Stay Safe Online

In the UK, you are now twice as likely to be the target of an impersonation scam.  Criminals are experts at pretending to be from organisations like your bank, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), your internet service provider, and even the police, so it’s important to know what to look out for.

Criminals will create a sense of urgency.  If you are told that ‘your money is at risk’ or ‘your account will be blocked’ if you do not act immediately, this is a scam.

The bank and the police will never ask you to move your money to ‘keep it safe’ or to ‘support a criminal investigation’ – this is a scam.

Never share information like your card reader code or one-time passcode.  If someone is asking you to do this, it’s a scam.

Watch out for scam emails like this fraudulent email – note the email address it is from – and it is addressed to ‘recipients’

whereas the real email from hmrc.gov.uk (below) – is addressed to a personal email address.

Ask us about installing security software – like Malwarebytes that actively prevents infections and removes malicious software – it’s free – and protects against malware, viruses, adware, spyware, Trojans and other threats.

Scam phone calls

Criminals can now spoof their phone number to make it look like you’re receiving a call from a genuine organisation.  If in doubt, hang up and call the organisation directly using a number you’ve personally found.

If someone wants to make an appoointment to see you – get their phone number and phone them back.  You can search for the phone number in Google first to check it’s a real business.

Sign up here for Which? Scam alerts direct to your inbox:

https://campaigns.which.co.uk/scam-alert-service/

Find details of recent scams here: www.actionfraud.police.uk and on our Facebook page:
Rainford-it-stay safe online and on our blog on our website.

Rainford-IT are part of Strawberry Fields – Nominet Channel partners and Cisco network partners.  We can register and renew domain names. We manage our own servers, email, IT and website hosting.  We can fix most hardware – Macs as well as Windows – desktops and laptops.    It’s a family business and we provide a personal service.

www.rainford-it.co.uk     01948 840102

Published in the August edition of the Whitchurch Gossip