The coronavirus outbreak has unfortunately brought about a wave of scammers and fraudsters preying on the financially vulnerable.
A recent study by Aegon found almost three million UK adults have fallen for a financial scam since the start of the covid-19 pandemic.
The pension provider surveyed 2,000 Brits to highlight the huge financial fraud problem that existed even before the coronavirus.
It found a fifth of the population, or 11 million people in the UK, admit to being approached by a scammer.
But over five million have doubts about whether a past dealing was actually an attempt to scam them.
The assumption that it is mostly older people who get targeted is proving untrue, with one-in-10 (11%) 18-34-year olds admitting to being scammed, compared to only 1% of over 55s.
Horrific scale of issue
Kate Smith, head of pensions at Aegon, said: “When you look at the figures of the number of people affected by financial fraud, it hits home how horrific the scale of the issue is.
“We all need to talk about this issue to make more people aware of the very real dangers of either responding to approaches or signing up to things without really understanding what is being entered into or knowing who they are dealing with.
“The coronavirus crisis lockdown measures have changed every element of our normal working, entertainment and social patterns, meaning we’re spending more time online. This unfortunately can be a big benefit to scammers.
“We also know scammers are adept at reinventing their tactics. It’s easy to think that we need to be on our guard from cold calling or phishing attempts, but mounting evidence shows scammers don’t rely on these methods alone.
“They can just as easily turn their hand to creating convincing websites or another online presence, which people can inadvertently fall prey to when searching online.”
