Could you fall victim to lockdown fraud?

This is Money Podcast

This is Money

Business News, Business, Investing, News

4.1 • 650 Ratings

🗓️ 11 September 2020

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As if 2020 wasn’t already proving to be a painful enough year, fraud has soared in lockdown.

Fraud victims are now losing at least £11.5million a day but the real total is estimated at £80million, as only about 15 per cent of cases go reported.

Cases are up 43 per cent in lockdown, according to Action Fraud figures, and the amount lost is up a staggering 286 per cent – meaning a victim loses £8,000 of their savings in average every minute.

So could you fall victim to lockdown fraud?

On this week’s podcast, Simon Lambert and Georgie Frost discuss how people are being conned, the red flags to watch out for, what your rights are if you fall victim and why it’s not enough to think it won’t happen to you.

Also on this week’s show, will the rule of six knock the chance of a V-shaped recovery for six and what on earth is the Government playing at with its Brexit threat to break international law?

And finally, there’s a savings lottery out there with a better chance of winning £50,000 than the Premium Bonds.

Family BS’ windfall bonds have a minimum investment of £10,000 but a one in 714 chance of winning monthly prizes of between £1,000 and £50,000… but there’s a catch, it’s also possible no one will win. So, is it worth signing up?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to This Is Money podcast brought to you in partnership with Charles Stanley Direct, the award-winning investment platform trusted by over 40,000 clients. Investment involves risk.
0:10.6	I'm Georgie Frost, and alongside me today is editor Simon Lambert. And we saw rise in cases during lockdown. I'm talking about scams. Losses quadrupled during that time to over £92 million.
0:23.7	So we tell you what you need to look out for and how you can protect yourself.
0:27.8	Also today could the government's new draconian lockdown measures, not the recovery for six.
0:33.1	After months playing second fiddle to coronavirus, Brexit is back in the headlines again. We take
0:39.2	a look at what it means for investors and the best Thelma and Louise shares and the savings
0:44.3	lottery with better odds than the premium bonds. Don't forget you to the up to date with all the latest
0:49.0	breaking money news. Just go to this ismoney.com.uk or download the app. But first, it couldn't happen to you.
0:56.9	Or could it? Victims of fraud are losing at least 11.5 million pounds a day.
1:03.1	A scammers appear to be cashing in on coronavirus. Now, the true figure, though, is thought to be
1:07.9	closer to a whopping 80 million a day.
1:12.0	Why the disparity?
1:16.3	Because they reckon just a fraction of all fraud is officially reported.
1:19.7	Experts, they've been warning since the start of all of this that crooks would look to capitalize on the panic surrounding the crisis.
1:23.9	So what are some of the most common scams doing the round at the moment
1:27.2	and how can you avoid them?
1:28.7	Simon, these stats are astonishing.
1:32.1	Yeah, it's huge.
1:33.1	I mean, the stats are the 22,785 cases recorded in March, with losses totaling 92.3 million.
1:40.9	And by July, that had jumped 43% to 32,658 cases while losses had soared by 286% to 356.6 million.
1:52.0	So that means that basically not only what has happened is that cases have jumped substantially,
1:58.0	but that people are losing more money.
	...

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