Bank phone fraud warning issued

A warning has been issued recently to consumers with regards to the high level of phone related bank fraud, with officials stating that it is vital that people receiving a call from someone claiming to be from their bank do not give out any account or password details to the person. Many people in the Scottish Highlands have apparently already been hit with high levels of phone bank fraud.

Officials from the banking industry have warned bank customers to be careful, and have said that if there is any doubt about who the person on the phone is, and if the customer has not initiated the call from the bank, they should call the bank back to verify whether the call is authentic and not from a fraudster trying to obtain confidential details.

One police official said that many of those that had already fallen victim to these scams had lost substantial sums of cash to scammer by giving away their details. He said: “This is a scam that goes around on a fairly continuous basis. Some of the losses are in excess of between £10,000 and £20,000.”

One official said that changes were needed to safeguard consumers against this sort of situation, stating: “If banks want to make outgoing phone calls then they need to have a series of passwords or something else in place. They can’t on the one hand say don’t give out your details and on the other hand expect people to give out their details.”