The counter-fraud trade association Cifas is warning schools to be wary of requests for payments received from unknown callers. This follows reports of fraudsters contacting head teachers claiming a High Court Writ has been issued against them. Targets of this scam claim that after requests for a payment of up to £3,000 were refused, the fraudsters then apply additional pressure by claiming enforcement officers would be sent to the school.
Cifas is reminding schools to ensure that staff are trained to handle such situations, and that any schools approached with this scam should ask for the information to be emailed as well as a phone number to contact them back on. Staff should not engage in further conversation.
Criminals will often look to take advantage of complex situations and will use pressure tactics to encourage victims to part with either their information or their money. Cifas research shows that fraud is increasing on a yearly basis, with 2019 seeing the highest number of cases of fraudulent conduct ever filed to Cifas’ National Fraud Database. If approached out of the blue by someone asking for financial or personal information, the official advice is to:
Stop – take a minute and think about parting with your money or information;
Challenge – could it be fake? You can reject, refuse or ignore any requests you receive and only criminals would try to rush or panic you; and
Protect – if you think you’ve fallen for a scam, contact your bank immediately and report it to the official police Action Fraud call centre on 0300 123 2040.
With PSHE Association, the national body for Personal, Social, Health and Economic education, Cifas has created four Anti-Fraud Education lesson plans with accompanying resources. The lesson plans are targeted at 11-16 year olds and cover Key Stage 3 and 4.
Meanwhile, National Trading Standards (NTS) are running a Scamnesty (a scams amnesty) campaign in December whereby UK consumers can send in their unwanted mail into the team free. And the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) has seen evidence of an email scam centred around Royal Mail deliveries. An email appears in the inboxes of members of the public claiming that their Royal Mail delivery requires further information for successful delivery.
Katherine Hart, Lead Officer at CTSI, said: “Email scams like this one operate throughout the year, but they become more dangerous when parcel deliveries surge at Christmas time, and members of the public may confuse them for legitimate emails. These scams are by no means limited to email, but also appear in the form of texts, WhatsApp messages, and through the telephone. Scammers may claim to be from all kinds of delivery services, not just Royal Mail.
“Royal Mail, or any other legitimate parcel delivery service will not contact you out of the blue asking for personal details, and it’s especially a big red flag if it requests payment details.”
