for that?
Yeah.
So it is a really good one and it comes down exactly to what Paul just mentioned.
So it's the whole witting or unwitting scenario.
The reality is, at least from a banking perspective, it all comes down to how much does that the Money Mule in terms of let's say it was a Barclays customer, actually realized what they're doing because it's actually what we've just mentioned a lot of the time.
They don't realize what's actually happening.
They've given someone else access to their account in order for maybe a quick payoff or it's with what we said, maybe some little bit of money left behind in the account after it's all said and done or something like that.
The reality is if someone is is sort of found unwitting, ultimately what we need to do is it's education more than I think.
So if we if we come across the situation where we'd have to investigate the customer, we've looked at them and we've said, you know what, this doesn't quite look right.
We will have a thorough, thorough investigation into them and we'll basically come up with an outcome if we deem it to be unwitting, we will still close their account.
So we will close their account with us as a bank because it's potentially a risk to business.
It's a risk if a customer basically.
But the reality is more often than not, it's more down to the education.
So it's making that customer aware of what they've done, that it's obviously illegal because sometimes they don't even realize what they're doing is actually illegal.
And and then it kind of goes from there if you're looking at it on the other side.
So you're looking at where we have clear evidence that they are witting think they are fully aware of what they're doing.
All that type of stuff is simply a case of close their account down straightaway and we ultimately upload them onto a fraud database to basically let the other banks know that this person is fraudulent.
This person has been found to a bit of possession or in the in the process of trying to move fraudulent funds in and out of their account.
And then basically it has a massive knock on effect because if you are found to be witting and to be found as an actual mule, you potentially are not going to be able to get anything like a mortgage or open up another account or something like that.
And the reality is with a lot of these people that are unwitting, they do tend to be the younger customer.
And the reality is when they kind of get recruited into these type of situations, they don't realize what the repercussions are of them actually being part of this.
So that's why the education of this is so important in making them aware of what does actually happen, what is the process and what can ultimately be the outcome.
If they do carry on doing this, it can have such a such a big impact on them later on in life.
Really?
Ryan, I think I think that really links back to everything that we have mentioned in that session today.
It's all about the education piece building and expanding our knowledge because that's going to better equipped us to be able to identify and of course avoid falling victim to these types of fraud and scams.
So that is absolutely brilliant that we have a lot of different questions coming in around things like cryptocurrency and social media platforms.
So I think one I'd love to get some more insight from your self on Ryan, would be I get a lot of messages on social media to invest in cryptocurrencies.
So do we get many reports of people being scammed in that way?
Yeah, absolutely.
So when we talk about trends and stuff that sort of occurs more often than not and that type of stuff, cryptocurrency at the minute is one of the biggest ones that we're seeing.
The reality is, is cryptocurrency in the grand scheme of things, is actually still very, very new.
So yes, it's been around close to a decade, but if you're looking at it from its popularity, I guess if you're looking at it from that perspective, it's very, very new.
And the reality is a lot of people don't know the full ins and outs, myself included.
I know enough from my role, but if you were to turn around to me tomorrow and say, What about X, Y, Z, what should I be investing in?
I'm no expert in that.
But what we do see is a lot of crypto scams that are coming in and also it's how to spot them.
So what I mentioned kind of at the beginning of this is most often than not what we see with cryptocurrency scams is where a customer is being given almost something.
And it's a phrase that we use a lot is, is it too good to be true?
So we probably hear that a lot in life and sometimes it can come across as a bit of a negative thing.
But the reality is if you're being promised a return on your investment, that is, they're saying they're going to triple, quadruple, whatever it would be your investment in a matter of days.
The reality is that is not the case with a cryptocurrency investment.
What we are finding, what we've come across recently is you'll be asked or contacted through social media.
So you might see an advertisement through it, through, let's say, Instagram, for instance.
You contact them and then you'll actually get a call from the scammer saying, Send money to this account or open up your account and this cryptocurrency platform or whatever it would be.
And then basically they'll get you to deposit a small amount of money.
So this could be anything from £10, £20, £30, whatever it would be.
And what they would do is they will transfer you back, say 60, 70, £80 or something like that.
So from the consumer's perspective, you'll be looking at that thinking, my God, I've just made a double on my investment in a matter of days or something like that.
That's how they'll get you.
And then basically they'll say, Right now, put in more and you might put in 200 or 300, 400, a thousand, whatever it would be, and that's when they will take that money.
Another thing that we do see is when it comes to that point as well, you start getting contacted by these these quote unquote, financial advisers who have basically been helping you make this payment and now basically say you need to send them a fee in order to get your return on your investment or something like that.
This is a common trick that's that's used especially in the investment world or the investment scams world from what I see personally.
So it's definitely something to keep an eye out, especially, especially, like I said, when you're getting it in for the first time, one of the things that we do typically say to our customers is how much research have you actually done into this?
What you, the one has actively sought the investment, or if you've been contacted by someone about the investment, Because if he's getting told that someone's contacted you about the investment, that is what we what we would claim is a red flag.
Brilliant.
Thank you very much, Ryan.
So again, I think the key thing to remember not only with cryptocurrencies but what any type of investment will be, definitely need to do that research to seek independent financial advice before investing any money because those investments can obviously decrease as well as increase them.
When you add in that extra element of is this potentially a scam doing those checks and making sure the companies are actually regulated to provide those products is such an important topic and a step to take.
And just before we go on to our last couple of questions Paul, I just want to come back over to yourself to see if you have anything that you'd like to add in on those investment and cryptocurrency scams.
Yeah, of course, because I think especially a cryptocurrency investment scam is that they work very much in the same way as any other investment scams.
So we've seen things like fine wine scams, we've seen whiskey barrel scams, we've seen gold bullion scams, we've seen basically in asset class here, basically in relation to investments, depending on what's going on in the economy, depending on what's going on in the media, in the news, generally speaking, they're incredibly good at making it contextually relevant to what's going on in the world, and especially with crypto over the last 2 to 3 years.
It's kind of shot up in that kind of saturation in the environment as well.
But from a criminal side, this is again from Ryan was talking about in relation to that impact and that people don't necessarily know the mechanics behind it, but also I'm reliant on that as a criminal because you know what actually, although the grand majority of crypto is is very much legitimate, there's different working processes for it.
The different applications I train a lot of the banks and law enforcement in crypto, but generally speaking, it reduces the need, the ability for me to be found.
So generally speaking, if I've invested and I put a load into crypto from a from a from fraud point of view, from a criminal gains point of view, it's it's a little harder to investigate to and to be able to identify.
So very often in these situations is that I'm relying on cryptocurrency has a both a brilliant fantastic thing that the victim doesn't know what's going on and they don't know the mechanics and they don't necessarily have the avenues to do that research.
But actually on the other side is it means that I can actually launder my money in a much more effective fashion on crypto because if you transfer money to the wrong a bank account, you have an institution to be able to help you get your money back.
Crypto, once it's gone, it's gone.
It's there's there's no there's no repercussions.
There's no overarching organization that can say, you know what, we will get your crypto back.
No, that's not how it works.
Unfortunately.
Brilliant.
Thank you so much, Paul.
Again, I think that's that's just so important.
The key thing to remember there is if those deals or offers sell good to be true, they probably are.
And that is often going to make victims less inclined to properly question their own decisions as they may be focused on, you know, getting that product or service for the best possible deal or growing their assets when investing.
So again, just a really kind of solid message from us all would be that when considering taking out any types of financial products or services, always do seek that independent financial advice prior to doing so.
So I think a theme that we it off today, guys, was purchase scams.
And naturally with this time of year it's absolutely applicable.
So just before we closed off all of the session and share some resources with our audience, I suppose kind of I'd just like to recap any of those key points that you would like to share with how we actually avoid falling to purchase scams.
And we'll also see if we can and we can get one or two more questions in there then as well.
So I think from a purchase scam point of view, going back to what I've said before, is how little amount of information do I need to convince you that I have a product to sell.
So if I'm a seller, for instance, so whether that be on a social media marketplace, whether that be on Instagram or social media or it's an email or it's a website, is that there's very little verification that I have in my possession.
The product for me to sell to you.
Now, we've seen rises in holiday scams.
We've seen a rise in things like rental fraud in the last year, especially with kind of high rental prices and prices and competition.
All of these sorts of things contribute it and purchase scams kind of covers a lot of these different multitudes of of methods in order to do so.
So very often in these sorts of purchase scams is again, it's taking that aspect.
So for instance, I can go on to a website or I can go to a seller.
Well, actually, if I go to a different website that's not necessarily regulated or is not necessarily got like those security in those processes, it's about making sure that you read reviews, absolutely read reviews around a potential brand, a potential product or a potential seller, for instance, in these given situations to, again, get the measure of support potentially, some people have been victim victimized a bit before.
So I think all these given situations, how do I trust that that product exists?
And unfortunately very often in today's world, it's it's very difficult to do sometimes, but very often it's also checking your emotion.
Very often we're excited when we've seen those deals, and very often when we talk about it, it's too good to be true.
Well, actually, very often we don't in an emotional state, we don't do what is good in those situations.
So doing that, trusting and verifying, taking those processes, reading reviews, making sure that you try, try and make sure that you kind of concentrate on more of the beaten track in relation to online websites and and trusted websites as well.
Very often is the case because there's nothing, no regulation stopping me from creating any other website, etc.
and to try and sell you something that doesn't even exist in the first place.
So that's what my advice is.
It's brilliant.
That's absolutely excellent.
Paul And then I think we definitely have time for one more question, and you will both have to forgive me because I'm going to open this one up the both here and I am kind of asking you to predict the future a little bit here.
And but as technology advances, what do we predict the next big scam is going to be?
Or what are we doing as organizations to raise awareness about new types of fraud and scams?
Yeah, so one thing, at least from our perspective, we've already kind of looked at or we're already aware of, and we've got sort of measures starting to be developed and stuff like that is, as I'm sure everyone has probably heard recently, is the impact of AI, deepfakes, voice, biometrics, that type of stuff.
So it's very much it's becoming.
So when we spoke at the very, very beginning of the call about the digitization of fraud and scams and stuff like that, that's developing, that's the reality of AI, probably what's going to be happening next and and what's AI is potentially going to bring to that aspect.
And like we said, and unfortunately fraudsters and stuff like that, they're developing.
So at least from our perspective, that's probably what's going to be coming around the corner.
But as I say, there is stuff behind the scenes in our in our voice and in our stuff that's that's being developed within our our cybercrime team.
Basically.
And I think on top of that is it's like I've said, around the limited level level of verification that I need to convince you I am who I say I am or a product or a holiday or anything like that or an investment opportunity.
Unfortunately, things like AI Deepfake does kind of almost reduce that level of trust that we can have in the content in which we can see.
So very often is the case where we are vulnerable to fraud and scams in the same way that we are vulnerable to disinformation, misinformation, online grooming, online dating, coercion, everything comes down to it because have you ever taken a text message the wrong way from a partner?
Have you ever taken an email the wrong way from a colleague or all these sorts of things is because our emotional relationship with our technology in these seamless, subjective forms, very often it takes takes real presidents and importantly things like with AI and Deepfake, it again reinforces things like the context and authority and urgency, making it much more believable, maybe making the language a lot more convincing in these sorts of situations.
But again, regardless of any of these different changes in the future, it's going to be your emotion that is triggered, it is going to be your emotions.
And then unfortunately for me, from a psychology point of view that's going to move a lot slower than anything else.
So asking you to have those moments, regardless of what you're reading, what you're seeing, what you're exposed to, having that emotional moment to go, is this something I can trust, stop, challenge and protect in those moments?
Fantastic.
Thank you both so much for our time for that insight and of course, for giving up your time to join the event today and sharing your expertise with us all.
And of course, thank you to our audience who have joined us for the session today.
And I know I speak for us all.
When I said we could have kept you here all day talking about these topics.
And that is just because there are so many different channels, so many different tactics that those cyber criminals do use.
And as we've seen throughout the session, there's lots of different ways that they will target us.
But the best way of protecting ourselves is to continue to expand our knowledge on the tactics that they use.
And thankfully, there are lots of brilliant resources available that can support those on our learning journeys.
The first of which we're going to talk about today is the Take Five to Stop Fraud website, which Paul has mentioned throughout the session today.
So Take Five is an initiative led by UK Finance and backed by the UK Government and other organizations, and it's designed to help you expand your knowledge on how we will be targeted by criminals.
So if you do receive a phone call, text message or email that you think may be fake, it ordered you to stop, take five and challenge what you are being told.
As we've seen today, criminals are experts at impersonating people, organizations and of course the police.
And they will spend hours researching us for their scams.
So they will be hoping that we let our guard down just for that brief moment, that that's where they will see their biggest success.
So as Paul mentioned, stop and think it could protect you and your money.
And remember, only criminals will ever try and rush you or panic you and to making those quick decisions.
And we also have a lot of information available through the fraud and Scams section of our Barclays.
co.
uk website.
This contains lots of information which includes tips to help us identify when we're being targeted and how to keep ourselves safe online.
This includes resources like phone number, checkers and a jargon buster.
To help you understand different words and phrases we use when talking about fraud and scams.
But we also run regular online events to help people learn about fraud and scams.
And part of this is also making our events available through the Barclays.
co.
uk website.
Now, I did see we had a lot of questions come through today about these forwarder events.
So through this platform you'll be able to access our impersonation scams event where we had our guest speakers to provide insight into the latest trends.
And we also have our impersonation scams event which can give you tips on how to protect yourself when targeted by someone claiming to be a friend or family member, an organization that you have dealings with, or of course, the police.
Now, another point on the Money Mules event that we ran back in September.
If you've ever wondered how criminals move stolen money around, money, mules, as we heard today, is one of the ways in which they do that.
And this often involves them approaching young people on social media platforms to help them do this.
So through that event will explain what money mules actually are and how to spot those warning signs.
All of this and much more is accessible through our Barclays.
co.
uk web platform.
And then finally, we have our free interactive learning platform, Digital Wings.
This platform is designed to help you boost your digital skills and confidence around a variety of different topics, including staying safe online through our Online Safety Hub we have lots of information, including bite sized learning modules, internal resources and links to external organizations who can support us all in expanding our knowledge on this important topic, which is going to be applicable to each and every one of us.
Because of course, what we've learned today is scammers do not discriminate.
They will target any of us at any time.
And we also have a lot of information through that safety board on how to report suspicious emails, text messages and phone calls through the relevant channels.
But we also have a link in that safety call to the National Cyber Security Center Cyber Aware Action Plan.
If you've not heard of this resource, it supports individuals and organizations.
By having them answer a couple of questions on topics like passwords and two step verification, after which they'll be provided with a free, personalized list of actions to help improve their cybersecurity, which, as we saw, aligns a lot to point fake emails or suspicious links about malicious software.
We talked about today.
So just to close off the session, it's important to remember that anyone can be tricked by a scammer.
They will change their tactics often and adapt quickly to changes in the economic climate.
And we're constantly uncovering new scams.
And the best way for us to continue to protect ourselves and the people around us is by expanding our knowledge on these subjects and sharing that within our networks so that everyone we do hope you've enjoyed the event today.
We will be sending out a short feedback survey off the back of the event today where you can share your thoughts on the events.
You know, we did have so many questions come through today.
Unfortunately, we didn't get to answer them all.
But we will be looking at planning our next upskill event in order to of 2024.
And we will use all of the insight you've raised in the meeting today to shape those topics.
But if you do have anything in particular you'd like to see for the future, please do let us know through that feedback survey.
Any thoughts that you think we could implement to make these events better?
We will take each of those comments and use them to shape our future digital safety events.
Also, if you really enjoyed the event, the topics were relevant, it's giving you a lot of insight that you can now share within your network.
Those nine and tens are just as important because they reassure us all that we're doing the right things for you and our future.
Attendees.
But with that, everyone have a wonderful day and we look forward to seeing you on another one of our upskill events very, very soon.