Scammers are on the increase and with more people at home, furloughed or lost jobs, the fraudsters have taken the opportunity by the horns.
Between April 2020 and March 2021, there were 413,553 reports made to Action Fraud, the fraud and cybercrime reporting centre for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This level of fraud is estimated to total more than £2.3bn was lost by victims.
By far the most common type of report received by Action Fraud in the past year involved online shopping and auction fraud, accounting for one in four of all incidents reported.
This type of fraud is so popular due to the vast number of online forums and sales sites, the ability to buy and sell online is so easy. This type of fraud happens when the sale of goods or services paid for are not received or a different item is delivered.
The type of fraud which has seen the most growth is phone fraud, this is where a text messaging service will send through information, but your reply will cost anywhere from £1.50 to £15 PER TEXT!
NHS scams have become increasingly popular, fraudsters pretending to be from the vaccination centres or Track and Trace have fraudantley taken over £1.5bn in just the last year alone.
At Mayne Gas Heating, we are highlighting the issue of fraud to help our clients be more vigilant. We will only ring you on the contact number which you provided us, we will not ask you to send any details to us via text or ask you to reply to a text message. We would ask that you ring us to make payments, or even come into our new HQ on King Edward Street Grimsby to make payments, just to ensure you're 100% happy with who it is you're speaking with.
