Stay safe - Top tips on how to spot online scams
We’re always looking to improve our website security and our service to our partners so we’d like to offer you some tips to help keep your personal details safe and identify some of the most common scams.
Fake emails, texts or calls
Phishing fraudsters will try to get you to give them your confidential or personal information by sending emails or texts that look genuine but link out to fake unsecure sites. Look out for:
- Unusual contacts - is the email, text or call from a contact you recognise or can verify? Do you normally receive emails, texts calls from these details?
Ravensworth emails will only ever come from @ravensworth.co.uk - Urgent Subject lines - that cause you alarm eg 'Security Alert' or 'Your account may be suspended’ hoping to convince you that you need to act straight away.
- Information requests - genuine companies won't email, text or call asking you for usernames, passwords, verification codes or other secure data.
URLs - when viewing an email you can hover over hyperlinks (or buttons) to see the underlying website address. If in doubt don’t follow the link but access your account in the usual way.- Secure website - look for the 'https' at the start of the web address and the padlock or unbroken key icon at the top of the page next to the address bar. If you think you may have entered your details on a scam site - Change your password immediately or contact us on the details above. We also recommend you report it to Action Fraud immediately.
Top tip: for added security make sure your passwords are at least 8 characters long, a mixture of upper and lower case letters and include some numbers too. Try to change your passwords regularly and not use the same password across multiple sites.
Personal and Premium Rate numbers
This scam involves being asked to call a number that begins 070, which at a glance most people don’t realise isn’t a standard mobile phone number.
The caller is then kept on the phone for as long as possible resulting in a large phone bill.
070 numbers are perfectly legal, however they usually incur high call charges (up to £1.50 a minute). If you are asked to call an 070 number please first check the details within the lead and use the email details to request an alternative number.
Top tip: With calls from landlines costing up to 65p p/min with an additional call set-up fee of up to 51p, and calls from mobiles costing up to £1.50 p/min, make sure to check with your phone provider for charges before calling an 070 number.
For further information or if you think you’ve been affected by this scam please contact Ofcom, Phone-paid Services Authority or ActionFraud.
Additionally, you can report this to our Technical Support Team by using the Chat option.
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