Scams, etc.

Having attended an interesting Zoom talk by Bernadette Merry of NatWest, I thought it might help to add some more information which hopefully will be useful.

Getting too many spam phone calls?

If so, it's worth trying the following:

1. make sure you are registered with the Telephone Preference Service (https://www.tpsonline.org.uk). As soon as I registered (with both my home and mobile numbers), I immediately noticed a drop in the number of people who were (at that time) trying to sell me double-glazing. Any reputable company in the UK is supposed to check the TPS list to check if they are allowed to call someone, and for me it works well. I get perhaps one call per year, and when I ask the company if they have heard of the Telephone Preference Society, they are always apologetic and tell me they'll remove my name. That's great for dealing with genuine UK-based companies; however, non-genuine and/or foreign callers aren't going to care if you're registered with the TPS - which is where #2 comes in...

2. buy a phone which will allow you to block calls. Some of these have a button you can press if you think you are speaking to a scammer, and they won't be able to call you again. That sounds good, but I suspect they will have access to numerous phone numbers they can use, so if you block them from one number, they can just call from another. The better solution is to buy a phone with call screening. In this case, if someone calls me who isn't in my list of contacts, they are asked to say their name and why they are calling; it is only at that point that my phone will ring and I will hear the message. If I want to accept the call, I can press '1' and they will be put through. This has completely stopped any spam phone calls - nobody is going to leave their name and a message and expect me to take the call.

I believe that BT, Siemens (with their Gigaset phones) and Panasonic have phones which offer this functionality. I went for a BT phone (even though I'm not with BT, it works fine!). What you're looking for with the BT phones are ones which offer trueCall functionality. As an example, here's one from the BT site which includes trueCall. Note: I mentioned earlier that the phone doesn't ring until someone has left a message - but if you have two phones at home and one has trueCall (or equivalent) and the other doesn't, you'll still have the old phone ringing whenever someone calls - so I'd recommend, if you can, changing all your phones.

Scammers websites

Berny mentioned that you should always make sure that any investment websites have links to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). I'd add that just because they say they're registered with the FCA, don't feel that makes them safe - they could have made that up! Instead, do your own check on the FCA site here. Berny said that you'll often be told that you need to take up this offer quickly - and on the FCA site, I've just read this: "Careful: if you have been contacted unexpectedly about an opportunity, it's likely to be high risk or a scam." :-)

Buying things online & secure / unsafe sites

We talked about buying things online, and if you're planning on doing so (it is a VERY safe thing to do, and something millions of people do every day!), just make sure that:

• you're using a reputable company's website

• you look for a padlock symbol before you enter ANY information into the website - not just your credit/debit card details, but also your name, address, etc.

Below, you'll see an example of where you will see this symbol. If you see an 'open' padlock, DO NOT enter any information; instead, find another website which is secure!

Note that even if a website has a padlock, that doesn't guarantee that it's a genuine website - scammers could go through the process to get themselves 'approved'; however, it's unlikely that they would do so. The one thing that a padlock guarantees is that you have a secure link between you and the company you're dealing with - nobody can 'see' what you're doing. The second screenshot shows you what you'll see if you click on the padlock. Note: it will be different depending on which browser you are using. This one is from Google Chrome; on Firefox it simply says 'Connection secure'.