More than £2.3million has been lost in 2021 to online scams and fraudsters with 44 percent of Britons feeling more vulnerable to cyber threats because of the pandemic. Ms Rutherford shared her experience as well as the warning signs and signals consumers should always be on the lookout for.
Ms Rutherford, identity solutions expert at FICO, has been in the fraud industry for over 10 years and also worked as a marketing professional in the IT sector for almost two decades.
However, her expertise was still no match for the sly cybercriminals online.
With targeted remarketing ads, companies are able to showcase specific products to meet the needs of their consumers depending on their social media, search history and a variety of other insights.
Ms Rutherford found herself targeted by one of these ads, for a company called Comfort Now Shoes, which followed her for weeks and with an upcoming holiday she was eager to find a new pair of shoes.
She explained: “I followed the link and it looked like a perfectly normal website. I went and bought two pairs of shoes which cost about £58.
“I got an order confirmation on my email account and then they didn’t arrive.”
Slightly nervous about the situation, Ms Rutherford went back onto the company’s website and noted their incredibly long shipping time, which she later learnt was a large red flag she should have noticed.
She continued: “I was a bit suspicious by then and I also noticed that the email address on the order was…
