Telephone and Online Scams

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate; I thank the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) for introducing it. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron).

Every one of us elected representatives will know people who have been scammed. I will give a couple of examples, though I cannot put a figure on the moneys scammed from the people I will refer to. I was recently made aware of a successful scam whereby a lady was relieved of her entire retirement savings of some £20,000—basically, her life savings. She was a schoolteacher; it is funny that the lady to whom the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale referred was a schoolteacher as well. I do not mean to be negative in any way—just realistic—but one would have assumed that they would have been well aware of what was before them.

This lady was the head of the English department, and was very active in her local church. She is a very bright lady who is still very much with it; she is under 70. To put it simply, she fell for an elaborate scam. A man who sounded as though he were in his 50s, knew the banking lingo, and was polite to the extreme agreed to ring her back after she said that she was busy and could not speak because she was leaving her grandchild at school. He called back at the time they had agreed and went through what seemed like the logical steps to stop a scam from taking place. Unfortunately, he was the scammer, and he knew exactly what he was doing.

The point that I am trying to make is that even the best people can be scammed if they are not careful. Perhaps the scammer once worked in a bank or in the financial sector. Certainly he sounded beyond plausible by the end of the call. This lovely retired teacher’s husband was a long-distance lorry driver. They had worked long and hard hours to save enough money to retire—money that they were going to use to visit relatives and do what they wanted to do when they had more time to spend together. I must highlight that when this lady went down to her bank, the staff were incredible. It is good to underline it when banks step in and do the right thing. In this case, Santander and Nationwide must be thanked; they were able to track and trace some of the money, and the lady got some 75% of it back. I put on record my thanks to them for what they did.

Clearly, the scammers have upped their game. Their scams do not involve emails from so-called Nigerian princes, kings, and retired army generals, telling people, “You’ve just won all the money in the world, which you never thought you’d have, and you’ve inherited land. All you have to do is send your bank details, and we’ll transfer the money and everything else to you.” It is much more sophisticated today; we now have home-grown, plausible, knowledgeable thieves, able to prey on those who have worked hard and deserve to live their life free from such vile thieves.

I know another lady who was scammed. She is separated and divorced. The person who scammed her was aware of her personal circumstances because she has a Facebook account. Whenever we put something on Facebook, we innocently tell the world where we are. People know whether we are separated or divorced, and when they read that story, they quickly assume that we are vulnerable, which gives them another opportunity for a scam. The scam involved transferring money to a person from eastern Europe or wherever—he certainly sounded English, according to the lady. They had a Facebook arrangement and made telephone calls, but they did not meet. Appointments and liaisons were made, but there was always a reason he could not make it. The signs tell us that something was not right about it. He purported to be serving in the forces, but when the address that he had given was checked out, it was false, as were the details of his Army record. Everything about him was false, but she was vulnerable and innocently lost money to his scam. We need to be careful about that.

My local paper, Newtownards Chronicle, regularly publishes stories to highlight scams, whether online or telephone frauds, as do the police. The scams are on a large scale. HMRC reported that, last spring, it received some 250,000 reports of tax scams—nearly 2,500 a day—and asked for more than 6,000 websites to be deactivated. Some 84,000 customers lost money. About a month or two ago, HMRC warned in the press about people telling others, “Pay your tax by this time”, and some people were caught as a result.

Last year alone, customers lost tens of thousands of pounds, but only a fraction of that amount was refunded by banks. The new code, which we all know about, should mean that more money will be reimbursed. The refund will come from a central pot in cases where neither the bank nor the customer was to blame. Eight banks, covering 17 brands, have committed to implement the code immediately: Barclays; HSBC, including first direct and M&S Bank; Lloyds Bank, including Halifax, Bank of Scotland, and Intelligent Finance; Metro Bank; Nationwide; Royal Bank of Scotland, including NatWest and Ulster Bank in Northern Ireland; Santander, including cahoot and Cater Allen; and Starling Bank.

Not all banks have signed up, however, and that needs to change. In the Minister’s response, which I know will be forthcoming and helpful, perhaps she can give us an idea of what has been done to encourage other banks to sign up and be part of the initiative. We need to drive change and the way forward from this place and from this debate, and I look to the Minister, as I often do, to understand the Government’s plans for the line of action to be taken, legislation, and the methodology to ensure that scams and scammers can be stopped.

What more can we do to tackle the issue? In large part, it needs to be tackled through conversation and coverage. We need to encourage people to have conversations about phone scams with all family members, not simply those whom we believe to be vulnerable, although they also need to be told. It is surprising how many people can be caught out unwittingly. Hon. Members present, and people further afield, may remember the old days when front doors were left open, probably with the key inside. The money was in the wee tin in the kitchen, but it was never touched—that is how it was. Life has moved on. Today, thieves are willing to rob, pillage and steal, and they have different ways of doing it, which we need to understand.

The message must be clear. People should always check with their local branch before they give out any details. They should pop down and ask the staff on the front desk what is happening—or if they do not have a bank to pop down to and ask, as the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale said, they should certainly phone. The staff can let them know if there is an issue with any of their accounts. A genuine caller will understand and encourage the need to check with the bank.

I usually go on holiday every second year, and we have paid the money this year. As an example of how banks can do it, when the money is paid out from my credit card account, my bank phones me up and says, “This is a larger amount of money than we normally have coming through your bank account. Can you confirm it?” Some banks, and some debit and credit card companies, are proactive, as they should be.

I am not a soap watcher—I do not watch “Coronation Street” or “Emmerdale”, or any of those sorts of things—but my wife is, and millions of other people watch, too. As I understand from my wife, not from my own experience, they do storylines about different issues. There is an opportunity to use some of those soaps to raise awareness by carrying a hacker storyline. That would make more people aware of what is happening throughout the country. We need to understand that it is happening to people of all ages, not simply to the old and infirm; a 20, 25 or 30-year-old can be scammed as well. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale referred clearly to young and old.

We need to set aside more funding to enable the police to be more effective in tackling such fraud, as the hon. Member for Ogmore said, and as others will. A business in my constituency caught online fraud while it was taking place, but when it rang its bank and the Police Service of Northern Ireland, they did not have the expertise to stop and trace the fraud. That should not be the case. The necessary expertise, experience and wherewithal must be in place.

The scams that happen in the constituency of the hon. Member for Ogmore or the Minister, or in my constituency or yours, Mr Hollobone, are the same scams that take place all over the United Kingdom. It is important that the police forces in all four regions interact with one another about scams. Perhaps that already happens, but if it does not, it needs to. Every region of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland needs to exchange information about new scams, so that others know, and so that the knowledge passes down through the system.

We must have experts available to do what needs to be done—not simply to stop transfers midway, but to trace those who are carrying them out and ensure that they get the maximum sentence for their fraud. The sentences for fraud and for stealing from people need to reflect those criminal activities.

The lady about whom I spoke at the beginning of my remarks has been irrevocably changed by the experience; someone who was outgoing and confident has lost trust, not in her bank, but in herself. The effect on people is not just monetary or financial; it is deeper than that. There are long-term mental and emotional effects. We need to ensure that support is available to tackle the crime, catch the criminals, stop the scams and help the victims.