Nearly 7,000 NatWest customers fall victim to scams
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The lender, which under RBS chief executive Ross McEwan has been striving to make itself a “safer, simpler bank”, says “goods not received” cases – when someone pays for items or services that are never delivered – were the most common scam.
These account for 2,073 cases seen by the bank – or about three in ten scams carried out against NatWest customers.
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Hide AdLes Matheson, NatWest chief executive of personal and business banking, said: “We know scammers can be convincing and they work round the clock to persuade their victims to part with money.
“We have hundreds of people working 24/7 to detect and stop fraud, but it’s very important that, as individuals and businesses, we know how to protect ourselves.”
The lender said other hoaxes included “advance fee fraud”, where conmen ask customers for an advance or upfront payments for goods, services and/or financial gains that do not materialise.
There are also “spoof payment requests”, where people receive a bogus official request “purporting to be from someone senior in a company or a client, for payment or draw down of funds”.
NatWest said business customers also continued to be defrauded for big sums via invoice fraud, when a firm receives an invoice that appears to be from a trusted trading partner but is actually fake.