Citizens Advice shares its learnings about the world of scams

Citizens Advice says many often assume that it’s older, less ‘digitally savvy’ people that get scammed. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Fraudsters have adapted their techniques whenever there’s been a new development in the pandemic, and they are taking advantage of the financial pressures people are under.

Every year, Citizens Advice runs Scams Awareness Fortnight with the Consumer Protection Partnership. Here, it explains what it has learnt about scams in the past year.

Learnings about scams

Online dating fraud

Romance fraud has boomed during the UK’s lockdowns, with reports to Action Fraud up 40% in the year to April 2021. Fake profiles on dating sites and social media platforms are so prevalent that TV producers have commissioned a new UK spin-off of the popular US reality show ‘Catfish’.

Here, victims of romance fraud tell us about their experiences in their own words, and we speak to a forensic linguist to lift the lid on tactics used by these masters of manipulation.

The cost of romance fraud

If you’ve received an email from Which? that you suspect to be a scam, please get in touch: which.co.uk/contact-us

Stay safe,

Which? scam alert team

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