Monzo has launched a new feature which allows customers to check whether they are speaking to the bank, or a fraudster purporting to be them.
Scammers have been known to pretend to be a customer’s bank, even modifying the caller ID so it appears the call comes from a legitimate number in what’s known as a number spoofing scam.
There were more than 45,000 cases of impersonation scams, where a criminal makes contact pretending to be a trusted organisation such as a bank and makes an urgent request for money, personal or financial information, in 2022, with losses totalling £177.6million, according to UK Finance figures.
Priyesh Patel, senior staff engineer at Monzo, said: “We’ve built this industry-first feature as an additional layer of comfort and security to help protect our customers from falling victim to fraud.
Monzo customers can check if the bank is calling them via the new in-app feature
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“Impersonation scams are an industry-wide problem and becoming increasingly sophisticated, with tens of thousands of people each year convinced to transfer funds out of their accounts and into the hands of fraudsters.”
If someone calls and claims they work for Monzo, customers simply need to open their app and navigate to “Privacy and security” in their Settings section.
If the “Monzo call status” shows that a member of the Monzo team isn’t talking to the customer, people should hang up straight away and report it to the bank.
The digital bank says the customer should still hang up and report the attempted fraud even if the caller claims there’s a technical issue or they’re from a specialist team that won’t show on the call status.
Monzo said: “If the call status in your app shows that a member of the Monzo team is on the phone with you, you’re okay to continue the call.”
If the customer isn’t connected to the internet, the call status will reflect that.
Monzo said they will never call customers without arranging it first via the in-app chat.
The bank added: “If we do call you we’ll always make sure we go through some security questions before discussing anything to do with your account.”
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
Monzo customers can report a suspected scam via the new feature
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Monzo said it will not ask customers to:
- Send money to a holding account, safe account or any other account
- Withdraw money from a Pot
- Make a payment or send money for any reason
- Accept a notification on your phone
- Ignore a fraud or payment warning
- Give Monzo your PIN or any personal information
- Take out a loan or use Monzo Flex.