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Highlights
- Lloyds Banks has issued a word of warning over the increasing number of WhatsApp scams.
- WhatsApp scams have gone up by over 2000% last year and the average loss suffered by the victims of these scams stood at around £1,950.
UK’s leading retail and commercial bank Lloyds Bank plc has issued a word of warning over the increasing number of WhatsApp scams to its customers on 6 February 2022. Let’s briefly take a look at this development.
The cruel WhatsApp scams
According to Lloyd Bank’s recent analysis, there has been an exponential increase of over 2,000% in the number of WhatsApp scams between 2020 and 2021, and it is anticipated to increase even further in the future. The average loss suffered by the victims of these scams stood at around £1,950.
Even though impersonation frauds have been very common, and fraudsters usually pretend to be credible institutions like HMRC, banks, or police, there has been a decline of nearly 14% in such scams last year. On the other hand, WhatsApp scams have become the fastest-rising form of impersonation fraud as organised gangs are looking for new and innovative ways to lure people into giving out their hard-earned cash.
The bank has alerted customers that the scammers are fooling victims by posing as their family members and friends on WhatsApp pretending to be in some kind of difficulty. After receiving a response, the fraudsters generally use the excuse of losing their phone to ask for the details of the victims from a different phone number, and just calling them ‘mum’ or ‘dad’ is enough as they are pretending to be family. The mobile banking account of the victims is accessed after asking for help, for instance, to urgently pay a bill.
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Lloyd Bank’s Fraud Prevention Director Liz Ziegler said organised criminal gangs are carrying out this scam by taking advantage of the love and trust people have for their friends and family and exploiting their instinct to protect their close ones. She added that without proper identification of the family member or friends, such messages shouldn’t be trusted, and money shouldn’t be transferred. If someone claims to know you, it’s important to first verify their identity by speaking to them or requesting a voice note.
WhatsApp’s policy manager Kathryn Harnett confirmed that end-to-end encryption protects users’ chats. However, a six-digit PIN code shouldn’t be shared with anyone, including family or friends, and a two-step verification must be set up by all users for additional security.
People should be extra cautious about suspicious messages over WhatsApp and use its report and block features for tackling the same, according to crime watchdog Action Fraud. The suspicious messages can also be forwarded to 7726 if they haven’t been acted upon yet.
Lloyd Bank’s share price performance
Lloyds Banking Group Plc (LON: LLOY) is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange and the New York stock exchange, and it is among the biggest companies falling under the FTSE 100 index.
The market cap of the bank stood at £36,499.41 million and it has provided its shareholders with a return of 38.86% over the last one year, while its year-to-date returns stood at 7.49% as of 4 February 2022. Lloyds Banking Group Plc’s shares closed at GBX 51.38 on 4 February 2022.
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Bottomline
The number of WhatsApp scams has been increasing rapidly. Lloyds Bank along with WhatsApp have alerted the customers regarding the same. The customers should be extra cautious while dealing with suspicious messages and always confirm the identity of people asking for money to protect themselves from such scams.
