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The psychological impact on people who fall victim to fraudsters. People who've suffered emotional distress from what has become the UK's fastest growing crime.
Last year 660,000 fraud incidents were officially reported but the recent crime survey for England and Wales suggested there
were more than 5 million frauds last year and half of those were committed online. This suggests a lot of victims aren't
contacting the police - perhaps out of embarrassment or shame.

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Online Criminals Stole My Confidence - BBC Radio 4

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Simon Read explores the psychological impact on people who fall victim to fraudsters.

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Take the email quiz

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Sign Which?'s petition to force action on scams

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Fraud is now at record levels, with 5.1m scams costing Britons £9bn each year. Support Which?'s campaign to force Government action on scams.

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July is scams awareness month and Trading Standards have a special web page

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Free trial scams are now spreading on social media into many other product areas, and consumers are still losing money to this scam.

The National Trading Standards eCrime Team, along with Get Safe Online is supporting the second week of Citizens Advice's Scams Awareness Month 2016 with an infographic aimed at highlighting the problem of 'free trial' scams, also known as subscription traps.

Subscription traps work by tempting people with free trials for slimming pills and other related 'health' type products, such as anti-wrinkle and anti-aging creams, skin cleansing products, muscle gain or growth, teeth whitening, and hair growth products to name but a few.

People are duped into giving their credit card or debit card details to pay for up to £5 of postage and packing. Scammers use a variety of tricks to secure the right to take monthly subscriptions for these products out of consumers' bank accounts. The right to do this is often buried in small and detailed terms and conditions that consumers often accept without knowing they have given that right to a scammer.

These terms and conditions sometimes come with a pre-ticked acceptance box, or an implicit acceptance that in placing an order the consumer accepts the T&Cs. By agreeing to them people effectively form a contract with the seller and unwittingly agree to what is called 'a continuous payment authority' (CPA). This is just the technical term for taking regular payments out of your account without having to ask each time.

You can read more about this problem in the blog post: Beware Subscription Traps - Be Scam Aware on the Citizens Advice website.

So please help spread the word about subscription traps using the hashtag #scamaware, and share this infographic with your friends and family during Scams Awareness Month this July.

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Free trial scams are now spreading on social media into many other product areas, and consumers are still losing money to this scam. The National Trading Standards eCrime Team, along with Get Safe Online is supporting the second week of Citizens Advice's Scams Awareness Month 2016 with an infographic aimed at highlighting the problem of 'free trial' scams, also known as subscription traps.

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CIFAS tips

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Bad news if you were hoping to stay safe online: the number of victims of identity theft rose by 57% in the last year, according to fraud prevention service Cifas.

But unlike previous rises, the victims of identity theft are no longer targeted by fraudsters digging through rubbish bins for bank statements, or by hackers installing keyloggers on compromised PCs. Instead, according to Cifas, the victims are giving out the base ingredients of identity theft willingly online, through social media.

So how do you avoid being the victim of online identity theft? It's easy if you know how.

Lock down your Facebook

When people say "social media", they really mean "Facebook". Just think about the sort of information that Facebook knows about you: it'll have your birthday and your email address for sure. You might have told it who your mother is, and she might have told it her maiden name. Lovers past and present will show up on the site (and even if you didn't change relationship status, it doesn't take a genius to work out that the person who starts sending 😍 and 😘 emoji regularly might be someone special), and if you're like any pet owner I know, so too will they.

You don't have to stop posting that information, and most people would find it difficult to do so even if they did have to. But take a good look at the privacy settings on your Facebook account - accessed by clicking the padlock on the top right - and ask yourself whether any of this information needs to be public (or, in Facebook terms, available to "Everyone"). And keep checking, because Facebook has a habit of adding new privacy settings all the time.

Think before you tweet

Even if your Facebook is private, some of your social media will probably be public. That's not a problem in itself, but it's important to remember that information useful to identity thieves may not seem all that personal. You probably wouldn't tweet your home address - but would you instagram a view from your bedroom window? It's not too difficult to narrow that down to a door number, particularly if you've shared other information about the rough area where you live. (One of my friends once managed to find out my home address thanks to an encyclopaedic knowledge of where various tube lines run above ground.)

And those viral trends of finding out your "porn star name" - the street you were born on, plus your mother's maiden name? Maybe don't join in with them quite so readily. (Did you know your Cyborg Name is the 16-digit number on the front of your credit card plus the 3 digit CV2 code on the back? It's true. Email me yours!)

Keep track of your accounts

Credit monitoring services maybe seem like a luxury, but they can often be the only way of getting a heads-up if someone has successfully opened a new bank account or credit card in your name. Even if that's not something you're willing to spend money on, at least enable online banking for your main accounts and get in the habit of checking them. It will give you early warning if your cash gets siphoned away - and have the added bonus of making it easier for you to manage your money.

Oh, and ... don't tweet pictures of your credit cards

Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine)
Oh cripes the number on the back of my new credit card pic.twitter.com/ALINJ5n6Ul

You would not believe how many people's first instinct upon getting a new credit card is to tweet a picture of it out of excitement. Don't be those people.
Topics

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How to avoid identity theft - via your porn-star name or relationship status

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Bad news if you were hoping to stay safe online: the number of victims of identity theft rose by 57% in the last year, according to fraud prevention service Cifas. But unlike previous rises, the victims of identity theft are no longer targeted by fraudsters digging through rubbish bins for bank statements, or by hackers installing keyloggers on compromised PCs.

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A letter from what looks like Barclays

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How do I avoid being ripped off

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Every week listeners email You and Yours, telling us how they - or someone close to them - have been conned. Many of these scams are depressingly familiar, but new ones are emerging all the time.

According to the Office for National Statistics, in 2015 there were an estimated 7.6 million cases of fraud and cybercrime in England and Wales alone. It means most people in the UK are now far more likely to be conned than burgled.

The frauds I've reported on are always built on trust. While we should not live in fear, by learning to spot if someone is not as trustworthy as they seem, many more of us could avoid being caught out.

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How do I avoid being ripped off by a scam?

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Every week listeners email You and Yours, telling us how they - or someone close to them - have been conned. Many of these scams are depressingly familiar, but new ones are emerging all the time. According to the Office for National Statistics, in 2015 there were an estimated 7.6 million cases of fraud and cybercrime in England and Wales alone.

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advice from Action Fraud

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Action Fraud is the national fraud reporting centre. It's the place for anyone in the UK to go for advice and information about fraud, as well as to report fraud if you've become a victim of fraud. Sometimes fraud victims feel too embarrassed to report it, or think that nothing can be done.

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a Moneybox item

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Hear a recording of the first phone call that a group of bank fraudsters made to Nargess Sadjady

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Get Safe Online | The UK's leading Online Safety Advice Resource

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The UK's leading online safety advice resource. Providing free, impartial internet safety advice to help keep you and your family safe online.

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Information and advice on scams and fraud

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Report fraud to Action Fraud | Scams and fraud | Age UK

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You can report fraud, including online or internet crimes, using the Action Fraud reporting tool. Action Fraud is the UK's national fraud reporting centre. Find out more here

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Protecting elderly & vulnerable people from postal and phonescams

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The National Trading Standards Scams team estimate postal scams could be netting criminals worldwide up to £10 billion a year Criminals worldwide are hunting down the most fragile members of our society by "working" from mailing lists which categorise people as being elderly or vulnerable in some way.