Friends Against Scams - how to prevent cyber criminals targeting family and friends in the run up to Christmas

"Friends Against Scams" -preventing you from becoming a victim of fraudsters pretending to be friends and family members on your Whatsapp chats. "Stop. Think. Call" is a venture from the National Trading Standards Scams Team initiative! What is "Friends Against Scams" hoping to achieve?

The people at National Trading Standards that sit behind "Friends Against Scams" want to make cyber criminals' lives harder by educating people about the types of scams they may be tempted into falling for.

Mark Riddell, host of the Techcess technology podcast has become concerned over some recent research and data recently surrounding scams on Whatsapp.

There was one very high profile incident reported by the BBC recently, and Mark breaks it down during this episode of Techcess.

Mark's concerned that this scam could become particularly common during the Christmas and overall festive season when cyber criminals are trying their best to take advantage of lonely or isolated people that don't have anyone else around them at certain times of the year.

In recent days, cyber criminals have been using this new Whatsapp method to contact users, such as the incident mentioned with pretending to be the victims' grandchildren in need of urgent financial help.

There have even been cases of scammers pretending to be a friend or family member who's claiming to be incarcerated abroad after being arrested for possession of drugs as a way to coax help from unsuspecting family members.

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Mark Riddell's technology podcast "Techcess" is an m3 Networks production.

Mark and the team have created this podcast to help you and their clients understand how technology can help them in their industry and business, including helping them with cyber security solutions.

To find out more about Mark Riddell and the rest of the m3 team, visit them here and follow them on Linkedin.

If you want to get in touch about technology or cyber security, just address an email directly at Mark here.

He'll be very happy to hear from you.

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