Santander has warned its UK business customers to be on high alert for impersonation scams after a surge in attempts to steal money by crooks pretending to work for the bank.
Scammers are becoming increasingly sophisticated, the Spanish-owned bank told the Press Association, with over 200 of its corporate and commercial banking customers known to have been targeted in September alone.
A typical scam is for a crook to pretend to be from the bank’s security or fraud department and say it has noticed a fraudulent payment, giving fake contact details to resolve the issue.
Customers are then usually asked to install the AnyDesk app, log into mobile banking and authorise a transaction that will stop the “fraudulent payment”, but an action that sends money to the criminal’s account.
Chris Ainsley, Santander UK’s head of fraud risk management, told PA: “Impersonation scams are rampant and the criminals perpetrating these crimes can be particularly devious in their approach.
“Don’t trust people who make an unsolicited call to you and say they are from your bank, and make sure you validate any requests from cold callers by hanging up and contacting your bank using the phone number on the back of your bank card.”