Fraudsters pose as Financial Ombudsman Service staff with fake compensation

Fraudsters posing as Ombudsman staff offer fake compensation schemes

Fraudsters impersonating representatives of authorised organisations cold call victims offering gift cards like iTunes, or they ask the victim to pay £300 to claim compensation or receive a grant. They claim to be the Ombudsman, the service that handles consumer complaints related to the financial service industry. 

However, it never calls the victim seeking a fund transfer or a fee for claim reimbursement. Instead, the criminals use cyber tricks to hide their addresses and may ask for money to send an award or compensation in exchange. 

Such scams are based on spoofed emails and fake invoices where the money stolen from the accounts ranges from a thousand to tens of millions of pounds. 

They make fake Ombudsman calls where they ask for some fee, in the form of direct money transfer or gift cards, to release the compensation, or they pretend to be from a delivery company and ask the victim to send payment in a small amount like £2 or £3 to get the deliveries. 

They ask for personal details to extract information that they can use to manipulate victims. Many reputed financial institutions face losses due to such scams. However, they cannot completely restrict the criminals, often representatives operating from overseas, beyond the local legislation. 

They send emails impersonating Ombudsman Service staff, send voicemails, or use other methods to persuade the account holders to authorise the transfer of funds where the callers cannot be held accountable as the transactions are authorised.

To avoid risks, victims should be cautious and aware of their tactics. You can pursue civil action against the fraudsters if you have lost money, but you need evidence to track them. Therefore, you should always keep a copy of all communications that you receive from them. 

With the integration of innovative methods, the regulatory system offers quick solutions to track their actions, and it can help the victim avoid further loss of assets. 

The client should be aware that if the customers have to pay a surcharge for an underpaid post or a fee, the postal department or the Ombudsman will never ask for it in emails or send messages in text format and ask the target to pay through gift cards. 

Also, one can use the mobile app systems to track postal deliveries and check the links from government websites that offer simple tracking systems.

 How To Protect Yourself?

• Never give personal details like address, phone numbers and other information unless you know the caller. 

• Never buy gift vouchers to pay penalties if instructed by some anonymous impersonating authorised individuals.

• Most scammers hide their real identity to evade detection. Never divulge secretive information like internet logins or give telephone banking passwords to the representatives on the phone. 

• If you suspect a call from the Ombudsman, report it by calling them directly on the authorised numbers.

Many social media sites have no system to restrict the bogus adverts posted on their pages, and many such ads with lucrative deals come up on search engines. Such websites have been advised by the authorities to filter counterfeit. 

However, they state that their systems are not designed to detect fraud automatically because current methods cannot identify them. In that case, the tech firm publishing the adverts must manually and individually check all ads before publishing. 

Nevertheless, authorities have raised concerns as the search engines get funds through illegitimate ads, and they should be held liable for hurting innocent viewers. Hence, law enforcement agencies have asked search engines to ensure the adverts are legitimate. 

Of the crimes, such cases make up over 33 per cent of all, but in general, less than 1 per cent is investigated by the police. The government agents claim they get at least three to four emails from people in a day asking if the ads are genuine or fake. 

The regulatory agencies see the threat has been growing and are trying to find a more effective way to handle it. Consumer groups, law enforcement and industry are working together to find an alternative solution, like recruiting more police and technical people who can provide their services to identify and remove deceitful sites. 

Recently, they deployed fully dedicated officers to handle it, though the government introduced an uplifting program. Also, Facebook launched the Scam Ad Alert, where one can report a suspicious advert.