Scammers are exploiting the familiarity of Santander to harvest the data and hard-earned cash of unsuspecting individuals. Telephone scams have unfortunately remained increasingly popular amongst unscrupulous fraudsters to target their victims.
They occur when criminals persuade customers to hand over their credit or debit card details, or to transfer funds from their account.
In this case, it involves a call which purports to be from Santander, and so customers could be at risk.
Warning bells were recently sounded on Twitter, by the user @Alanisared, who was particularly perturbed by the message.
He said: “Be careful. Just had a call displaying Santander number on phone to say our account had been hacked. Very convincing.
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Some may even ask Britons to key in their PIN using their telephone keypad.
Many scammers thrive on a sense of urgency to ensure people do not have time to think the matter through.
Therefore, some scammers will insist it is necessary for individuals to act urgently to protect funds, or ask that a person does not discuss reasons for withdrawal with branch staff.
A final technique is to advise a person another account has been set up to keep their money safe, which they should transfer funds into immediately.
All of these are particularly sinister and should be key warning signs of a scam, Santander has stressed.
The bank has said it will never contact a person unsolicited…
