O2 and Virgin Media customers have been given an urgent warning after an uptick in scam messages.
From recruitment and job scams to car finance and gambling, the scams are widespread and constant for many customers.
Another worrying tactic is messages saying ‘Hi mum’ or ‘Hi dad’, attempting to trick the user into replying.
‘Scammers aren’t sticking to old tricks; they’re evolving fast, tapping into trending news and targeting vulnerable people with fake prizes, job offers and financial compensation schemes,’ Murray Mackenzie, Director of Fraud Prevention at Virgin Media O2, said.
‘But with fraud continuing to increase, we’re reminding people to remain vigilant; always be careful when you receive a call or text out of the blue, don’t share personal details with anyone and report suspicious messages for free to 7726.’
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It comes as this year alone, around 600,000,000 spam messages were blocked from reaching customers, but scammers are trying new methods.
iPhone users have also been warned about a surge in scam attacks via text messaging.
Some cybercriminals are sending texts via iMessage, tricking users into disabling Apple’s built-in phishing protection and allowing access to dodgy links.
To protect users, Apple automatically disables links in iMessages sent from unknown senders.
However, if a user replies to the text or adds the sender to their contact list, the links will be enabled.
But some fishing attacks have seen the scammer encourage users to reply to texts, making the link available to access.
Some scam messages, referred to as ‘smishing’ are so sophisticated that they’ve duped many users out of money and goods.
Smishing is an abbreviation of ‘SMS phishing’. While phishing refers to cybercriminals posing as legitimate institutions via email, smishing is the same practice but using text messages.
Tell-tale signs of the scam messages include spelling and grammatical errors and a lack of personal greeting, with scammers often using ‘Dear Customer’ or ‘Dear [your email address]’ instead of using the customer’s name.
Meanwhile, ‘vishing’, or voice phishing, involves scammers using the telephone to impersonate reputable organisations and scam their victims.
If you think you’ve been a victim of this type of scam, you should talk to your bank or card provider immediately and report the scam to Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040.
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