Fraud and scam events

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to this Barclays virtual event.

Scams, do you really know who you're talking to?

Impersonation scams is a really hot topic, and we could all be a target.

So a little bit of context before we get started.

Criminals or experts impersonating people and organisations we trust, such as the police, your bank, a delivery or utility company.

They take advantage of current affairs and the economic climate and maximise the opportunity to target you, hoping you'll let your guard down for just a moment.

Today you'll learn from our experts about the latest trends in impersonation scams and how to help protect yourself and your money.

So just some introductions.

Firstly, I'm Ross Martin, head of Digital Safety for the Barclays Digital Equals Programme.

And I'm really pleased to say I'm joined today by our guest speakers, Samantha Cooper, head of Fraud Prevention at Barclays.

Samantha will be providing an insight into what Barclays are doing to proactively support our customers to protect themselves through education and awareness and give you some examples of scams we have seen to bring them to life.

I'm also really pleased to say I'm joined by Catriona Still, head of fraud prevention at the dedicated card and payment crime unit.

Catriona will be sharing her knowledge and expertise on the tactics techniques used by today's criminals and how changing your mindset, and some behaviours can reduce the risk of losing money to this crime.

And we want this to be a really interactive event.

So please submit any questions you have throughout the event using the option in the top right corner of your screen.

I would then look to share as many of these questions with our speakers towards the end of today's event.

So without further ado, I'm now going to hand over to Catriona Still amazing.

Thanks very much, Ross.

Thanks for the update and the intro and good afternoon.

Thank you all for taking the time out of your busy days in order to come and hear what we have to say when really here to try and change your mindset and try and prevent you being the next victim of a scam.

I've been in fraud now for 20 years, and it's fair to say I've seen a lot change in that time.

The criminals are getting very sophisticated.

They're very clever, very, very good at what they do.

And so I genuinely and I'm saying this from the bottom my heart, I genuinely believe any one of us can be the victim of a scam if caught at the wrong time for us and the right time for criminals That's something we call situational vulnerability.

It might be that you're busy arranging, I don't know, a meal for your elder parents or your parent responsibilities.

And if you're caught at the wrong time and they're putting pressure on you, I genuinely, genuinely believe that each one of us can be the victim.

So don't think this can't happen to you.

I genuinely think it can.

And I've seen it happen to everyone ranging from barristers, law enforcement, and anyone of us can be caught at the wrong time.

So the first thing I want to concentrate on today is I just want to give you a little bit of an idea about what we're talking about.

So give you a little bit of context.

Have a look at some of the industry stats.

Just have a bit of an idea about what that looks like to us.

So when we look at how much fraud and scams are costing the industry, that's not just the Barclays customers that to all financial industry.

The UK finance statistics are showing us that £609.

8 million £609.

8 million was lost to authorised and unauthorised fraud and scams in the first half of 2022.

That is absolutely staggering when you think how much money that is, that is a significant amount of money.

The point I want to make on that when I talk about authorised and unauthorised, just so you have a bit of an understanding about what that is, an authorised payment is one where the criminal will coach you into making that transfer.

So for example, you might receive a phone call telling you that phoning from the police and that they need to move your money to to a safe account or phoning from your bank and needing to move money to a safe account.

If they get you to do that transaction themselves, that's called authorised because it's you doing it from your own device.

Unauthorised will be where criminals are doing that transaction themselves.

Just so you got a bit of an understanding about that.

Now interestingly, if we look at how much was actually prevented in the first half of last year, £584 million was actually stopped.

That's using the advanced security systems of the banks.

That again is a significant amount of money.

And on average we're preventing about 67.

3 pence in every pound.

It's roughly around that that amount.

So we're not doing a bad job.

But the truth of the matter is this always that more can be done, always more that can be done.

And I can give you my guarantee that together we are doing what we can to try and prevent the scammers.

Now let's have a look at one of the scam types.

This is something I want to concentrate on today impersonation scams.

Okay, Now impersonation is split into two different types.

One is impersonation of bank staff and police, and then the other is impersonation of utility companies, Something like that.

Impersonation scams are a major problem for us at the moment.

This is where somebody will be claiming they are someone when they're not so let's use the example of impersonation of bank staff or of police staff.

I want to again give you a little bit of an idea about what statistics are looking like this just so you can get a flavour of how much this is costing the industry.

Again, we're going to look at the first half of last year because we've got this, that's for this at the moment, the first half of 2022 industry figures from UK Finance are showing a loss of £59.

6 million on impersonation of bank staff or of police.

Okay, impersonation of utilities, mobile phone companies, etc.

We're looking at £30.

9 million and then romance frauds.

Again, I see that as a type of impersonation that is £16.

6 million.

Okay, This is how much it is costing us.

These are the cases that we know about that have been reported in in the first six months of last year.

Now, we do have some up to date statistics which UK Finance just released earlier this week.

This week because it is this week take five to stop fraud week.

This is where we do planned action to try and reduce people becoming the victim of scams and we've got some up to date industry stats, which I'm pleased to be able to share with you today.

The the whole of 2022 impersonation scams have cost 177.

6 million.

Look how much that's jumped from the first half of last year up to £177.

6 million.

That's around about 45,000 cases reported in to us.

And like I said, that's only what we know about.

That's not the cases where people haven't actually reported it to their bank.

Some people feel embarrassed or ashamed or guilt and don't report it.

Please do not feel ashamed or embarrassed.

As I said, I genuinely believe anybody can be a victim of a scam if caught at the wrong time for you and the right time for the criminals.

I talk about five different pillars that will cause this effect.

This is what the criminals use in order to target you.

So if you receive a phone call out of the blue, you'll always have they'll provide a bit of context for you.

They'll use authority.

So they'll say, Hi, it's Cat calling from the dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit.

I need to talk to you today.

We've arrested somebody that's got so-and- so they've got this and they've got cards or whatever it might be in your name.

And I need to speak to you today about it.

They'll use urgency.

They'll say something along the lines of You must act now, because if you don't, all your money will be gone.

So they'll really pile that pressure on you.

They might use scarcity, they might say, but if you don't act now, you're going to miss out on this or you're going to lose more money.

This we often see this with investment scams where they will use scarcity.

You know, we've got a great offer for you today, but if you don't take this now, then this carbon credits, for example, they're going to rocket through or the Bitcoin are going to rocket through the costs an awful lot more.

Take that now, you know, take that opportunity now.

And the biggest one I concentrate on is that emotion.

They will turn this into something where you feel even nervous, scared they'll put you into that fight or flight mode you may have heard people talk about before.

They are just piling on that pressure in order to try and take advantage of you during those those moments where you might otherwise be really quite busy.

So what you'll see is that the stats are really quite frightening.

What we've seen over COVID certainly is we saw a slight increase from 2020 when it went up quite significantly and then it slightly dropped.

But as it happens, romance fraud has really, really taken hold.

And this is this is an area that certainly within the policing and within the banking industry that we're concentrating our efforts on try and prevent people becoming victims.

So if you receive unsolicited phone calls or emails that the tactics the criminals will use is they'll either be phoning you, they'll be sending you text messages, emails.

They may well even have fake websites or social media, social media posts, because the truth is their aim is to trick you into handing over your personal details, your passwords.

So what they'll then use with that data, they'll use that information to then target you and then to convince you to authorise those payments.

So it is certainly an area that we are genuinely concerned about and we want you as the customers to take back the autonomy to make the decision to say, you know what, stop, stop what you're doing, don't go any further.

It's okay to say no to the criminals.

If you receive an unsolicited phone call or an email or text message, you do not have to respond.

Okay.

The second thing we talk about in the Take Five campaign is to protect yourself and to protect your data.

If you've accepted a call, you've started passing some information over.

Don't worry, just stop.

Don't go any further and then phone your bank.

That's the first piece of advice I want to give you.

Make sure that you speak to your and speak to your bank and then also report it to action fraud.

We talk within the police world that within our police unit we look at organised criminal gangs that are responsible for these types of crimes.

And if we didn't have each of the jigsaw piece puzzles to build that picture, to go after the criminal gangs, it would make our lives an awful lot harder.

Every piece of that jigsaw will make that picture.

And so what I'm also going to be today is if you have been the victim of a fraud or a scam, report it to your bank or your financial institution, but also make sure that you're reporting it to action fraud.

Because if we don't have all of those pieces to that jigsaw puzzle, it does make it a very, very difficult landscape, a very difficult picture to get after those criminal gangs.

Now, when it comes to some of the work that we're doing in our police unit, we are targeting those criminal gangs that are going after you and after your data.

We deal with all sorts of different cases, and I know Sam will give you some examples of this in a little while, but I just wanted to give you a few that I'm hearing about a lot within our police department at the moment, within our police unit at the moment.

One of those is people calling, claiming to be from the police.

Now very clever how they do this because you automatically think, i’d know if it was the police that not hang up or put the phone down, I wouldn't speak to them.

If they call you and say hi, it's Cat calling from the Serious Fraud Office.

I believe somebody has got your data and I really want to make sure that they don't steal any more of your money.

Automatically.

I spoke about that cause it puts you into that kind of that they grab your emotion, they make you feel nervous.

Already, you're feeling like something's got to happen quickly.

They'll be putting the urgency on you.

They're really clever in what they do because what they will say is they'll say something like, But before I go any further, you need to check who I am.

Don't give out any of your data.

You must never give your data out over the phone.

What they'll ask you to do is to dial nine, nine, nine and ask to speak to the police to check who I am.

Now, what they'll ask you to do is to do that immediately so that the phone line is not disconnected.

Now, as far as you're concerned, you'll think you've put phone down and that the phone will be disconnected, but actually what they'll be doing you’ll phone through thinking you’re dialling nine, nine, nine and you'll hear somebody say which service you require today.

Was it the police, fire or ambulance.

So you think you've gone through to a call centre?

They might even have the background noise of a call centre.

Very, very clever in how they do it.

Then they'll have a different voice answer and then they'll put through to police.

When you've asked the police and they'll say, Oh yes, what was the warrant number of that officer that called 991325.

Let me just check.

Yes, I can confirm Catriona Still works for the Serious Fraud Office and that is her warrant number.

So you can continue that call in faith.

Now they automatically then when they go back to the criminal, think that they're speaking to a police officer.

So they will think they're involved in a police investigation, maybe looking at somebody working within the branch.

They might claim that it's to do with counterfeit notes being handed out.

And what they'll ask you to do is go into the branch and do a withdrawal.

Now, what you'll notice with this, they won't let you put the phone down.

They'll be on the phone with you all the way, coaching you, getting you to say the right things to the branch counter staff because the branch counter staff are wise to this and they will try and stop you in your tracks from doing those withdrawals.

It's a really good system that the banks have introduced right across the whole of the UK.

It's called banking protocol and it's trying to safeguard you from the scammers.

It's trying to prevent you from taking the money out and handing it over to a scammer.

So you might find if you go into your branch to do a genuine withdrawal, you might get a series of questions asked of you.

That is another security measure that the banking industry have introduced to try and prevent these scammers in their tracks and since inception is saved.

I must admit I don't know the exact figure off the top of my head, but I believe it to be around about £600 million.

That's just in the last few years.

That's a significant amount of money that it's blocked.

But that's why the criminals are now diverting their tactics and trying to go to the customers directly to do these withdrawals.

So if you are asked to go into a branch, you're told it's part of a police investigation.

I can guarantee it won't be okay.

I'm reading around about ten reports of this just in the Metropolitan Police area alone per day.

I dread to think what that is countrywide.

Okay, so any unsolicited phone calls?

Please don't go ahead with it.

Please take five.

Stop what you're doing and think about what it is they're asking of you.

It's okay to say no.

It's okay to hang the phone up.

And then what I would ask is that you phone your bank immediately, preferably from another phone, if you can, just in case that that phone line open or give it a few minutes before you then phone out.

What the criminals will do is try and keep that phone line open as long as possible because they don't want you phoning the bank.

Okay.

That's another tactic they'll use.

So you can see these are quite sophisticated scams and I genuinely believe a lot of people can be victim to the scams.

And like I said, the loss is significant.

£177.

6 million on this alone on impersonation frauds in the last 12 months.

That is a significant amount of money to be losing.

And we want you to take back that take back the autonomy.

It's okay to stop.

It's okay to say no.

The other thing I'd like to touch on Ross, is around data.

Criminals have access to data online.

Now they can purchase this.

It's like a business.

If I'm honest.

We've seen a business set up, so they will have an actual call centre.

They'll have people working for them who may not even really understand that they're involved in this.

They might think they've got themselves a part time job phoning out customers, trying to help them.

It's it's crazy that the data that is available online can be easily purchased is a driver of these frauds.

Okay?

So it's not just people getting the data off social media.

A colleague of mine that works in used to work in counter terrorism.

One of the things he's always said to me and when we do these presentations, he said all the training in the world showed me that I don't actually need all the training in the world in order to trace people.

People easily, readily hand out their data without thinking twice.

I don't know.

Another another way of looking at it is if you're in the in, I don't know, walking down the high street.

I'm in Uxbridge in West London today doing a presentation to branch staff and customers on theft of money and you see somebody with a clipboard.

What's the first thing you'll do?

You're a massive semicircle around them because you don't want to give your personal data out or, you know, you'll avoid eye contact, for example, because you don't want to give your data out.

You're too busy, you're nervous about who they are and what they're asking for of you.

But yet online, if somebody were to say, here's an offer for a £500 gift card to enter that all we need is your name, your email address, and your telephone number.

Would you do it?

I think a lot of us would.

I'm just asking you to challenge the amount of data that you share online on social media with these gift cards, because quite often that gift card is non-existent.

All they're doing is harvesting your data, taking your data.

They've now got your name, they've got your telephone number, and they've got your email address so that you can become their next target, their next victim.

So today, change the way you're working.

If you receive phone calls, it's okay to challenge, it's okay to stop.

And then most importantly, if you do receive one of those phone calls, make sure you protect yourself, phone your bank, let action fraud know any information that you can names that they've given, they might claim to be.

DC John Smith from Hammersmith Police Station.

Any information like that really helps us in our investigation work within the law enforcement unit in which we work.

That is it from me for now, Ross I will be coming back a little bit later just to talk through some of those key takeaways at the end.

But without further ado, I will pass back to you for now.

Ross.

Thank you.

Thanks so much.

Caitriona.

Just those numbers you've shared really show the size of the problem, it is something, isn't it?

And the techniques and tactics just also really bring to life how we can all easily fall into that trap even if we are au fait with technology.

So thank you so much, Caitriona.

So we’re going to hand, straight over to Samantha from Barclays, Head of Fraud Prevention.

Thanks, Ross, and thanks Cat, for providing all that information.

Really, really insightful.

I think challenging the data that we share is really, really key.

So I think it's great that we've been able to talk about that so afternoon everyone.

My name's Sam and I'm head of fraud prevention at Barclays.

I'm really, really happy to be here today taking part in this event and talking to you all about impersonation scams.

So our personal finances are more important than ever at the moment with the rising cost of living.

And many of us are looking at ways to reduce what we pay and to ensure that our money is safe.

Scams in general are on the rise and this is due to many factors when talking specifically about impersonation scams.

If we take the increased cost of living, there'll be many reasons why we could be more susceptible to being the victim of a scam.

For example, lots of us would have received a text message, presuming you’re with an energy provider that you are entitled to a rebate and for you to enter your details in order to get that rebate.

Now, factually, that is correct and that was correct, but we were entitled to that rebate.

However, these were automatically applied and not something that you would have had to have given your personal information for.

So the message would have actually been a scam.

Impersonation scams on the rise.

And this is one of the highest reported scam types which we see at Barclays.

So, Cat’s shared some really good examples.

And I'm just going to bring to life to you what we see within Barclays and how people can be targeted by these criminals.

So the first example that I'd like to talk about is where somebody impersonates your bank.

You may receive a text message or phone call advising you that your money is somehow at risk.

Now, obviously, if we received a message like this, of course, we would be in doubt straight away thinking, oh my God, what what's happening with the money in my account?

We want to make sure that it's safe.

Now, this would be a major, major concern if somebody is telling you this.

So I'd like to stress at this point that the number showing up on your phone might actually show as a Barclays telephone number.

So this is known as spoofing numbers can be easily spoofed to look like the real phone number.

And therefore, if you have any concerns, you should hang up and call the number on the back of your card.

You may also have been told by that person to just simply Google that number so you would have your phone gone to Google, type it in and yes, it will show as potentially being from your bank.

It will show as being from your bank because they have spoofed the incoming number to you.

So just keep that in mind on telephone numbers and calls that you receive.

So you may also be told by that person as well that your money is at risk and they have asked you if you've spent £300, for example, at John Lewis.

They'll ask you if you've spent that money, to which you would say no, and they would then pressure you into moving your money.

A bank would never, ever ask you to move your money to somewhere else.

And in this example, you would have been scammed into believing that you were talking with a member of staff.

Other impersonation cases, unfortunately, are where we see the elderly being targeted with someone pretending to be from the bank or the police will contact you advising that the branch staff cannot be trusted and that you must visit that branch to remove your money.

What would happen then is a courier will be arranged to meet you and to actually hand over that money to you.

Now, I just wanted to let you know about that scam type because as I said, it does target the elderly and people who may be more vulnerable to believing that the police or the bank want you to withdraw your money and to hand it over to somebody.

The next example is where scammers are impersonating children and targeting parents to give them money to help them out of a situation.

So this would be via a messaging service and quite common on WhatsApp.

I myself have received a message.

I have a two year old, my parents have received the message as well.

This is so, so common for people to receive this and to think, Oh, a child needs some money, I'm going to transfer them, transfer them some funds.

So the message will say something along the lines of Hi mum, I hope you're okay, This is my new number or I've lost my phone.

so using the friend’s.

I’ve an urgent bill that I need to pay, can you transfer some money?

We've seen in some instances customers responded and actually asking which child is sending the message.

And the scammers have replied, is your favourite or it's the youngest.

So if you receive a message like this, the easiest thing to do which is what we try to advise customers, is to stop, think and ring.

If you receive a message saying, This is my new number, I need some money, call the old number.

That's the easiest and quickest way to validate that it is your child sending you that that text message.

So I've seen examples of parents responding, asking if they're okay.

And of course, if your child is asking you for money, you're going to try and help them out but this scam is so, so common.

I know so many people have received this message.

My own mum's received this message.

And then later in the day she's asked me if I've sent her a WhatsApp asking for some money, to which I haven't.

The final example I want to talk through is HMRC scams.

So you'll be contacted by someone pretending to be from the HMRC or Ministry of Justice advising that you owe unpaid taxes and that you're going to be arrested if you don't pay.

Now this.

is absolutely not true.

So if you receive a message like this, you'll probably receive a link where they'll ask you to click on that link and fill out some personal information.

So again, stop, think could ring.

Easiest thing for you to do is to find the genuine contact details of HMRC and give them a call yourself.

So from the examples i’ve talked through, many of you may have been thinking how easy it can be to be scammed or you may have been thinking, I wouldn't have done that.

I would have spotted it straightaway.

So scammers are really sophisticated experts in what they do in customer service.

They're absolutely experts and they will make you believe you are speaking to a genuine person from an organisation.

So I'm going to talk through some warning signs now and what to look out for, which will help to prevent you being a victim of a scam.

So as Cat described earlier on, an impersonation scam is where a criminal will pretend to be someone from your bank, the police, a trusted organisation, or even a friend or family.

The sole reason is to convince you to send them money or provide your personal details which they can later use to target you with.

There are some things which I'd like you to be aware of and to look out for going forward.

And so you contacted out the blue by someone claiming to be the bank or the organisation requesting you to transfer money urgently or advise that your account is at risk.

Remember, nobody trustworthy will ever, ever ask you to do this.

So of course I just spoke about the family, children and parents scam type.

You already can have an element of trust if you think it's your child messaging you.

So just be careful if you receive anything out of the blue, just think that doesn't seem right.

I want to have a further look into that.

And as Cat said, it's okay to say no, so please just take that away.

If you've been contacted via suspicious email or text message or even a phone call, please avoid clicking on links that have been sent to you.

Never, ever download software, which somebody said to you that you need to download in order to, for example, move money to a safe account.

If you download that software that can give a scammer access to all of the information that you have on your phone laptop, or any device that you've got, they would have access to it.

Never feel rushed, pressured or forced into making a payment.

Always make sure you're comfortable and are happy with the requests being made.

If in doubt, use a trusted source such as the company's website, or if someone is claiming to be from the bank, simply call the number on the back of your card so that you can make contact yourself in order to avoid an impersonation scam.

One of the things that we say is the easiest thing for you to do is to change the method of communication.

And so if you've received a text message or if you've received a phone call, just go and verify that yourself and make new communication.

So that will stop scammers being able to keep you on the phone.

As Cat said, they want to keep you on the phone so that you don't ring the bank.

So change the method of communication, which will help.

At this point.

I'd like to highlight another growing scam type, which we see and you may have seen this on the news as well, which is romance scams.

Now, romance scams differ to impersonation where the scammer has emotionally manipulated you into believing that they are in a relationship with you in order for you to willingly give them money.

Now, as you can imagine, this is extremely upsetting for customers who have been a victim of a romance scam as emotionally this can be absolutely heartbreaking.

It's shockingly cruel what they do to people and is something that we are working hard to tackle and to break the spell that these scammers are putting people into.

So some top warning signs for romance scams are when you've not physically met the person very often have not actually met them face to face.

Most likely wouldn't have spoken to them even, and the most communication that you would have had would be via a text message or email.

These payments will often be low in value, very high in volume, and the reason for the request will always differ.

So it might be, for example, they need some money for medical bills or they want some money to actually buy a plane ticket so that they can come and see you.

And of course, that will never happen.

Something will come up and they'll ask you for more money so that they can make a fresh attempt to come in, come in to meet you.

If the person you're communicating with is giving you instructions on how to get the payment through our bank systems or coaching you on what to say to us as the reason why you are transferring money, then ask yourself two things.

One, why and how do they know this?

And two, if it's legitimate, why would you actually need to do this?

This is the same for all scams.

So the examples I've gone through are not an exhaustive list, so I'd encourage you all to visit: www.

barclays.

co.

uk/fraud-and-scams to see more details on how you can protect yourself and for more information on the latest scams.

So i’d next?

Like to talk to you about what Barclays are doing to protect you.

So we have specialist systems in place which will monitor payments 24 by seven.

And we have highly skilled colleagues who will sometimes make contact with you where we feel we need to talk about a payment and understand if it could potentially be a fraud or a scam.

We will have a conversation with you to determine if there are any scam concerns and determine if it is actually a genuine payment.

So we would like to have an in-depth conversation with you about that.

When you make payment for the first time to someone new we’ll ask what the payment is for via your mobile banking and will provide guidance which we encourage you all to follow before making that payment.

It's really, really important that you answer the reason for that payment truthfully as this will help us to prevent you from being a victim of a scam.

If you have already been a victim of a scam, we will provide you with additional support where you can seek guidance and speak to an independent charity that would be able to help people who have been a victim of a crime.

And remember, please be mindful.

This is something Cat suggested earlier as well.

Please be mindful of the information that you share online.

I see a lot of accounts on social media where phone numbers are listed.

For example, in a profile section, it will say that they are a brother or a sister or a mother and going back to the child and parent scam type, this is really easy to use that data to target people with.

So please do your own independent checks as well.

When making payments, we would want you to be comfortable with who you are paying and that you've verified that information yourself.

So I'm going to hand back over to Cat now to talk about Take Five.

Thanks, Sam.

Just a couple of bits I wanted to pick up on because you raised some really valid points there.

One of the things on romance fraud from a police perspective that it's always worth doing, if you've got an image of an individual, you can actually copy and paste that into a Google search or Bing search, whichever one you want to use, and to what's called a reverse image search that will show you if that image is popping up elsewhere.

Okay.

So from a romance perspective, it's not a bad idea just to give it a go if you're in a relationship.

And as Sam said, that they're so, so good at this.

This is what they do day in, day out.

And with unfortunately, quite a few different people.

And another point on romance fraud.

This is affecting people of all ages and it certainly increased significantly during COVID.

And I think part of that was down to isolation, people being isolated from their friends and family and not necessarily talking to anybody else.

And, you know, people looking for company and friendship.

And the scammers genuinely think that they're doing something, doing you a service by speaking to you.

It's it's insane.

I've been speaking to one of our police officers who's investigating this.

And in a faraway land, I won't say which country is.

And yeah, that their children that are children that are doing this, they I think they're doing nothing wrong.

And that's the way that they make their money.

Unfortunately, it has a devastating impact on people speaking to victims where they, you know, they genuinely lost their independence.

That too embarrassed.

They don't talk to anybody about it.

They won't tell their family because they've you know, they feel shame, guilt.

We've spoken already about this this morning.

And I genuinely just want to make the point that you should feel absolutely no shame, guilt or embarrassment if you're the victim of a romance fraud or any other scam, because like I said right at the beginning, genuinely, this can happen to any one of us.

So please do report it.

Do a reverse image search.

Just another method there just to try and stop them in their tracks.

And the other bit I just wanted to point out you spoke about data as well.

Sam, and I mentioned that in my talk too, because it is if they don't have the data, they can't be phoning you, they can't be making contact with you.

So do you please really think about who you're sharing your data with?

Data is sold online and in a marketplace a bit like eBay.

If any of you have done eBay and people have reviews on how well or how good their data is and if the card is blocked, they bought the criminals bought, they give them a refund.

You know, it is a marketplace.

I just want you to understand that this is happening, day in, day out, online.

Law enforcement do as much as they can to try and prevent it, but it still sneaks through.

It's a bit like with the banking industry.

They'll do as much as they can, but unfortunately, there is always going to be a way round for the criminals.

I'm so sorry, on that point.

Getting back to the Take Five to Stop Fraud campaign, I did mention already that it is take five to stop fraud week.

This is a whole week of of different campaigns that we're doing to try and educate the public on how they can prevent themselves Being the victim of scam and fraud.

And you can look for this information if you go online on to take five to stop fraud, you can do a search and it will tell you all about it.

We've covered off what those three key parts are here.

And I'm going to say it again because I think it's really, really important.

It's okay to stop.

Okay.

It's okay if somebody is asking you or you're in a relationship with someone that you're now thinking, is this okay?

It's alright to stop, it's okay to speak to somebody about it.

Okay.

You don't have to continue.

You can stop.

Is it fake?

It's okay to reject.

It's okay to refuse it.

And it's okay to not answer the phone if you choose not to.

And then finally, it's about making sure that you protect your account and your data.

So if you know, if you've received a phone call, you've received a text message or an email, you can send that on.

Let your bank know immediately.

First point of call is always going to be your bank, your financial institutions, so they can protect your accounts.

And then as I've said before, I need your jigsaw piece puzzles.

I need those pieces of the puzzles so that we can try and put them together to get after the organised criminal gangs that are making an awful lot of money out of this and unfortunately funding some really horrific crimes.

So we need your help.

Everybody on the call today, take heed and do what you can to try and prevent yourself being the victim of a scam.

Thanks, Ross.

Thank you so much, Cat.

And thank you, Sam, for sharing all of your insight.

I think I just want to make the point that impersonation scams are the second highest in terms of all the scam types we see, and that's in terms of the volume.

So there are so many different variations, and this is why we have to not let our guard down.

So what I'd like to do now is move onto the Q&A section.

Thank you so much for your questions.

We have had hundreds of questions, and I'm going do my best to get through as many of those as I can.

So keep your answers fairly brief.

But I will be coming onto some of the resources where you can find answers to the questions that we might not be able to get through today.

So let's move on to these questions.

And Cat, Sam, I’ll pose these to both of you, and it's really good to get your thoughts.

So, Cat, if I could start with you, what should I do If I think I've spoken to a scammer?

Yeah, unfortunately, I think we've just covered this one off.

The first thing you can do is put the phone down.

If you think even halfway through the conversation, I almost think we're too polite as a nation.

If you're feeling uncomfortable, you don't think something's right, or you just having listened to our advice, you now take a call, It's okay to actually hang up on them.

It is okay to put the phone down.

And it's quite interesting when you do that because their language changes.

They go from being this ever so amazing.

Sam spoke about how good they are at customer service.

They go from amazing customer service to the worst customer service you can ever experience.

Just very briefly, I read a report just yesterday that came through the met, of a 92 year old lady who had taken a call.

She didn't believe it was right.

She put the phone down and they called her a horrible horrible word and she's actually quite traumatised by the whole experience.

So we have got some specialist officers that are now supporting her through that.

So it's okay to stop and it's okay to hang up on them.

And then the first thing to do is to contact your bank, make sure that you secure your banking information Thanks, Cat.

And a two part question for you also.

So the first one is I receive a large number of texts claiming to be from Royal Mail or HMRC.

Who should I report these to?

But also who should I report the emails to as well?

Yeah, great.

Great question that one, Ross.

Thank you.

I haven't brought this up yet, but I was going to if it didn’t come in the Q&A.

That's great.

If you receive a text message that you believe to be scam, it could be from HMRC.

DPD Royal Mail.

You probably all have them.

I know I have.

The first point to make is, the banking industry have been working with the mobile network operators to try and stop this.

So actually I'd like to think you've all seen a massive reduction in this, which in a way Sam was speaking earlier about the WhatsApp scams.

It's moved it to WhatsApp.

The bonus is now that you can forward any text messages you get to 7726.

Now it's spells spam on your keyboard.

You know how your numbers have got letters as well.

It spells spam: S-P-A-M.

Okay, so please do forward any text messages that you get to spam.

The thing to do is with emails is to report them to or send them on to report@phishing.

And that's spelt P-H I-S-H-I-N-G .

gov.

uk and then the National Cyber Security Centre will make sure that that is investigated too.

That's me.

Did I answer both of those?

Ross, Covered them both?

Yeah, that's great.

And what I do know is that information obviously helps the likes of law enforcement to to take down these sites and to stop other people falling victim.

So yeah, as it happens, our police unit.

Sorry to interrupt you, Ross.

I do apologise.

Cutting over you.

The police unit in which I work, the dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit, doesn't take reports from the public.

We're looking at the organised criminal gangs that we're trying to get up the chain as it happens during COVID times.

I think it was 24 arrests we made of people sending out those text messages, those Royal Mail scams, etc.

And if you want to look that up, you can look it up on its website called UK Finance.

And if you look up DCPCU press statements, you'll be able to see all the great news and all the work we do.

You can also follow us on our Twitter account and our LinkedIn pages too.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Cat.

So sorry.

No, absolutely.

There's some great, great stories and resources there, I can definitely vouch for that.

Sam, I'm coming over to you if I can.

So when I received a call from the bank, you ask for my personal details, but you've called me.

Why do you do this?

So, yeah, that’s a really good question.

We do get this a lot from customers.

So firstly, I think as I said earlier, if we're suspicious of a payment, we will want to make contact with you so that we can protect you.

So we want to have a conversation about that payment.

So we will need to identify you obviously, so that we can be sure that we are talking to the genuine customer and that your mobile phone number - Your mobile phone hasn't been stolen and we get through to somebody else and it's a fraudster that we then end up talking to.

So the easiest way for us to verify you, and for you to be sure that you're speaking to a member of staff from Barclays is using the Barclays Mobile Banking app and you would be able to authenticate on that application on your phone and confirm that you are speaking to Sam, from Barclays.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Sam, another question for you.

How do I know an email I've received is fake?

Okay.

So I think we all receive a lot of emails, don't we?

A lot of spam.

So so much that we've got coming through.

Now.

If I was to receive an email from HMRC saying that I owed tax and I was going to be arrested if I didn't give them the money and if I double click on that email, it will give you the full email address in there.

So it won't just say HMRC.

If you go into it, you'll see the full address.

And if that email address was from a Hotmail account, I would think straightaway, why would HMRC be using a Hotmail account to email me?

So straightaway I'll think that suspicious.

So if you receive an email, just have a look at the full address, and then have a look online If you think it's suspicious and find out what the actual email address is.

Excellent.

Thanks again, Sam.

I'm actually going to answer a question here myself that's come in.

I think it's a really key question.

So someone's asked what is the most prevalent type of scam?

So in terms of Barclays data research that we've done in the last six months, the most prevalent type of scam by volume would be purchase scams.

So this is things that we buy through potentially fake websites, fake social media adverts.

And then in terms of the actual value and the most prevalent scam types are actually romance scams, which both Cat and Sam have touched on.

And also investments scams.

These really important for people just to know the the most popular type of scams we're seeing both by volume and by value Sam could I also ask you one question we've had is my mobile has the Barclays app and if my mobile is stolen, how do I ring?

So if you have if your mobile is stolen, give us a call on the number on the back of your Barclays debit card.

That would be the easiest way for you to get in contact with us.

And you know that you'll be through to the correct area.

So I think and I'd stress that as well, if you receive the call from us or someone pretending to be us and you're really not sure, call the number on the back of your card.

yeah, definitely.

Over to you Cat.

Is it possible to receive a call showing it's from England, but the original call is from abroad?

Yeah, absolutely.

So Sam picked up on this one earlier, and I'm really glad that she covered it off because it is one of the biggest precursors to fraud.

It's an enabler.

It's happening.

They they will identify a phone number.

They can they can spoof a phone number for it to be whatever they want it to be.

Again, the banking industry have done a lot to try and prevent this.

So actually, these days, somebody can't spoof a bank's telephone number.

I'm saying that with my fingers crossed.

I know there's been a huge amount work done on this.

I'm pretty certain now they cannot now spoof any of the bank numbers, which is great.

Of course, what they can do is try and spoof other numbers that look like it and they can spoof utility companies or they can spoof police, etc.

So there's a huge amount of work being done in the background to try and stop that.

But absolutely, somebody phoning from abroad can make it look like it's a call in Newcastle or Edinburgh or wherever it might be.

I had one.

I was out doing some branch training last week on again, thefts, because this is a big problem in certain parts of London at the moment where people are doing cash withdrawals over the branch counter and then people are being followed and then having their money stolen.

It's pretty awful.

And when I was in that branch doing that training, I had exactly that happen.

I had a phone call supposedly from Nottingham and it wasn't.

You know, I'm kind of fortunate I can pass that on to our cyber gurus to have a look at so they possibly phoned the wrong person.

But absolutely.

Yep.

Anybody can.

You can phone from a different country and make it appear like it's from any number.

Thanks Cat.

So staying with you, this is the $64,000 question.

Very popular question.

Whenever we run, these events are scammers ever caught?

Can you tell me why it's difficult to identify scammers?

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, yes, scammers are caught, but boy, is it difficult.

And as I said, part of this is down to a lack of reporting.

We know that the statistics we've got are probably only the tip of the iceberg is the truth of it.

So it is a is a massive challenge for us within law enforcement.

Fortunately, you do have a dedicated card and payment crime unit, the police unit in which I work, and we are paid for by all the banking industry and our purpose is to go after those organised criminal gangs and we do a pretty sterlingjob of it.

As I mentioned, you can have a look on the website UK finance website under press news releases and you can hear about some of those stories.

But it is a challenge Ross.

I do feel like we're constantly fighting a battle and one of our biggest challenges is indeed the fact that a lot of this is originating abroad.

I would love to have our officers working out from abroad and as I said, I know some that are trying to do work with some of those countries, but politically there's a lot of corruption in some of those countries.

So if we plough some money into trying to prevent it, is the money going to the right place?

There's there's an awful lot of challenges that I won't get into today that we're meant to be keeping these answers quite brief.

So, yes, there is great work being done by organised police units and we have economic crime units, the economic crime units around the whole of the UK that are trying to target some of these organised criminal gangs that are in the UK.

But just for context, I think 46% of all reported crime in the UK is fraud or cyber enabled, 46% of all crime, but yet only 1% of police resources goes on to it.

So we have some massive challenges, really big challenges, and I can only tell you that the officers that I work with, we are dedicated.

We genuinely want to stop them in their tracks and we work with the banking industry very closely.

In order for us to do that.

We're very fortunate that you've got a bank sponsored police unit that are going after these organised criminal gangs and we do a pretty good job of that, but we are only scratching the surface.

I wish we had more resources.

Thank you, Cat.

So this question potentially for both of you, I'll come to you first.

Sam and then Cat, be good to get you your view.

Somebody asked what responsibilities do the receiving banks have so we would make contact with the receiving bank.

If so, for example, if we know that there's been a payment that has been transferred, we would make contact with them to make them aware and they would carry out their own investigation as well.

So there is a responsibility on both parts to ensure that there's checks in place for payments going out and then subsequently the payments coming in.

So we would look at it from both angles, for example, within Barclays fraud operations and similarly, the other banks would do the same.

So there's prevention checks in place.

A point I'd like to make on this one is if you've not heard of the term money mules, it's worth having a look at money mules.

Do a bit of a search for a money mule.

What is a money mule?

One of the biggest problems we have, Sam and Ross will know this well themselves is that criminals will launder those funds through numerous bank accounts.

So a lot of people might think, well, why don't you just phone that the money's gone to NatWest.

Why don't you just find the NatWest and get the money back?

But what will happen is the money will go there pretty quickly and then it gets dispersed very quickly out to lots of different accounts and then that money's gone.

And then again, if it goes abroad, if it's, you know, out to cryptocurrencies, for example, it can make a big challenge going after those funds.

So money muling is a big problem.

That is where people will allow other people to use their account.

They might get paid £50 if they actually get the money in the first place to allow that money to be filtered through their account and they won't realise that what they're doing is facilitating money laundering.

So that is one of our biggest problems is the fact that money mules are facilitating these crimes.

Very difficult for us to stop because ordinarily it's everyday accounts, you know, if money just goes in and out of somebody’s account that’s always using their account it’s very difficult for us to spot.

So they're not just opened to facilitate this.

They might be somebody’s account that they're just allowing the criminals to use.

So it makes it very, very tricky to to spot, detect and block.

And just on that as well Cat, I was just going to mention so we do see reports I can see it myself online on social media.

These messages are getting out there.

So if you go on to Snapchat now, you could see something on there that is trying to entice you to sell your account to somebody.

So while social media, is it its reach is just incredible.

So young people, for example, may think, oh, that's a very, very quick way to make some money.

Potentially and may sell their account.

So just be careful.

That's really valid.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A good part on that.

Say in our police unit we have got something called trusted status with Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, where if we identify those accounts, we can get them closed down by those organisations.

So we do a huge amount of work trying to stop that.

But of course it pops up time and time again.

So I think that's a really valid point.

It is widely available as a resource for people who are criminals to use.

Thank you both.

Really appreciate all of your, your insight, your knowledge.

There are lots and lots of questions.

So a huge thank you.

Unfortunately not time to get to all of them.

But what like to move on to now, which will help to certainly answer some of those other questions you have.

I'm just going to mention a couple of really useful Barclays Resources.

Now, the First one is on our website.

So simply search for Barclays fraud and scams.

And this will take you to our fraud and security hub and as it says, help you stay one step ahead of the criminals.

You've got the the link on the page as well.

And there's also a QR code.

So if you've got your phone to hand or a spare device, you scan the QR code using your camera or your QR code app, you'll be able to get straight to to that home page.

Now, on this particular hub, there's info on the latest scams and you can learn more about specific types of scams.

Some others that we may not have covered today and really crucially, how to protect yourself.

There are some best practices to stay safe online.

There's a lot more to think about when it comes to using the Internet, using technology, thinking about passwords.

So lots of useful information that covers staying safe online.

There's a great jargon buster, lots of terminology that we use.

So do have a look at that.

And also at the bottom of this page that you'll come to, there is an other resources section where you can get help and support from other organisations.

And one in particular I would like to point out is victim support.

So if people do unfortunately fall victim, it's a great organisation that can help people because when we talk about scams, it's not just the financial impact, it's the physical and the mental impact that it has on people.

So that's the Barclays website.

And then just moving on to the website, Barclays Digital Wings, this is managed by the team that I work in, the Digital Eagles.

It's a free platform and I'd like to draw your attention to and by using the menu across the top, our digital courses, when you scroll down, you'll find a particular course called Being Safe and Legal Online.

So this is one of the essential digital skills that we all need to to have to help protect our data and our money.

What you'll find here and across all of this platform is interactive content.

There are quizzes that you can take to really embed the knowledge that you need in order to protect yourself.

Well, you'll also find on this platform is lots of other useful content on all types of digital skills, not just talking about fraud and scams.

So please do immerse yourself in the platform.

Please share this with family and friends in order to help other people grow their digital skills.

One other thing I'd mention again, it's on the top menu is why not think about signing up to become a digital champion?

One of the big things we focus as part of this programme, again, it's a free programme, is how to improve our knowledge on fraud and scams.

So you can pass on all of that knowledge to to other people.

So that's how Digital Champions Program, what I'm going to do now is we just come to, to towards the end I'm going to hand back to Sam and Cat to share their key takeaways.

We've covered an awful lot today, but both Sam and Cat have three key takeaways they'd like to share with you.

So thank you.

Just very quickly, because I know we're short on time now, but if you've been a victim, please report this to your bank so that we can investigate it and that we can also help and protect other people from being a victim as well.

If you receive a suspicious message, as I've said earlier on, please try and verify that communication independently.

If you if you've received a text message, have a look for the genuine contact number and make contact that way instead.

And the third thing is please discuss what you've heard here today with your friends and your family to spread the word.

It's just get the message out.

Thank you.

I'll keep mine really brief.

I'm conscious of time.

And one thing we haven't mentioned, but I do want to make this point to treat your passcode the same as you with your pin.

So one time passcodes are for you, for you alone not to hand out over the phone.

So never give out a one time passcode over the phone.

The criminals will tell you they need it in order for A, B and C they don't.

The bank will never be asking you for a one time passcode.

And if you feel any pressure at all, I spoke about five things to look out for context.

They're using the here and now add authority, urgency, scarcity and emotion.

If you feel pressure stop what you're doing, it's okay to say no and hang up.

And finally, back to the same point, report your cases to your bank and to action fraud.

Please.

Many thanks.

Sam, Cat, thank you so much for those those are some really as it says, important key takeaways for everybody.

And two last things for me.

The first one is following today's virtual event, you will receive an email from Digital Eagles events that will be the subject title, I can assure you can trust this email that has come from us and there is a link in there.

We would really appreciate your feedback on today's event.

It's a very quick survey, really helps us shape future events that we will be running later this year.

So you will see those promoted.

So if you can take the time to complete our survey, much appreciated.

We'll take on board all the feedback for future events.

And the last thing is just to say a huge thank you.

First of all, thank you to Sam and Cat, excellent guest speakers for your insight and knowledge.

It's been so useful.

I'm sure it's added a huge amount of value to the audience and a huge thank you to everybody who's joined today, who's taken the time.

As I said at the beginning, it's a really hot topic and we had a huge interest in this event, which really just confirms that it's on people's minds.

They want to learn more.

I guess what we do ask of everybody is to to share this with friends and family, as Sam said in her key takeaway.

Take five.

It will be a very good way to to protect yourself.

If there's one thing you do is take five and pause.

So thanks again, everyone, for joining.

I hope you enjoyed the event and we look forward to seeing you at a future Barclays event.

Good afternoon everyone and a very warm welcome to this Barclays event.

Money mules.

What are they?

And how to avoid the trap.

So firstly, some introductions before we hand over to our guest speakers.

Firstly, I’m Ross Martin, Head of Digital Safety at Barclays and I work in our Barclays Digital Eagles Team.

I'm delighted to say I'm joined by some excellent guest speakers, Sam Brooker from our Barclays Mules Team.

And I'm also delighted to say we're joined by Ebony King, Youth Advocate and Founder of Elevate Her UK charity.

Earning extra money for doing very little may sound attractive.

The promise on offer of easy money with no strings attached would lure many people in.

But what's the catch?

Today you'll be hearing from Sam, who'll be providing an insight into what the banking industry are doing to monitor and detect suspicious mule activity and what Barclays are doing to help protect and educate our customers.

You'll also be hearing from Ebony, who will be sharing her own story, how she was targeted and the consequences she has experienced as a result.

Towards the end of today's event, there will be a Q&A session.

So throughout the event, we would really like you to submit your questions using the functionality you see on-screen.

And we'll do our best to pose as many of these questions to Sam and Ebony.

So in the top right corner of your screen, you'll see the option to type your question and then simply click ‘Submit’ for us to receive your question.

So now I'd like to introduce our first guest speaker Sam Brooker, from the Barclays Mules Team.

Over to you, Sam.

Thank you, Ross, and welcome everyone, and thank you for joining us today to talk about this very compelling subject.

Money mules, so what are they?

I'm here to talk to you about how criminals use money mules to move money.

So let's start at the beginning and try to explain what a money mule actually is.

A money mule is someone who lets criminals use their bank accounts to move money.

Often that mule doesn't know what's really happening and has been manipulated into believing a cover story or lured by an offer of a repayment.

There are two main types of money mules.

One of those will be witting.

Witting mules are generally complicit with the crime.

They are aware of the criminal source of funds and typically they can be recruited using social media platforms.

Most commonly Instagram, WhatsApp or Snapchat.

Account holders are generally lured by quick cash opportunities and will disclose their account security details, payment cards and PINs in exchange for monetary rewards.

They may also receive and send on criminal funds themselves, but generally they're aware that what they're doing is actually wrong.

Then on the flip side, there’s the unwitting.

These individuals engage in mule activity generally under false pretences.

It could involve exploitation, where they're duped into distributing payments, while actually being scammed themselves.

You might also have heard the term ‘mule herder’.

So what is a mule herder?

Well, they are the key support to the criminal gangs as it's them who recruit the actual money mule to do the job for them.

They do that by searching your social media profile for information and then use it to befriend you, or trick you into receiving stolen money into your bank account.

That's the key thing that a mule herder is looking for - you to have a bank account.

They might approach you online through a messaging app or actually in person at the school gates or in the workplace or at university.

They are importantly the link between the mule and the organised crime gangs, or OCG’s as we call them, along with law enforcement.

These OCG's could be funding terrorism across the world like drugs or human trafficking - sexual exploitation.

And it scares me to think of the innocent people encountering these dangerous individuals.

So what does money mule activity actually look like?

Mule herders tend to lie to get what they want.

They might say it's quick and easy and, you know, no ramifications involved in doing it.

And it's an easy way to make money, or that they urgently need to receive a payment.

And you're the only one who can help them.

But they can't use their own account for whatever reason.

They might even offer a cash or gifts as a reward or incentive.

The herder will use that cover story as an excuse to pass you that stolen money.

They might ask you to open a bank account yourself, if you don't already have one.

They might transfer money to you or give you cash to pay into your account.

They could ask you to pass it on by a bank transfer, or withdraw it as cash, or even ask you to buy, to purchase a high value item in exchange for the money.

Importantly, passed back to the criminal network.

They might ask for your online banking details so that they can do the activities themselves on your own account.

Or they might ask for an activation code to access your banking app.

But importantly, it lets them access your account and use it to clean their dirty money.

Which means to essentially confuse the origin of the funds and to make those funds appear genuine.

They also could actually buy an item from you and ask to pay by bank transfer.

But the important thing is they tend to pay from a stolen account and you give them the item and often you can lose those funds once the criminal nature of them is understood by the banking system.

So is it a crime to act as a money mule?

Well, absolutely.

Yes, it is.

Unfortunately, handling money that comes from illegal activity is a crime, even if you don't know what you're doing.

Money can often be traced to someone who has been the victim of a scam or a fraud.

I'm sure we all know someone who has been affected by a scam at some point in the past.

Whether they're old or young, vulnerable or not, UK Finance, who are the trade association for the banking industry, have advised that over £1.

2 billion was stolen through fraud last year.

That's the equivalent of over £2,300 every minute.

Most importantly, if we didn't have mules, there would not be a route to take a lot of those funds from those victims.

They simply wouldn't be able to operate.

If you are a mule, the consequences can range from your bank account being closed, to even going to prison.

But what is the reality of getting caught and what impact could this have on your lifestyle or your future?

For most people, getting caught means that your bank account could be closed and you'll have problems opening a new one.

That makes paying your basic living expenses so much harder, removes any independence that you might have.

You could find it difficult to get credit like a student loan, phone contract, or a mortgage or a loan.

You could end up with a criminal record and that could affect your ability to get a job or to go to university.

But you could also go to prison for up to 14 years.

So it's important that you know the warning signs - the red flags to look out for.

This can help you identify mule herders and avoid falling for their tricks.

Or contact from someone that you don't know trying to befriend you, especially online or through a messaging app.

Look out for someone you may also, who may also ask you to move money for them.

Always check that you know where the funds have come from.

Look out for anyone you've met online, offering deals that sound too good to be true.

It often is.

Be suspicious of jobs offering quick and easy money with no experience necessary.

Be wary of anyone who asks to transfer money to your bank account for you to pass on to another account.

And take care when selling an item, where the buyer insists on paying by bank transfer or pressuring you for a quick sale.

Or even paying over the odds, that's not usual.

So what are Barclays doing to target mules?

We focus on prevention.

If we can prevent a mule, we can prevent a potential scam, and that means less victims.

We do this by providing targeted education to our colleagues and customers on how to protect themselves.

Our priority is to protect our customers as well as society in general of the dangers presented by criminal gangs who are at the heart of this problem.

Last year, 43% of mule cases identified by Barclays were individuals under the age of 25.

So we tend to do lots of targeted messages in those younger age categories.

The children's digital banking market is expanding.

UK finance revealed that the number of 14 to 18-year-olds misusing their bank account rose by 73% in the last two years.

There are even reports of children as young as 12 being persuaded to comply with the misuse of their accounts.

If we can't prevent someone being recruited, we do also monitor payments and react in the moment as time is of the essence to trap criminal funds before the mule can move them.

We also work with many suppliers who provide a range of ways to detect money mules.

But more than ever, we're sharing more information across the banking industry to jointly tackle the problem.

There is more government regulation coming to banks, which compels the whole industry to collaborate and work together.

Over the first six months of 2023, 17,286 cases involving money mule activities were filed.

And that includes 3,881 people under the age of 21.

A growing number of other age groups are also being recruited by criminal gangs too.

Between 2017 and 2021 we've seen a 34% increase in the number of accounts belonging to 40 to 60-year-olds displaying money mule activity.

That's really unusual.

But obviously, in trying to target all areas and all age groups in which mule operates, we know that genuine customers can sometimes be impacted as we try to look for suspicion.

So it may be that we have to delay payment sometimes just to check that we feel that the origins of that payment are genuine.

But a key priority for us is always to limit the impact on genuine customers.

We want Barclays to make money work for the genuine people, not the criminals.

And with that I'll hand back to you, Ross.

Thank you.

Thanks very much, Sam.

Really insightful.

Lots for us to think about, but really good to understand the size of the problem and what we're doing to really address it.

Thank you very much.

So, we're going to move on to our next guest speaker.

Ebony, thank you for supporting this event today, it’s much appreciated.

And I'm sure the insight and thoughts you're going to share will add so much value for everybody who's attending the event.

I'd like to ask you, first of all, if we were to rewind 12 years ago, can you share what happened to you?

What was your experience?

Thank you, Ross.

Good afternoon everyone.

What happened to me was that I actually trusted a friend, someone that was very close to me who was like a brother.

We were so close.

He was like an older brother to me.

And I had borrowed him some money.

It was something as little as, I think, £50 or something.

I had just finished sixth form college.

I was going into uni and I borrowed him £50.

He said he needed it desperately and in the past I've helped him.

He's helped me.

We had like a good relationship.

So I had no reason to think anything of it.

So I borrowed him the £50 and then I kept asking him, you know, when will you pay me back?

It took a while for him to pay me back.

And then one day, when he was ready to pay me back, he called me and told me that he has paid me back into my bank account because he had asked me for my bank account a few weeks before that.

And then I, you know, I went to the bank, not on the same day.

I can't remember exactly the timescale, but I eventually went to the bank to go withdraw some change out so that I can buy some things for my son and I, because I had just become a teenage mum as well at that time.

And it's important to note that this account was a savings account, it was a passbook account.

Therefore, I had no access to online banking.

I had no access to mobile banking at the time.

So when he did say that he had paid the money in, I couldn't check using my phone.

I couldn't check using laptop or internet.

I didn't have any internet access for this.

So I had to go into the bank with the passbook and go to the cashier and ask to withdraw some money.

So all this time, I'm just thinking like 'it's legitimate money' I didn't know it has you know, where, I didn't know the source of where the money would come from.

I just thought it was from him.

It wasn't until about I think six to nine months later, I was at my mum's house, and very early in the morning, I got the loud bang at the door and it was the police knocking on the door.

And so they basically they came to raid my mum's house.

And I was just in shock because I was literally the teenager.

I had just had a child.

And I was just thinking, what's going on?

So they took me - so when I got to the station and I found out what it was about, like what it was for, for fraud.

And I was still shocked because I didn't know what was going on.

And then when I had to go to court, that is when I found out that the money that my so-called friend had put into my account, had belonged to someone else who they had scammed.

So I was used as, my account was used, and I was used as a mule without even knowing, you know, without having any knowledge.

I was vulnerable and naïve.

I didn't know.

And then after that, I was very lucky because the judge just, they just gave me, they gave me community service and a fine.

This was, I was very lucky to not go to prison because I had just become a mum and I had no previous criminal record.

I had good character, you know, I was just, a student going, getting ready to go to uni with a young son, like I was not, I am not into the life of crime.

Yes, I was, you know, around, I had friends, I lived on my own.

But I didn't, you know, everything was just new to me.

So, I was lucky to not go to prison.

However, my DBS, which is formerly known as a CRB, was stained for over 12 years.

It had only become clear the beginning of this year, which is why I'm coming out to tell my story now.

And yeah, so, it was not a good experience for me.

I was lucky because I actually was able to still get a job, to get jobs.

I had a job within the NHS with a local authority before, but that's because when I explained my story to each manager, they could understand and they could sympathise with me and see that it wasn't even my fault.

But there are some other young people out there who they don't have, they don't have these opportunities and they don't get these chances.

So yeah, it's a very unfortunate thing that happened.

Ross, over to you.

Ebony thank you so much for sharing all of that detail, your experience.

I can tell, just listening to your story, you went through an awful lot, especially for someone of such a young age.

That's a lot to deal with and obviously a lot to, to take in.

I’ve got a couple of follow-up questions for you specifically, if that's okay.

Firstly, were you aware of any other young people in your circle of friends that were perhaps allowing their bank account to be used?

Being, were they approached at all?

Was that something you saw sort of at the time?

To be honest, it wasn't, it wasn't as, I think it was going on, but it wasn't as rampant as it is today.

So, you know, there was no cause for concern for me because I didn't think it would happen to me, because it wasn't obvious like how it is today, basically.

So I think there were few people that had been used as mules, but it wasn't anything significant for me to be worried about or to be, to know about basically.

Yeah, sure.

And I guess in your particular experience, in your scenario, you were effectively lending somebody some money and that was sort of how simple the, you know, the sort of agreement, the transaction was.

I guess, a question, a good question to ask, if we can is, would the benefit of hindsight and just looking back, was there any one thing that you would say was a red flag for you at that time, in terms of the conversation that was being had what was being asked of you any, specific red flag?

To be honest, there were no red flags at the time.

However, looking back on it now, a red flag would be the fact that the money that my so-called friend had repaid me with was more than the amount that I had borrowed him.

If that happened today, that is going to be a red flag, because why would you be paying that three times more than what I paid you?

And also another red flag, I mean, if back then, you know, the whole, it wasn't, the whole online banking and mobile banking wasn't, we didn't really use it that much back then, so.

But if it was now and if I had mobile banking, I will be able to check my account to see what, you know, to see the name on the account of where the money came from.

And then that would have made me think I'll contact him be like, you know, this is not in your name.

Whose name is this?

Whose account is this?

And then I probably would, then I would have called the bank as well and found out, and where's this money coming from?

So yeah, those, that would probably be the red flag.

Yeah, thanks Ebony.

And would you agree, with technology now, we can manage our bank account obviously via our smartphone, we can do that online, we can do that 24/7.

That makes it really easy for us to stay on top of you know, the things that go in our account, the things that come out.

But I guess the other side of the advancements in technology means that actually young people, it's so much easier for them to be targeted.

Would you say that's the case?

Definitely.

The access to social media that young people have, whether it's TikTok, these apps, a lot of these criminals target them through that.

So, yeah, it’s very bad to be honest.

Thanks Ebony.

So I guess from your point of view, there's lots that you would really like to do to help others - young people who may be vulnerable, may be at risk.

What from your point of view, what can teachers, parents, guardians, carers, all of those people, what could they do to help prevent these young people falling victim?

Parents, educators, teachers, the community, to be honest, should do more of talking to the young people, raising awareness, educating them.

Showing, even if you can just show them a video online, show them videos, awareness videos, you know, constantly remind them to be checking their accounts regularly and to be very cautious, you know, just constant education, they need financial education.

Yeah, awareness, I'll say.

Yeah, absolutely.

I guess it's making sure young people feel comfortable with actually having that open conversation with a parent, teacher, especially if they feel they're involved in a conversation that just doesn't seem right, feels uncomfortable.

I think that's key.

Just before we move into the other questions we've received during the event, so I mentioned the beginning of your charity.

So Elevate Her UK, I know coming up later this year, you've got a campaign launching on protecting young people from financial exploitation.

Could you just share briefly why you're launching that campaign, what are you looking to achieve?

Okay.

Yes, that campaign is actually called ‘Don't Get Finessed’.

For those that don't know what finessed means, don't get scammed basically.

We want to raise awareness, like I said, raise awareness on these issues because not every young person is aware of the consequences.

Not every young person is aware of how to avoid these situations.

So that campaign will be raising awareness.

It will be educating not just young people, it will be educating everyone in the community, teachers, parents.

The campaign is also there to we're trying to see if we can get some policy changes as well because some of the young people, they are vulnerable and they are, they don't even know, like in my case, I didn't know what was going on.

And I don't think it's fair that I got punished for something that I didn't do or I wasn't aware of.

I think they need to stop punishing the, like they need to actually do proper investigations and find out the people at the top of the chain and punish them.

And I think there should be more safeguarding measures for young people or vulnerable people, more early intervention, especially in the hotspot areas in London.

Not a lot of them have this financial education in schools, so it's good that our campaign video will be used in the schools that we go to, which are in London.

We’ll be playing these videos in school, in the workshops that we go to, to educate them.

Yeah, and that's it really - the campaign’s just to raise awareness and to see how we can find solutions.

Yeah, that's amazing Ebony.

I would definitely recommend everybody have a look at their websites, so Elevate Her UK.

You'll find that online.

Amazing work that you do there and much needed and I think just an example of how we need to come together across the industry, across all organisations to make sure that we can reach those people who need the education, they need that support.

So thanks again, Ebony for sharing your experience, your story your recommendations in terms of making sure we protect young people before they even, you know, start being involved in these conversations, these interactions.

So we'll now move on to some of the other questions that we've had.

So thank you for the questions you have submitted, I'm going to pose these questions to both yourself, Sam and Ebony, depending on the question and I guess what's relevant from your sort of positions.

So, let me start with one of the questions we've had.

So one for you Sam.

In Ebony's case and we can't talk specifically about the case, but in cases similar to this, would the bank not ask questions as to the money coming in, going out of the account, which is not in line with normal activity?

What's your view on that?

Yeah, it's a really good point.

One of the concerns from hearing Ebony's story myself was that, you know, she's the one who's had all the impact and the criminals got away scot-free, who's done the actual act.

And that is often the case with our money mules unfortunately, you know, you're the front person then, the only person who can be traced and the criminals stand behind that, unfortunately.

What I would say is the more information that mules can tell us about how they got recruited, who was involved, any details they can tell us all adds to our ability to take action potentially against the real people, the real perpetrators of the crime.

And we can feed that information to law enforcement, you know, and hope that there could be some broader action taken.

But again, the more information that mules can give to us, we can take that into consideration.

You know, if there's any vulnerability, exploitation of that particular individual, we want to know about it.

And we want to give our mules, the opportunity to tell us, you know, if there's any other circumstances involved, that's really, really important because, you know, unfortunately, some of our young people are very, very vulnerable, as Ebony has pointed out.

And, you know, it's not fair that they should feel the brunt of a criminals act, essentially.

So, yeah, that would be my advice.

Tell, tell as much as possible.

Thank you Sam.

I guess a follow-up question to that one is, if Barclays were to uncover a money mule, what is our standpoint?

Do we close their accounts with notice to close?

Would we ban customers from re-joining in the future?

What's the standpoint there?

Yeah, so typically what would happen is that when we receive a report that an account has received the proceeds of crime, we have to firstly secure that bank account.

We have got a duty to obviously try to prevent those criminal funds from being dispersed and we have a duty the victim of that crime.

Then we would investigate our account holder.

That often involves contact with the account holder, again, to give them the opportunity of telling us what's going on.

There could be another side to the story.

But the typical action that we would take would be that depending on what story we do get from our account holder, it would tend to result in the forced closure of their bank account.

Sometimes immediately, if we find that the risk presented by the account holder is too great, that we need to get them off our books really, really quickly.

But often we do give them notice or we do give them another opportunity to sort of prove that they can turn, especially if they're open and honest with us, turn, you know, their banking around and, you know, and use their banking accounts exactly how they should do.

If we do exit a customer, we do mark fraud databases.

We're also compelled to do that amongst our industry partners to ensure that we're sharing information between ourselves and that everybody in the banking industry can see what potential risk a mule presents to them if they're opening, if they're deciding to open another bank account elsewhere.

And that's why some customers will find it difficult to get a bank account elsewhere, because obviously reference to those industry databases are referred to within the application process for a new product.

Thanks again Sam.

Ebony, just coming over to you, so did you admit to being a mule, to the police unknowingly or were you coerced into accepting a caution?

Is there any way you could have appealed the action that was taken based on someone taking advantage of you?

Just wonder what your thoughts are on that one.

The thing is, I actually said not guilty all the way.

And I actually did, in the interview, I told them everything.

I told them the truth and I told them that it wasn't me, but still that it was what, I mean, I have spoken to officers like years down the line recently due to the charity work that I do with other young people that go through this.

And I asked them, officer, like, you know, why?

Why does that happen?

Why did they do it?

And they said, unfortunately, because investigations take too long and are too costly, they usually use the account holder as the scapegoat.

So basically I was used as the scapegoat.

Yeah, sure.

Thanks again for sharing Ebony.

Just a quick question, follow-up as well Ebony is, in your situation, you're the person who you were talking with borrowed £50.

How much did they actually put back into your account?

I think it was like £250.

Of course, that now might look like a little bit, because I know now a lot of these scammers are they put four figures or more, but then it was still, it was still something and it's still, you know, the way it was, the source of the money was not right.

So yes, I bought them 50 and I think they put they would put 200 or 250 back in.

I'm not sure.

The thing is, I don't even actually know the exact because when I went to the bank, I just went do what I needed to do for the shopping and I never ever got to clear anything.

The bank just closed the account and I couldn't even take the money out.

So yeah, it was at the, in the court, at the court hearing that I heard, you know, what had happened and this is how much, I think it was like 250, yeah.

Sure, thanks Ebony.

And what we do know worth sharing is that in some cases people are given incentive to keep obviously some of the money, or it could be that they're offered a particular item, whether it be the latest pair of trainers or something of value.

So we do see different examples of where people perhaps are given motivation in order to help somebody to move this money around.

A question for you, Sam, if I can, are we looking at biometric patterns, new tech to see if different people, mules, are accessing the same accounts?

That's a really interesting question.

We, one of the stakeholders that we're, suppliers that we're working with at present, is one that offers biometric capability.

So it is an opportunity for us in the future and probably a lot of the industry as well.

So, yes, it's definitely something that is becoming increasingly more and more interesting to us.

We can't say that say any more than that right now.

That's great.

Thanks, Sam.

Another question for you, Sam is do you get business accounts being used for mules as these have different limits and are they perhaps harder to detect the patterns?

Yeah, absolutely right.

We do.

We do.

And you've hit the nail on the head.

The reason being higher transfer limits generally, you know if you have a business account that is expected to operate, you know, with a lot of transactions going through it, then I guess the feeling is that that will go under the radar a little bit more, you know, from a monitoring point of view.

But I can to tell you that we do catch an awful lot of business banking money mules, as well as personal money mules in Barclays.

So yeah, we try to manage our defences across those segments quite equally, depending on the risk that they present us, because in one side of the business, they will present us more in the way of volume and the other side will present more in the way of value.

So we do manage the risk effectively across the two segments.

Thanks Sam.

Just another question for you as well.

Would you say due to the cost of living that we need to be even more conscious and aware of offers, of easy money and the use of our bank account, pay more attention as both of you have already mentioned, to what goes in and out of your account, yeah, due to that cost of living that we're seeing?

Absolutely.

From my point of view, I think I mentioned earlier that we've seen a 34% increase in the number of accounts being used by 40 to 60-year-olds.

That's a really unusual age group to be involved in money muling.

If I can be honest, normally it would be it would be our, very much younger age groups that would become involved.

So that to me could indicate that people are feeling the pinch a little, you know, potentially looking at this as an opportunity to make a little bit more money.

So, yes, it's absolutely a risk for those age groups.

And, you know, for anybody who is feeling the pinch, my advice would be easy money is not always the best way of making money.

Yeah.

Thanks again, Sam.

So a question I'm actually going to answer here is, how do the so-called scammers get one's landline number?

We get numerous calls that are obviously a scam.

So we're talking about the general theme of scams here.

And I think to answer this question, is good just to raise awareness that in terms of any of your data or personal information, including telephone numbers, this can be accessed in various ways.

One of the ways could be the number of data breaches we see.

So if an organisation's details are hacked, if they can get access to that information, that could very easily be shared or sold on what we call The Dark Web so organised criminal gangs may be using that information and passing it on.

But also the other piece of awareness we should definitely promote is be very conscious about anything you share online.

So people tend to share too much information on social media or they're not verifying some of the details they've been asked to share in an email or a text message.

So we just need to be extra vigilant, careful about what we share online, because that information, again, could just be harvested by a criminal.

And that could even just be someone who's being very spontaneous, or it could be a more organised sort of targeting of certain people.

There are also directories online where you find lots of personal information.

192.

com is a directory.

If you're on the electoral roll, there's a good chance your details are going to be visible.

And that could include things like your address, your telephone numbers.

So it's a really good question, I think, just on the theme of scams in general, good for that awareness to be shared.

I’m just going to check if there's any other questions that we've had.

Thank you for the ones that have come in, lots to talk about.

And one of the questions we do have is do you go to schools to educate young people from year seven upwards?

So we absolutely do proactively educate not just our customers, but people across local communities and that's across all of Barclays touchpoints.

So that could be through a virtual event like you're seeing today, that could be students joining from their classroom, an event that we deliver virtually.

I'm going to comment on some resources just very shortly and I'll pinpoint some of the content that we have there, which is available for all different age groups.

So certainly lots of proactive work that we're doing and I know lots of other organisations are doing as well.

So with that, again, thanks for everybody's questions that have come in.

We're now going to move onto some useful resources.

So let's just move onto the first resource.

So the first one is the Barclays website.

So if you go to the Barclays website, this includes a fraud and security hub page, to really help people stay one step ahead of the criminals.

Now, within this hub, we have a specific page all about money mules.

This is the one screenshot that you can see on screen now.

And this really does provide some excellent content and guidance.

Everything from what are money mules?

How can you be approached?

How is social media used?

What advice do we have for those people to support young people?

So do visit the Barclays website.

You can scan the QR code that you see on-screen and you can simply search for ‘Barclays money mules’ and that will take you to the page, that's the first listing that you see in the search results.

So do have a look at the Barclays website.

The next one, one that the team I work in, I’m proud to say have been managing and creating all the content for what's called our Barclays Digital Wings platform.

So this is another great resource which is completely free for anyone to use, includes lots of great content on fraud and scams.

And when you're on the main homepage, which again you can access through the QR code, or by searching Barclays Digital Wings, you'll see on the top menu there's an option ‘Online safety’.

If you click on that one, it takes you to what we call our ‘Staying safe online’ hub page.

This signposts to lots of great content, lots of tools, resources that you can access to help you protect yourself in many ways.

So do have a look at Barclays Digital Wings.

Click on ‘Online safety’ for more information.

And then just a couple of others, in terms of further support, the first one being Victim Support.

This is a brilliant charity that helps victims of crime providing free, confidential support.

It’s one that Barclays has a really good relationship with and why I think this is such a great charity.

When you think about any scams, any fraud, the experience that you go through, it's not just a financial impact on people, it can be physical, it can affect your mental health.

So this charity does a huge amount, offers lots of great services to help people who may have fallen victim to crime.

And this includes the hugely challenging navigation of the criminal system and people understanding their rights as a victim of crime.

So do have a look at Victim Support.

And the second one is the ‘Don't Be Fooled’ campaign.

So Don't Be Fooled is a collaboration between UK finance and Cifas.

It aims to inform students or young people about the risks of giving out their bank details and deter them from becoming money mules.

So lots of great content again.

There’s an excellent short video that you can play to young people, which really highlights the dangers, the consequences that you need to think about.

So do have a look at the Don't Be Fooled websites as well.

Now, as we draw to a close, I'm now just going to move on to what we feel are some really key takeaways both from Sam and Ebony.

So first of all, we've heard lots from you Sam, lots of insight, lots of guidance, lots of work we're doing.

But what would be your key takeaways for the audience?

Yeah, thank you Ross.

So my main takeaways would be that if you're receiving any money into your account, make sure that you know where those funds are coming from.

And don't be afraid to question the person who's paying it to you, even those you trust, given Ebony's experience, unfortunately.

A genuine person won't mind a little bit of questioning.

It's valid in today's environment.

The second item would be to be really wary of urgent requests, particularly to withdraw funds.

Just pay to you really at speed.

Mules absolutely need to operate quickly to move their criminal proceeds around the financial ecosystem.

And you'll just be supporting them if you do that.

So don't make it easy for them, you know, be very wary of those types of request.

That would be it for me.

Thanks Ross.

Over to you Ebony.

Thanks Sam.

For me, yep, be careful who you trust.

Friends and family could be recruited by criminals, so be very careful when doing favours that involve money.

Always check your account regularly.

Obviously, in my case, I couldn't check my account regularly because I did not have access to online bank or mobile banking.

But nowadays, most of us do so please check your accounts regularly, your bank statements check them regularly just to see, you know, where money's coming from.

You might not be expecting some form of money.

Make sure you contact your bank immediately to find out where it came from before spending it.

Because if you withdraw or transfer any money that comes from a criminal source, you will be, you know, punished, like in my case.

And then the last thing is do not be fooled by the thought of making quick money.

You know, there's a cost of living crisis right now, so if you are looking for an extra income, contact your local jobcentre because there are various job opportunities out there.

Over to you Ross.

Sam, Ebony, thank you for that.

Obviously, lots we've spoke about.

So, I think it’s really important that we just highlight what are those key takeaways, the things that we need to share with young people.

I think if we just reflect on some of the things that we've touched on today, what we do know is historically money mules used to visit the school gates.

They used to approach young people in person.

The world has changed.

The use of technology means that actually people people can now sit behind a laptop, they can sit behind a phone.

They can do this targeting of young people in a different way, which obviously makes it even harder to catch these people.

So I think that's something we really need to bear in mind.

Young people are exposed to so much online.

Social media has a real part to play in terms of what we see being shared in terms of adverts, posts but in the meantime, we just really need to make sure that young people are aware of how they can be targeted.

So, I just want to say a huge thank you both to our guest speakers for all of your insight - Ebony, the experience you've shared has been really important so thank you so much for joining as well.

Really encourage you to share the resources with your wider networks, family and friends, in schools, across the education sector, to make sure that we can prevent more people not to fall victim.

Such an important topic.

So a ‘big thank you’ for everybody who's joined.

All of those people who've registered for today's event, it's much appreciated.

In the near future, there will be a playback of the event.

So do keep an eye on the Barclays website on our Barclays channels for more information to be able to view the playback and share with other people.

But again, big ‘thank you’ for everybody who’s joined.

and we look forward to seeing you at a future Barclays event.

Welcome, everyone, and thank you so much for joining us for our event today, which will be focusing on a really important topic.
We're currently in one of the busiest shopping periods of the year, but scammers are also busy coming up with clever new tactics to convince us to part with our personal and our financial information.
UK Finance have recently published their Fraud and Scams figures for January to June 2023 and compared to the same period in 2022, the number of scams report have actually increased by 22%.
Now, one of the best tools we have at our disposal to protect ourselves from cyber criminals is our ability to identify scams, which in turn will help us to avoid falling victim.
Now we understand that being targeted by scammers will impact us all in different ways.
So today, we wanted to give you all the opportunity to tell us what's on your mind by submitting questions around fraud scams and cyber crime.
Through our scam, Ask the Experts event.
We're also extremely lucky to be joined by some industry experts who will help to answer our questions and will share insight into how we can avoid falling victim and ultimately beat the scammers.
So first of all, for myself, my name is Paul Martin and I am part of the Digital Eagles and Money Mentor team here at Barclays Bank.
Our team are passionate about helping people to enhance their digital skills and also to manage their money in a digital world.
I'm also looking to be joined by Ryan Pallett from our Scam investigation team.
He'll be providing us with insight into the latest fraud and scam trends and how we're proactively supporting our customers to protect themselves through education and awareness.
And we'll also welcome Paul Maskall from the dedicated card on Payment Crime Unit who will be sharing his knowledge and expertise on the tactic, techniques and psychology used by today's criminals, and how changing your mindset can actually reduce the risk of falling victim.
Now, before we get started with answering your questions today, I wanted to come over to both of our guest speakers to share a little bit more insight into the work that they're doing and why, of course, this is so important.
So first of all, if we wouldn't mind coming over to you, Paul.
Thanks, Paul.
And yeah, good afternoon, everybody, and welcome.
And thank you very much for being on the session today.
So I'm a little bit different.
I tend to come at it from a very much more of a psychology point of view and a perspective point of view is that very often is that fraud and scams is often seen as as an issue that happens to other people.
Very often it's a crime type that people fall for in these sorts of situations.
But what we often forget in these sorts as a kind of context is that, well, actually everybody's been told something that they wanted to hear at probably the wrong time, that you should have heard it.
That could have been your last relationship, your last job, your last marriage.
It could have been 101 different contexts as to how that happened.
And the problem is, is that very often when it comes down to the way the world works now, from a society point of view, is that we are very often on our technology a lot where either through text messages, through social media, through emails, through phone calls, we're both simultaneously more connected, but also simultaneously more isolated.
And as Paul said, we've seen this massive rise in scams reporting and these kind of different elements.
And very often fraud is very often expedited by the use of our technology.
So from my point of view, I am one of the National Take Five spokespeople and very often is I can give you all of the education in the world and I can give you all of the top ten tips, but unfortunately, I can't make you any less emotional in the moment and very often is that and there is a flavor of fraud for everyone.
There's a flavor of scam for everyone, no matter what your age is, who you are, where you are, what your perspective is, how confident or savvy you believe you are.
And unfortunately, everybody is being told something that they wants to hear.
So first of all, from a take five point of view, it is taking the three aspects around stop, challenge and protect.
Because in any given situations, if you having a contact, a text message or an email like stop, do you think that it could be a scam?
Is this legitimate?
Because if you now think about today's world, is there actually, in order to verify who I am in any given situation, I don't really need that much, whether it's a product or a piece of information or even if I'm trying to impersonate somebody.
So first of all, stop it.
Take that moment.
And just like that argument you've had with a partner or a family member, taking that time to take a breather to think, okay, well, hold on a second.
Am I really saying this in the right way?
Take letting that emotion sort of cool down, but also challenge you, challenge the person on the other end of the phone if they're a legitimate organization.
Very often it's about an online being made sure that very often actually, if they're Barclays, if they're a bank, if they're law enforcement or they're a telecoms company or somebody an organization, they're not going to have a problem with you having that moment to say, you know what, I think this could be a scam or to have that piece of mind.
But very often the third aspect is about protection.
So, again, stop, challenge and protect that from a protect point of view.
If you do think you have been impacted and targeted by a criminal in these sorts of situations, it is about contacting your bank immediately in order to have that rectified or that then to assist you, but also to contact action fraud and report it.
So that is really the framework around the Take five to Stop fraud campaign.
And again, is it's very often it's about that emotional mindfulness.
And this is where it comes into, well, how do I identify it in the first place?
How do I go about if what is an email or a phishing text or or something along those lines?
Well, I believe in what's called cause.
So it's very often C.
A.
U.
S.
E.
And no matter what the flavor of fraud, whether it is a Royal Mail scam, whether it is a DPD parcel scam, whether it's somebody talking to you online or engaging with you through online dating or any other platform, is that generally speaking, as a criminal, I will use a combination of these five things, potentially all four or five or at least some weight on different ones.
So first of all, I'm going to use context.
So why is that the reason I'm talking to you, whether that be an investment opportunity, whether that be I'm in love with you or something along those lines is very often the context is really crucial for to give you a certain element of, well, this is this is a legitimate communication because of this reason.
Now, very often it then leads into elements of authority.
So hello, I'm from Barclays.
Hello, I'm from the police.
Hello, I'm from the NHS.
Hello, I'm from I don't know your telecoms provider or something along those lines.
It's giving you that context, but also giving you a certain amount of trust that I am who I say I am.
And you can trust me because I am your organization in which you work with.
Now, very often people turn around and say, Well, I got contacted by a certain bank, but I don't even bank with them.
Yes, but if I contact it, contact 150 people during that day and only one person actually does bank with that bank, then that's a good return on my investment from a criminal point of view.
So very often it's high volume, low return, but also urgency in any of these given situations.
Very often I want to make you do something very, very quickly.
So whether it's if you don't act now, then this horrible bad thing will happen.
Or if you don't act now, then very often it's this you will lose out on the opportunity for.
So whether that's investments or again, a problem with your account or something along those lines, generally speaking, and a legitimate, legitimate organization will not pressure you in that kind of urgency on that tonality.
And again, being able to challenge them and say, you know what, this is not something that I'm comfortable with and taking those payments.
But also scarcity.
Now scarcity, human beings, generally speaking, when we look at the kind of the high rise in in again, the kind of the time of year where we're all wanting to buy Christmas gifts, we're looking to get deals, Black Friday is just past the Christmas sales coming on, etc.
Very often we are hardwired to overvalue scarcity.
So when you see a web website saying, well, it's a limited time offer for you to be providing this, fantastic.
Very often when it's only a few left in stock, it provides this kind of nudge to go, I'll just buy that, or I'll get that.
So very often criminals would use elements of scarce scarcity to support that and get us to commit or to do something in those situations.
But more importantly than all of these things, and again, I will use a combination of those first four, but generally speaking, I will absolutely weigh upon.
The emotional aspect is that very often I will want to make you panicked.
I want to make you depressed.
I want you to make you anxious.
I want you to make you fearful or I want to make you excited.
I want you to make you hopeful.
I want to make you again in any of the spectrum of generally want to use the two ends of the spectrum, whether that be really positive feelings or really negative feelings.
Because you know as well as I do, we don't think overly objectively when we are emotional.
So in these situations I'm reliant on especially the urgency aspect.
I want to get you to do something within that finite emotional window, whether it is to give me your information in your data, or it might be to transfer some money through a bank, transfer for a product or for an opportunity or an investment, or even to help out what you believe is somebody that's very close to you, especially in things like romance scams as well.
So that emotion is really, really crucial.
And very often it's more of fraud and scams is much more about emotional mindfulness than many other things because I can give you all the education in the world, but I cannot get you to actually consciously take that moment and think about those emotions as well.
So stop, challenge and protect.
And I'm looking forward to answering those questions as well.
Amazing and thank you so much, Paul and really insightful because we know there is a lot of psychology that goes into fraud and scams.
And one of the reasons why scams continue to be such a problem is because scammers have become really clever at manipulating people into behaving in a way that they would always usually wouldn't.
So end some really good insight.
There am a great introduction to the sessions and thank you so much, Paul.
And with that, we're going to come over to you, Ryan, if you wouldn't mind telling us a little bit more about the work you do to help protect and educate people.
Yeah, of course.
And thank you again.
Like the other two had already said.
Thank you very much for joining us today.
So my name's Ryan and I'm part of the fraud and scams investigation team here at Barclays.
So in a nutshell, what my role ultimately is, is almost first point of contact with customers to ultimately try and protect themselves from potentially falling victim to a scam or potentially fraud or something like that.
What we ultimately do within our role is we will basically investigate a payment that's been flagged on our fraud system that it suspects is potentially fraudulent or potentially something that is maybe a risk more than maybe usual payments that you might potentially make.
This could be down to a number of different things.
It could be sort of digital footprint like what Paul mentioned a second ago.
It could be the fact that, let's say for instance, it can see that you're maybe transacting in a different area from what you usually do, a different country, something along those lines.
That would be a cause for our risk.
It could be the fact that it's a larger amount than what you usually potentially make.
What we ultimately need to do is we need to come to a conclusion as to whether the payment is potentially genuine or not.
And if we don't feel we have enough evidence to be able to do that, we simply call the customer and try and have a conversation around the payments.
Now, what's involved in that is obviously a number of detail questions, and every agent along with myself, we are specifically trained to pick up on what we class is red flags.
So these could be sort of certain things where maybe you've been forced or pressured into making the payment exactly like Paul mentioned a minute ago, It could be something where you've made it in promised a certain offer or a return or something like that.
And you've been told that if you don't make the payment now, you're going to miss out on the opportunity or something like that.
It could be the fact that maybe you are making a purchase.
It's not like we set this target time of year, very, very prevalent for scammers to basically pick up on potential purchase scams or forcing people into trying to buy a specific item is picking up on those conversations.
And those potential may be key sentences that are said during the conversation.
So ultimately determine whether we believe a payment is genuine or not.
Scammers, exactly like what we said a minute ago, are unfortunately adapting and evolving every single day to basically overcome sort of certain situations and parameters for for us to basically have to ultimately come to that conclusion as to whether it is, again, fraudulent or not.
This is a bank we speak obviously with other banks and we sort of discuss trends and patterns and different scenarios that we see quite frequently.
It could be a number of different things.
Like I mentioned, it could be purchasing items, it could potentially be cryptocurrency, which is what we see a lot of recently.
There are so many different things that we can potentially spot.
The sad truth is anyone it's actually like what we said a second ago, anyone can unfortunately be a victim nowadays, as much as like what we've said, people can be more savvy and more aware and we can we can try and educate people as much as what we potentially can.
The reality is, as things are ever changing, it's our duty as a bank to try and provide as much information for you, our customers, to to basically try and make sure that we're giving you the opportunity to take a step back, realize if there is something that's maybe not quite right.
And basically, hopefully having that conversation with you, maybe sometimes towards the the sort of perception as to whether it is real or not, we do tend to use the term breaking the spell.
And it's actually like Paul mentioned a minute ago, sometimes it is the emotional aspects where we have to have those difficult conversations with you.
We have to try and make sure that obviously the situation that you're in is potentially not making you sort of more susceptible to a scam or to potentially becoming a victim.
But as I say, ultimately what my role is, is to basically stop those scams or prevent those payments before they actually get released for fraudulent purposes.
Along with that, there is also part of my role to sort of detect our own customers that we believe are potentially fraudulent themselves and basically raise a investigation against those customers.
So ultimately we can help protect our customers.
And those people at other banks, too, to basically stop them from happening again.
Brilliant.
Thank you so much.
Ryan.
And again, it links perfectly to what Paul thought was true earlier on.
We do know that fraudsters do look to harvest people's details using processes that are referred to as social engineering.
And this is the act of tricking someone into sharing information or taking an action or, like Ryan mentioned, just acting out of character.
But naturally, as technology evolves, we have lots of channels that are available for cybercriminals to use to scam people.
That could be social media platforms, dating applications, online marketplaces.
But I think the psychology and the tactics are really important to understand.
As a starting point, because scammers will prey on people who are looking for the best possible deals and exploit them.
They will create that sense of urgency and try and force people to make poor decisions.
And they will also harness that sense of authority to instead instill fear in their victims.
And I know this is very common across a lot of their impersonation scams, purchase scams that we're seeing them at this time of year.
So we really do appreciate that introduction and give us a bit more context into the work you do to educate and protect people.
But with that, we do have a few questions that have come through that we would love to get your thoughts on.
Now, the first one, I think we will direct up Paul So how do cyber criminals actually obtain our details?
Has there been any link made between signing up to services and these compromisations?
And also when contacted by people purporting to be these organizations, how do we actually know we're speaking to a genuine company?
I think it's interesting because again, from a from a data point of view and how do they get our details now?
First of all, I have a question and a kind of a reflection is that if you see somebody armed with a clipboard in your local high street, what do you do now?
Now, most people, if you're anything like me, will either do this massive awkward semicircle around them or that really awkward eye contact said, no.
So I'm okay.
I'm very busy, I'm doing something else, I'm walking elsewhere, I'm shopping or whatever.
But actually very often if I stop you and say, well, actually why do you not want to talk to this person?
There's like, there's a number of different reasons.
You're busy, you're distracted, you don't want to give your data and information to this person.
You don't necessarily feel comfortable about giving your email information now in in person in that sort of aspect.
But the problem is over the past, probably about 20 years, maybe, maybe even less, is that we've been conditioned to give our information and personal data away for pretty much everything.
So whether that's an online account, whether it's an online platform, whether that's an online form or a 10% offer from from a website, is that data is incredibly valuable to organizations, both legitimate and not legitimate.
And very often it's the case of where because we have been conditioned as a population for so many years to give away our information, is that how do cybercriminals and fraudsters obtain the information while actually incredibly easily so it's there's still a situation where whether it is through our own habits.
So if I say to you, when was the last time you changed your personal email address or when was the last time you changed your personal mobile?
Now you I've just basically detailed two of the main things in which I contact you as a fraudster.
But if you haven't changed it for a decade or two decades, very often in some cases, is it?
I'm not saying change them, but it's just that exposure over time and also the amount of our accounts and things like that we fill in is it increases the amount of data that we've ended up giving away.
So every time you fill in an online form or an account, etcetera, you are trusting that organization to look after your data.
Unfortunately, some organizations have found things like data breaches, so data breaches have kind of exposed that to a lot of organizations.
Data has been then released into the public sphere, again from a data breach point of view, but also from a social engineering point of view.
If I give you a 10% offer or open an account or send you an email, for information that social engineering aspect is because we've been conditioned to give it away, we don't necessarily have any sort of intuitive emotional hook to say, well, who is it that I'm giving this information to?
So very often we give it away in when when ask to in in very limited circumstances.
So it's that aspect of both the social engineering.
Again, the aspects around data breaches, but also we actively put our data out most of the time through things like social media.
So when I used to work in law enforcement and I still do in various guises, but I also work for UK finance and the dedicated card and payment crime unit, it highlights the fact that actually all the training in the world that that showed me the ability to find data, information about somebody.
Turns out you don't need any training.
It's incredibly easy and accessible.
So it's about understanding this conscious choice of who you are giving the data away and when who you're engaging with it, especially online through its online portals and accounts.
But also how do you know when it's a genuine company?
Well, sometimes you don't in these sorts of situations, it is about stopping challenging that information and not necessarily taking it at face value and being able to confirm in other ways.
So whether it's a purchase company or online will actually look for reviews and look for these sorts of situations.
But also if it's an organization like Barclays, you're able to then actually, you know what, I'm going to call you back.
I'm going to engage with you.
I'm going to use the number that I already have in order to contact that organization and do so through another means.
So very often to ensure that we are genuinely talking to the people we want to normally takes a little bit more action on our side, unfortunately.
Brilliant and really insightful and again, it seems to emphasize just how busy those cyber criminals are coming up with a variety of different ways to harvest personal and financial details.
So just following on from that question, another one that's come through in the chat is, is there anything individuals can do to proactively protect their data from cyber attacks?
Well, do the kind of in-person test, because if I came up to you in the middle of the street with that clipboard just out of the blue completely and just said, can I have all of your personal information?
Can I want to know your name, your date of birth, your address, everything about you, and potentially maybe your National insurance number to boot as well.
Now, if I was to do that in the middle of the street, what would your response be?
Now in these sorts of situations is that very often you have this kind of defensiveness.
I'm like, No, I'm not giving you the information.
Why would I give that information to you?
But online, we don't have face, we don't have space, we don't have context.
We don't have that sort of intuitive hook of somebody randomly coming up to us.
But that's exactly what happens in a social media direct message.
That's exactly what happens in a social media advert.
It's exactly what happens in a phishing email.
For instance, if I'm contacting or if I randomly phone you.
So very often it is the equivalent of me just running up to you in the street with a clipboard and asking you for that information.
So it's very often is like, Well, do you feel comfortable about giving this information to them?
So very often it's that mindful process of going, well, actually, do I trust this person?
Is this is this somebody who I can trust in these given situations?
So that is the best advice because unfortunately, in today's world, asking you to never give out your data to anyone is basic.
The equivalent of asking you to live under a rock in a cave somewhere.
And fortunately, because if you do, you want to buy anything or do anything, then unfortunately it is the nature of the beast.
But very often it is taking that moment.
Do I trust who I'm talking to.
Do I trust this message?
Do I trust this contact?
And if so, how do I confirm that trust and how am I able to get that data away?
Yeah, absolutely brilliant.
I think that ties into a lot of the questions we have actually seen coming through in the chat mentioned.
And you know, when we complete online forms or we enter online competitions and we're naturally asked to put a lot of information in that can include things like date of birth.
So I think the message there is clear it really just take that time, do research, check for the organizations that you're in that you're actually utilizing or about your thinking of doing business with and also getting in contact with them through genuine channels.
But if you're unsure, the best thing to do is probably to avoid sharing that information for risk of being targeted by criminals.
So that is brilliant.
So thank you so much for that.
Paul.
So with that, I think can we come over to Ryan next?
We do get a couple of questions through that.
We think, why am I perfectly to the work that you and your team do?
Ryan So when we have a question that mentions that they receive a large number of texts that claim to be from organizations like the Royal Mail, HMRC, etc.
, so who do we actually report these to?
So realistically you can kind of report them to us if you have potentially fallen victim to one of these yourself.
So the trouble is, is they look so realistic and especially this time of year, you can also report them too.
Obviously the Stop Think Fraud at those at the top of organizations and stuff like that from if you're looking at it from a from a bank perspective, like I say, especially at this time of year, that's so, so prevalent because the reality is everyone's expecting parcels this time of year.
Everyone's sort of buying gifts and presents and whatever else it would be for family and friends and that type of stuff.
So there's sort of a few things to to kind of watch out for.
So first sort of main thing would be the reality is a lot of these ones, especially from like the Royal Mail or DPD or these other sort of courier sites or company sorry, there'll always sort of in always be something along the lines of you need to pay X amount for a release fee for your parcel or something along those lines.
The reality is you will never be asked by these companies to pay a small release fee.
Air Quotes “Release fee” because if you've bought the product from a legitimate merchant, so let's say you bought it from Boots or John Lewis or whoever else it would be, they will always add the the postage to the actual final bill.
So you should never be paying an additional amount on top of that.
So there's a few things to sort of spot.
The first thing, especially if you get it from a an actual email, is check the actual email itself.
So check the email because nine times out of ten a guarantee, you check the actual email where you when you type on the actual email itself or the name of who it's been sent from and it will be nothing to do with the Royal Mail or nothing to do with HMRC or something along those lines.
Most of the time it's actually quite funny because it does actually have someone's actual name.
So the scammers actual name in the email followed by maybe a load of numbers or digits or something.
The other thing that you can also do is if you get it from a text or again, if it is an email, have a look at the grammar and the punctuation and stuff like that.
Because sometimes what you will find is when you're reading it, don't randomly be sort of a double spacing or an extra letter or one of the words will be spelt wrong or something like that.
Now I'm not saying go away and, and read in detail every single one of these, but if you look and it just doesn't look right straight off, right off the bat then obviously there's cause for concern that what we would advise is if you ever have potentially submitted details to one of these, like what we mentioned a minute ago, call your bank as soon as you can, because the reality is the faster you get in contact with the bank and the quicker you let us know, the quicker we can ultimately do something about it.
So if you've potentially contacted or given out information to one of these one of these sort of texts or emails or whatever it would be, simply call us, because it might be a case that we may need to reissue a new card to you or something like that, because maybe you've given out the long number on your card or whatever else it would be.
But the reality is, especially this time of year, these are always all over the place.
And it's not just the HMRC or Royal Mail It could be anyone.
Funnily enough, I had one from the DVLA.
I know that my car tax was coming up soon, so there you go.
I'm looking at that straight away thinking could it be genuine?
Like say, stop, have a look at it, do a little bit of investigation and it's still not entirely sure.
And like I say, there are websites out there, even our own Barclays website, if you did want to have a look at what to sort of look for in order to try and protect yourself a little bit further.
Brilliant.
Thank you very much Ryan.
I think that actually leads perfectly into our next question.
So legitimate calls from financial institutions like Barclays, for example, and those fraud teams can sometimes seem suspicious.
Can they be linked to some sort of a code within the Barclays mobile banking app to clarify that they are actually real?
Yeah, definitely.
So it's actually a really good question because most of us are taught that if you ever receive a call from from “the bank”, then it's probably suspicious or you've probably got cause for concern or something like that.
That's just typically how everyone's raised is if we ever get something like that, ignore it.
What we would always try and do, at least from from a Barclays perspective, is we will always try and take you through If we do potentially need to make outbound calls yourself.
So like I say, that's what I do.
If we have a duty to contact you, we will simply always try and take you through security using the Barclays Mobile Banking app.
So you don't need to give us any details.
You don't need to give us your card details or answer security questions or something like that.
We will always try and do that where possible.
And it's simply a case of just sending a notification to the app and it'll say, you've got a call from Barclays.
You're speaking with Brian.
Is it you on the call?
And you just simply confirm that and it allows us to continue our call without having to actually divulge any personal information or like we mentioned, given our email addresses and stuff like that.
The other thing as well is like what Paul mentioned earlier is we will never, ever try and put you under pressure to continue the call.
So if you ever receive a call from the bank or from someone claiming to be from the bank, we would never turn around.
You would say, Well, you have to continue this call.
Otherwise these funds are going to get released or something along those lines.
You never get that.
What we would simply advise you is if you don't feel comfortable on the call, call us back on a legitimately sourced number.
So the numbers on the back of your actual debit card, the number from the official bank website, so from the official Barclays website or something like that, we will never try and force you to continue with the call because as I mentioned at the beginning, it's it's talk that you should never get a call from the bank.
Yeah, that's absolutely brilliant.
Ryan really insightful and I think it links back a lot to what Paul mentioned earlier on.
If we are unsure, we take that time, we do our research and we contact those organizations through a channel that we absolutely know to be genuine.
And it's great that some of those digital tools can actually be used to help people in those situations.
Excellent.
So I think now we will come back over to Paul.
I've got a couple on True Paul that I think might be brilliant for you to share some insight on.
So we've heard a lot about remote access on malicious software recently.
If someone gets access to your computer and you are of course aware of it, what steps can you take to cut them off as quickly as possible?
So there's two parts to this.
One is that the first part is, again, any device, for instance, again, if you're on a computer, for instance, is a first of all having, say, for instance, antivirus and firewall, whether that's the free version that say for instance, comes with Windows or different platforms, having something like that installed on your computer, whether it is the free version or, again, the paid for version.
Generally speaking, I like a paid full version because it comes with a number of a suite of other security softwares, etc.
So very often it comes down to the fact that actually having those sorts of things in place at the time is incredibly good.
Also make sure that, for instance, if you you're an iOS device or an Apple device, for instance, or an iPad or any device, always keep them updated.
So nine times out of ten, pretty much all updates require or are included with some sort of security update.
So, for instance, a vulnerability in software or a vulnerability in the hardware, etc.
So very often keeping these things on automatic update, for instance, from a public point of view is really, really good to keep that security going.
Now, again, that's great, but generally speaking, sometimes from a remote access software or malware, it's required on us to be vigilant as well on top of it, unfortunately.
So very often if I send you an email or a text message or or trying to get you to take an action on a link or a website, very often then I can download some sort of malicious software or indeed remote access software directly onto my computer.
Now having the antivirus and firewall and also updated machines in the first place will go a long way to to again being you're almost your last line of defense if you have clicked on that link.
It's also the advice that Ryan gave you is around on trying to avoid going onto those links in the first place.
But when it comes to it, if you've actually got to the point where it's now happening, is that especially for remote access software, very often criminals, especially in things like investment scams and they will I will guide you through the process.
So if you go to this website, say, for instance, teamviewer or a number of different products out there as well, they are completely legitimate platforms.
The software you're your platform, your your antivirus won't flag it because it's again, legitimate software used for things like it support and all these sorts of things.
So they are used.
But the problem is it gives whoever is actually kind of directing that individual complete access over the computer.
So very often I will guide you through the process, but actually in the background I could be taking information, taking data, downloading something on the app on your computer, something along those lines.
So if you do get to that point, unfortunately, it does come down to the fact that if you then realize, hold on a second, something's going on, you don't have necessarily direct access over your computer at that moment.
So very often it is turning off the computer because you want to get shut access to that person as quickly as humanly possible.
Or it could be if you're closer to the router, cut the router off, etc.
, to be able to stop the connection.
If you are literally in that moment of realization of going holding the second somebody's done it, if you've got malware downloaded on your platform, it's about running a scan with your antivirus and firewall systems.
And again depending on the severity of the malware, then you may need to get support for that as well.
But generally speaking is that I am still going back to the C.
A.
U.
S.
E was going back to the Context of Authority, Urgency, Scarcity and Emotion is that that's how I'm going to get you to download it in the first place.
So in those moments is yes, we've seen lot of these rises of different malware and ransomware and all these sorts of things.
But generally speaking, it does come down to that emotional mindfulness in the first place because our intuitions doesn't necessarily have a great deal to go on in those moments.
So it's about stopping.
Brilliant.
Thank you, Paul.
And again, very insightful and great advice on how to protect ourselves and become more aware of things like suspicious links, fake websites and of course, malicious software and should use following of not both.
Further advice can we give to protect vulnerable individuals from scams?
Because as we've seen already, just in this session alone, how much we've covered off.
But when we look at all the different types of scams out there, impersonation scams, purchase scams, money, mules, what can we do to support maybe those different age demographics or people who may be too trusting of these types of contacts?
Yeah, I think first of all, it's about realizing that we if we are human being, if you are a human being, you are vulnerable to scams.
Unfortunately, is that very often we have this kind of overconfidence that it isn't just elderly people, it isn't just well, it is purely on the basis that after probably nigh on nine years of looking into the behavioral science around online manipulation, online scams, social engineering, I realized that actually we're all susceptible.
We've all been, like I said before, we've all been told something that we wanted to hear at probably the wrong time.
And especially in an online environment, we we often project our own feelings.
So for instance, in things like romance scams, what am I really exploiting?
Well, actually I'm lonely and isolated.
I feel depressed.
I can be anxious.
I can be I have a number of emotions that are going on for me.
I might be isolated from my family or these or situations, but very often somebody coming out of the blue and going, You know what?
I think you're incredible.
I want to spend my life with you.
That that can be incredibly powerful and very often is that.
Have you ever had a friend that has been in a relationship that they shouldn't be in?
Have you tried to tell them?
Again, it's an incredibly challenging situation and that is no different to what Ryan was talking about in relation to what we try and do from a banking point of view in, you know what?
This is the point where you're transferring money.
This is the point where we believe that this could be a scam.
And very often people will be in that situation where they go, I'm in love with the person.
I'm I'm I'm involved in an incredibly investment opportunity.
I want to buy this product.
Why should I believe otherwise?
So in these sorts of situations is it's first of all, realizing that we are vulnerable and human beings aren't great at admitting that most of the time.
But this is very much the case and that's the first real step.
But on top of that is that again, think about the level of trust that we can have in our information.
So whether it's an online product or a holiday or all these sorts of things, I only really need an image that I could have stolen from anywhere else on the Internet, put it onto a marketplace or social media, and then basically, you know, this this much.
So very often it's the case where actually there's very little verification needed for that.
So very often it's having that kind of healthy level of cynicism, realizing, how do I go about making this trust much stronger?
How do I that's terrible English, but you know what I mean?
But it's again, it's about verifying.
It's trusting and verifying in those situations.
And very often things like again, when we are asked to give away access to whether it's our information, our data, but also often it's about our bank accounts as well.
And so in recent years we've seen a massive rise in what's called money mules.
So individuals who have relinquished a certain amount of control over their bank accounts and allow criminals to essentially launder and funnel the funds into those bank accounts and utilize them for criminal purposes.
Now, some people, some people that we arrest will have 45, 50 banking apps on their phone.
They're completely witting in these sorts of situations.
They are a criminal in and of themselves and they facilitate it.
But actually the grand majority of people that are unwitting in these situations, they're being groomed, they're being coerced in these situations.
They may have been incentivized with gift cards or money or a percentage of it to give access away from it as well.
So very often it is about can you can't go through life without trusting some people, but it's also about verifying that trust in the first place.
Amazing.
Thank you so much, Paul.
And again, one really important topic that you touched on there was that element of money muling in particular.
And this might be one for you, Ryan, that you could share a bit more insight on.
If you do inadvertently facilitate money laundering, can you actually be prosecuted for that?
Yeah.
So it is a really good one and it comes down exactly to what Paul just mentioned.
So it's the whole witting or unwitting scenario.
The reality is, at least from a banking perspective, it all comes down to how much does that the Money Mule in terms of let's say it was a Barclays customer, actually realized what they're doing because it's actually what we've just mentioned a lot of the time.
They don't realize what's actually happening.
They've given someone else access to their account in order for maybe a quick payoff or it's with what we said, maybe some little bit of money left behind in the account after it's all said and done or something like that.
The reality is if someone is is sort of found unwitting, ultimately what we need to do is it's education more than I think.
So if we if we come across the situation where we'd have to investigate the customer, we've looked at them and we've said, you know what, this doesn't quite look right.
We will have a thorough, thorough investigation into them and we'll basically come up with an outcome if we deem it to be unwitting, we will still close their account.
So we will close their account with us as a bank because it's potentially a risk to business.
It's a risk if a customer basically.
But the reality is more often than not, it's more down to the education.
So it's making that customer aware of what they've done, that it's obviously illegal because sometimes they don't even realize what they're doing is actually illegal.
And and then it kind of goes from there if you're looking at it on the other side.
So you're looking at where we have clear evidence that they are witting think they are fully aware of what they're doing.
All that type of stuff is simply a case of close their account down straightaway and we ultimately upload them onto a fraud database to basically let the other banks know that this person is fraudulent.
This person has been found to a bit of possession or in the in the process of trying to move fraudulent funds in and out of their account.
And then basically it has a massive knock on effect because if you are found to be witting and to be found as an actual mule, you potentially are not going to be able to get anything like a mortgage or open up another account or something like that.
And the reality is with a lot of these people that are unwitting, they do tend to be the younger customer.
And the reality is when they kind of get recruited into these type of situations, they don't realize what the repercussions are of them actually being part of this.
So that's why the education of this is so important in making them aware of what does actually happen, what is the process and what can ultimately be the outcome.
If they do carry on doing this, it can have such a such a big impact on them later on in life.
Really?
Ryan, I think I think that really links back to everything that we have mentioned in that session today.
It's all about the education piece building and expanding our knowledge because that's going to better equipped us to be able to identify and of course avoid falling victim to these types of fraud and scams.
So that is absolutely brilliant that we have a lot of different questions coming in around things like cryptocurrency and social media platforms.
So I think one I'd love to get some more insight from your self on Ryan, would be I get a lot of messages on social media to invest in cryptocurrencies.
So do we get many reports of people being scammed in that way?
Yeah, absolutely.
So when we talk about trends and stuff that sort of occurs more often than not and that type of stuff, cryptocurrency at the minute is one of the biggest ones that we're seeing.
The reality is, is cryptocurrency in the grand scheme of things, is actually still very, very new.
So yes, it's been around close to a decade, but if you're looking at it from its popularity, I guess if you're looking at it from that perspective, it's very, very new.
And the reality is a lot of people don't know the full ins and outs, myself included.
I know enough from my role, but if you were to turn around to me tomorrow and say, What about X, Y, Z, what should I be investing in?
I'm no expert in that.
But what we do see is a lot of crypto scams that are coming in and also it's how to spot them.
So what I mentioned kind of at the beginning of this is most often than not what we see with cryptocurrency scams is where a customer is being given almost something.
And it's a phrase that we use a lot is, is it too good to be true?
So we probably hear that a lot in life and sometimes it can come across as a bit of a negative thing.
But the reality is if you're being promised a return on your investment, that is, they're saying they're going to triple, quadruple, whatever it would be your investment in a matter of days.
The reality is that is not the case with a cryptocurrency investment.
What we are finding, what we've come across recently is you'll be asked or contacted through social media.
So you might see an advertisement through it, through, let's say, Instagram, for instance.
You contact them and then you'll actually get a call from the scammer saying, Send money to this account or open up your account and this cryptocurrency platform or whatever it would be.
And then basically they'll get you to deposit a small amount of money.
So this could be anything from £10, £20, £30, whatever it would be.
And what they would do is they will transfer you back, say 60, 70, £80 or something like that.
So from the consumer's perspective, you'll be looking at that thinking, my God, I've just made a double on my investment in a matter of days or something like that.
That's how they'll get you.
And then basically they'll say, Right now, put in more and you might put in 200 or 300, 400, a thousand, whatever it would be, and that's when they will take that money.
Another thing that we do see is when it comes to that point as well, you start getting contacted by these these quote unquote, financial advisers who have basically been helping you make this payment and now basically say you need to send them a fee in order to get your return on your investment or something like that.
This is a common trick that's that's used especially in the investment world or the investment scams world from what I see personally.
So it's definitely something to keep an eye out, especially, especially, like I said, when you're getting it in for the first time, one of the things that we do typically say to our customers is how much research have you actually done into this?
What you, the one has actively sought the investment, or if you've been contacted by someone about the investment, Because if he's getting told that someone's contacted you about the investment, that is what we what we would claim is a red flag.
Brilliant.
Thank you very much, Ryan.
So again, I think the key thing to remember not only with cryptocurrencies but what any type of investment will be, definitely need to do that research to seek independent financial advice before investing any money because those investments can obviously decrease as well as increase them.
When you add in that extra element of is this potentially a scam doing those checks and making sure the companies are actually regulated to provide those products is such an important topic and a step to take.
And just before we go on to our last couple of questions Paul, I just want to come back over to yourself to see if you have anything that you'd like to add in on those investment and cryptocurrency scams.
Yeah, of course, because I think especially a cryptocurrency investment scam is that they work very much in the same way as any other investment scams.
So we've seen things like fine wine scams, we've seen whiskey barrel scams, we've seen gold bullion scams, we've seen basically in asset class here, basically in relation to investments, depending on what's going on in the economy, depending on what's going on in the media, in the news, generally speaking, they're incredibly good at making it contextually relevant to what's going on in the world, and especially with crypto over the last 2 to 3 years.
It's kind of shot up in that kind of saturation in the environment as well.
But from a criminal side, this is again from Ryan was talking about in relation to that impact and that people don't necessarily know the mechanics behind it, but also I'm reliant on that as a criminal because you know what actually, although the grand majority of crypto is is very much legitimate, there's different working processes for it.
The different applications I train a lot of the banks and law enforcement in crypto, but generally speaking, it reduces the need, the ability for me to be found.
So generally speaking, if I've invested and I put a load into crypto from a from a from fraud point of view, from a criminal gains point of view, it's it's a little harder to investigate to and to be able to identify.
So very often in these situations is that I'm relying on cryptocurrency has a both a brilliant fantastic thing that the victim doesn't know what's going on and they don't know the mechanics and they don't necessarily have the avenues to do that research.
But actually on the other side is it means that I can actually launder my money in a much more effective fashion on crypto because if you transfer money to the wrong a bank account, you have an institution to be able to help you get your money back.
Crypto, once it's gone, it's gone.
It's there's there's no there's no repercussions.
There's no overarching organization that can say, you know what, we will get your crypto back.
No, that's not how it works.
Unfortunately.
Brilliant.
Thank you so much, Paul.
Again, I think that's that's just so important.
The key thing to remember there is if those deals or offers sell good to be true, they probably are.
And that is often going to make victims less inclined to properly question their own decisions as they may be focused on, you know, getting that product or service for the best possible deal or growing their assets when investing.
So again, just a really kind of solid message from us all would be that when considering taking out any types of financial products or services, always do seek that independent financial advice prior to doing so.
So I think a theme that we it off today, guys, was purchase scams.
And naturally with this time of year it's absolutely applicable.
So just before we closed off all of the session and share some resources with our audience, I suppose kind of I'd just like to recap any of those key points that you would like to share with how we actually avoid falling to purchase scams.
And we'll also see if we can and we can get one or two more questions in there then as well.
So I think from a purchase scam point of view, going back to what I've said before, is how little amount of information do I need to convince you that I have a product to sell.
So if I'm a seller, for instance, so whether that be on a social media marketplace, whether that be on Instagram or social media or it's an email or it's a website, is that there's very little verification that I have in my possession.
The product for me to sell to you.
Now, we've seen rises in holiday scams.
We've seen a rise in things like rental fraud in the last year, especially with kind of high rental prices and prices and competition.
All of these sorts of things contribute it and purchase scams kind of covers a lot of these different multitudes of of methods in order to do so.
So very often in these sorts of purchase scams is again, it's taking that aspect.
So for instance, I can go on to a website or I can go to a seller.
Well, actually, if I go to a different website that's not necessarily regulated or is not necessarily got like those security in those processes, it's about making sure that you read reviews, absolutely read reviews around a potential brand, a potential product or a potential seller, for instance, in these given situations to, again, get the measure of support potentially, some people have been victim victimized a bit before.
So I think all these given situations, how do I trust that that product exists?
And unfortunately very often in today's world, it's it's very difficult to do sometimes, but very often it's also checking your emotion.
Very often we're excited when we've seen those deals, and very often when we talk about it, it's too good to be true.
Well, actually, very often we don't in an emotional state, we don't do what is good in those situations.
So doing that, trusting and verifying, taking those processes, reading reviews, making sure that you try, try and make sure that you kind of concentrate on more of the beaten track in relation to online websites and and trusted websites as well.
Very often is the case because there's nothing, no regulation stopping me from creating any other website, etc.
and to try and sell you something that doesn't even exist in the first place.
So that's what my advice is.
It's brilliant.
That's absolutely excellent.
Paul And then I think we definitely have time for one more question, and you will both have to forgive me because I'm going to open this one up the both here and I am kind of asking you to predict the future a little bit here.
And but as technology advances, what do we predict the next big scam is going to be?
Or what are we doing as organizations to raise awareness about new types of fraud and scams?
Yeah, so one thing, at least from our perspective, we've already kind of looked at or we're already aware of, and we've got sort of measures starting to be developed and stuff like that is, as I'm sure everyone has probably heard recently, is the impact of AI, deepfakes, voice, biometrics, that type of stuff.
So it's very much it's becoming.
So when we spoke at the very, very beginning of the call about the digitization of fraud and scams and stuff like that, that's developing, that's the reality of AI, probably what's going to be happening next and and what's AI is potentially going to bring to that aspect.
And like we said, and unfortunately fraudsters and stuff like that, they're developing.
So at least from our perspective, that's probably what's going to be coming around the corner.
But as I say, there is stuff behind the scenes in our in our voice and in our stuff that's that's being developed within our our cybercrime team.
Basically.
And I think on top of that is it's like I've said, around the limited level level of verification that I need to convince you I am who I say I am or a product or a holiday or anything like that or an investment opportunity.
Unfortunately, things like AI Deepfake does kind of almost reduce that level of trust that we can have in the content in which we can see.
So very often is the case where we are vulnerable to fraud and scams in the same way that we are vulnerable to disinformation, misinformation, online grooming, online dating, coercion, everything comes down to it because have you ever taken a text message the wrong way from a partner?
Have you ever taken an email the wrong way from a colleague or all these sorts of things is because our emotional relationship with our technology in these seamless, subjective forms, very often it takes takes real presidents and importantly things like with AI and Deepfake, it again reinforces things like the context and authority and urgency, making it much more believable, maybe making the language a lot more convincing in these sorts of situations.
But again, regardless of any of these different changes in the future, it's going to be your emotion that is triggered, it is going to be your emotions.
And then unfortunately for me, from a psychology point of view that's going to move a lot slower than anything else.
So asking you to have those moments, regardless of what you're reading, what you're seeing, what you're exposed to, having that emotional moment to go, is this something I can trust, stop, challenge and protect in those moments?
Fantastic.
Thank you both so much for our time for that insight and of course, for giving up your time to join the event today and sharing your expertise with us all.
And of course, thank you to our audience who have joined us for the session today.
And I know I speak for us all.
When I said we could have kept you here all day talking about these topics.
And that is just because there are so many different channels, so many different tactics that those cyber criminals do use.
And as we've seen throughout the session, there's lots of different ways that they will target us.
But the best way of protecting ourselves is to continue to expand our knowledge on the tactics that they use.
And thankfully, there are lots of brilliant resources available that can support those on our learning journeys.
The first of which we're going to talk about today is the Take Five to Stop Fraud website, which Paul has mentioned throughout the session today.
So Take Five is an initiative led by UK Finance and backed by the UK Government and other organizations, and it's designed to help you expand your knowledge on how we will be targeted by criminals.
So if you do receive a phone call, text message or email that you think may be fake, it ordered you to stop, take five and challenge what you are being told.
As we've seen today, criminals are experts at impersonating people, organizations and of course the police.
And they will spend hours researching us for their scams.
So they will be hoping that we let our guard down just for that brief moment, that that's where they will see their biggest success.
So as Paul mentioned, stop and think it could protect you and your money.
And remember, only criminals will ever try and rush you or panic you and to making those quick decisions.
And we also have a lot of information available through the fraud and Scams section of our Barclays.
co.
uk website.
This contains lots of information which includes tips to help us identify when we're being targeted and how to keep ourselves safe online.
This includes resources like phone number, checkers and a jargon buster.
To help you understand different words and phrases we use when talking about fraud and scams.
But we also run regular online events to help people learn about fraud and scams.
And part of this is also making our events available through the Barclays.
co.
uk website.
Now, I did see we had a lot of questions come through today about these forwarder events.
So through this platform you'll be able to access our impersonation scams event where we had our guest speakers to provide insight into the latest trends.
And we also have our impersonation scams event which can give you tips on how to protect yourself when targeted by someone claiming to be a friend or family member, an organization that you have dealings with, or of course, the police.
Now, another point on the Money Mules event that we ran back in September.
If you've ever wondered how criminals move stolen money around, money, mules, as we heard today, is one of the ways in which they do that.
And this often involves them approaching young people on social media platforms to help them do this.
So through that event will explain what money mules actually are and how to spot those warning signs.
All of this and much more is accessible through our Barclays.
co.
uk web platform.
And then finally, we have our free interactive learning platform, Digital Wings.
This platform is designed to help you boost your digital skills and confidence around a variety of different topics, including staying safe online through our Online Safety Hub we have lots of information, including bite sized learning modules, internal resources and links to external organizations who can support us all in expanding our knowledge on this important topic, which is going to be applicable to each and every one of us.
Because of course, what we've learned today is scammers do not discriminate.
They will target any of us at any time.
And we also have a lot of information through that safety board on how to report suspicious emails, text messages and phone calls through the relevant channels.
But we also have a link in that safety call to the National Cyber Security Center Cyber Aware Action Plan.
If you've not heard of this resource, it supports individuals and organizations.
By having them answer a couple of questions on topics like passwords and two step verification, after which they'll be provided with a free, personalized list of actions to help improve their cybersecurity, which, as we saw, aligns a lot to point fake emails or suspicious links about malicious software.
We talked about today.
So just to close off the session, it's important to remember that anyone can be tricked by a scammer.
They will change their tactics often and adapt quickly to changes in the economic climate.
And we're constantly uncovering new scams.
And the best way for us to continue to protect ourselves and the people around us is by expanding our knowledge on these subjects and sharing that within our networks so that everyone we do hope you've enjoyed the event today.
We will be sending out a short feedback survey off the back of the event today where you can share your thoughts on the events.
You know, we did have so many questions come through today.
Unfortunately, we didn't get to answer them all.
But we will be looking at planning our next upskill event in order to of 2024.
And we will use all of the insight you've raised in the meeting today to shape those topics.
But if you do have anything in particular you'd like to see for the future, please do let us know through that feedback survey.
Any thoughts that you think we could implement to make these events better?
We will take each of those comments and use them to shape our future digital safety events.
Also, if you really enjoyed the event, the topics were relevant, it's giving you a lot of insight that you can now share within your network.
Those nine and tens are just as important because they reassure us all that we're doing the right things for you and our future.
Attendees.
But with that, everyone have a wonderful day and we look forward to seeing you on another one of our upskill events very, very soon.