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What is a scam and how to avoid them

WHAT IS A SCAM

A scam is a type of fraud, where you’re tricked into taking action that may give an unauthorised person access to an account, personal information or funds.

Scammers impersonate many types of businesses and organisations including banks, solicitors and financial advisers using emails, phone calls and texts that look and sound genuine.

Have you been contacted by Financial Advice Centre, but not sure if it’s us?

We will contact our customers by telephone, email, or letter. If you’re not expecting contact from us, it could be that it’s not us contacting you! Please read on for further details on how to spot scams and who to report them to.

TEXT MESSAGES (SMS)

We never use WhatsApp or other apps to communicate with customers.

Most phone providers are part of a scheme that allows customers to report suspicious text messages for free by forwarding it to 7726. If you’ve established, we didn’t contact you, if you forward the text to 7726, your provider can investigate the origin of the text and arrange to block or ban the sender.

PHONE CALLS

Phone scammers will call you unsolicited, pretending to be from an organisation you trust, such as your bank or the police or even us at Financial Advice Centre Ltd.

These scam calls may be automated, or from a real person. They may ask you for your personal information like banking details, passwords or tell you to transfer money.

We will only call during the hours of 9.00am – 5.30pm, Monday to Friday.

If you’re not sure if it’s us that called, best to hang up and call us back on a number you know to be ours (which you can get from our website).

If you’re worried you may have been scammed, please contact us.

EMAIL

We don’t typically use emails to instigate communication with our customers. Where we do, we will always address you personally and from @face-uk.com.

We will never send you an email asking for your any platform log-in details or for any personal information used to identify yourself when you telephone us or direct you to a web page that asks for personal information used to identify yourself.

Should you receive a suspicious email appearing to be from us, please forward to report@phishing.gov.uk. This is the reporting service of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). If the NCSC discover activity that they believe is malicious, they may:

  • seek to block the address the email came from, so it can no longer send emails
  • work with hosting companies to remove links to malicious websites
  • raise awareness of commonly reported suspicious emails and methods used (via partners)

Whilst the NCSC is unable to inform you of the outcome of its review, they can confirm that they do act upon every message received.

BE AWARE OF PENSIONS SCAMS

Scammers can be articulate and financially knowledgeable, with credible websites, testimonials and materials that are hard to distinguish from the real thing. Scammers design attractive offers to persuade you to transfer your pension pot to them or to release funds from it. It is then invested in unusual and high-risk investments like overseas property, renewable energy bonds, forestry, storage units, or simply stolen outright.

Find out more from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) www.fca.org.uk/scamsmart

BEEN SCAMMED?

If you’ve been scammed using any of the above methods that resulted in a loss to you, please report to Action Fraud on their website reporting.actionfraud.police.uk or calling them on 0330 123 2040.

MORE INFORMATION

We may update and change our site from time to time to reflect changes to our business priorities.

You can read more about fraud on:

www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/scams

THE LATEST SCAM ALERTS FROM WHICH?

The scams you need to know about this month, including fake phishing emails and dodgy energy calls…

Visit the Which? website