I spent two days, last week, at a conference in a leafy Surrey suburb – meeting with fund managers. I travel to a few of these events a year and ‘speed date’ fund representatives to better understand their approach to investing and how they might fit within our own Thomas and Thomas model portfolios.
During the conference, the organisers had arranged for a convicted (reformed) high-profile fraudster to come and speak with us. This was honestly one of the most chilling sessions that I have ever experienced as Alex not only shared the footage of his final arrest but just how he ended up defrauding people of their funds.
It was sort of sickening and fascinating in equal measure.
During his presentation, Alex actually played recordings of how he so calmly would call people up (pretending to be their bank) and then literally convince them to pay him millions. It sounds ridiculous – but when your bank ‘fraud department’ calls to explain that someone is attempting to hack your account and that some emergency protocols need carrying out with just a few strokes of your own computer…….the situation becomes more understandable.
Alex was a really likeable chap. He is now completely reformed and spends time sharing all the tricks with the Police and Bank fraud departments. He explained that it was only when he heard of the mental illness his actions caused to a businessman who laid off all 40 of his staff after being defrauded – that Alex actually changed his ways.
As I wrestled with the Friday holiday traffic returning to Pembrokeshire that evening, I got to thinking about the world we now live in and just how vulnerable our clients could be to a financial attack.
I wanted to highlight three possible routes that fraudsters might take:
1) The speculative phone call
This is still the most well-known form of fraud. We have all experienced this. The call from a call-centre somewhere with a person saying that they are phoning about a recent attack on your computer or bank account.
These frauds are becoming much more sophisticated. The fraudster will have already carried out their research on you. They will have obtained information about where you bank, the platform you invest on and possibly even who your accountant or financial planner is. They can get this through buying your information on the dark web or even through directly hacking into your email account.
Just because they know where your money is – it doesn’t mean that they are genuine. Of course, there is always the nagging voice at the back of your mind ‘what if this is genuine and I need to do something?’ The only option then is to hang up on the caller and contact the bank, adviser or platform directly to verify the situation. Only use a genuine phone number on your existing paperwork to do this. If you are fortunate enough to still have access to your bank in town – go in person.
2) Myself or Beth calling you
Sadly, AI voice cloning is cheap and accessible to fraudsters. Alex explained to us that it only takes around three minutes to record someone’s voice and then to manipulate it to say anything that you want. Therefore, you might receive a call even ‘from Darren’ which sounds exactly like me.
Remember; a fraudster will have done their homework and targeted you in such an instance. They will have a plan way before you do. The litmus test to know if such a call is genuine is if they ask you to ‘do something’ that we wouldn’t usually ask.
Again, hang up and contact us yourself – don’t be afraid to ask us to verify that it is us and to really grill us on why we are making an unusual request.
3) Face Cloning
Face Cloning is now a huge problem – especially seen with ‘romance fraud’ where a lonely and more vulnerable person could fall in love with someone via an online dating site. The person they think they are looking at on the screen is actually several people working around the clock to convince the victim that they need to help them financially.
Face Cloning can also be used to represent someone you might trust – such as ourselves! Again, the golden rule here is ‘are they asking you to do something that we wouldn’t usually do?’ If the answer is yes – hang up. Most of you live fairly close to us so just drive in and grab us in person if you are at all worried!
Summary
In conclusion, fraudsters are able to infiltrate our lives. Very often they will ‘get lucky’ if we are at a vulnerable point in time or if we have coincidentally just experienced something that they speculatively describe.
My golden rule would be – if they ask you to ‘do something’ have the courage to hang up. Go and make a cup of tea and just think it through. Chat to us if you are worried. Call younger relatives to discuss the call. Don’t act in the moment.
I am so sorry for the gloomy article! However, I would rather depress you for a few minutes of your life than see you caught out and living with the consequences.
We recently shared a true story about how one of our treasured clients was defrauded on our podcast ‘Your Money Talks’. We were amazed at the responses we received from more treasured clients who could relate to this story as they also had been caught out. The mental impact is often just as bad as the financial one.
As ever, we are here for you if you have any concerns at all. My very best wishes.
Darren
