The pandemic and worsening economic situations certainly made scammers in the lookout for more victims of their schems and tricks. One can be the most careful of people and still be scammed, given how sophisticated new-age scammers are, with so many technologies at their disposal. 

Mind Over Money Podcast Talks Scams Online

(Photo : Photo by Samson Katt from Pexels)

The Mind Over Money podcast has revealed one more scam that people must be alert of these days. 

Mind Over Money, from the podcasters behind No Really, I'm Fine, is a one of the newest podcast out there focused on the issue of financial wellbeing.

This new series has been created in association with NatWest, and it recently gave Express Money an exclusive sneak-peek of what nice, eye-opening topics it covers.

The financial wellbeing specials cover a range of - from student finances to how to financially recover after the relentless pandemic lockdown and stagnation finally ends, as reported by Express UK. 

The new podcast also has discussions on how to reduce the risk of falling victim to fraud.

Jason Costain, the Head of Fraud Prevention at NatWest, spoke to journalist and host Gemma Sherlock about different scam methods out there, and of them revolved around the personal information people tend to just give out easily online. 

He explained while data breaches are impossible to stop because hackers are sophiscated and normal online users are nowhere that knowledgeable, there are measures which people may want to take in order to avoid being victims. 

"You can't stop data theft from happening on the internet, but you can certainly be more cautious with who you give your data too," he warned. 

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Head of Fraud Prevention Warns of One Very Common Fraud

Mr Costain then discussed one fraud that people might be familiar with but never knew they are scams. 

"I see quite regularly popping up in front of me, on reputable websites and search engines, offers for cheap iPhones or to win free supermarket shopping vouchers," he shared.

"When you get into those and you click on them, you'll be asked a number of survey questions," he further explained.  "But, inevitably, they will ask for your bank details and personal information," he added. 

Then, two or three days later, you might get a call from somebody who seems to know a lot about you," he said.

Accrording to the specialist, even though scammers are the bad guys, people's ultimate enemies are not these fraudsters but themselves. People could have easily avoided being victimized if they refused to hand out personal information online. 

"You can't help a data breach and they lose your details," Mr Costain said.

He added, "But what you can help is giving your information away freely to people because there mightn't be an actual competition but what they are trying to do is harvest victims' details."

Even if people cannot stop fraud from taking place, the leat they can do is to make these wily individuals have a harder time doing their illegal activities. The least people can do is to stop giving personal information online, because this data is the gateway to everything, including one's financial information and actual money. 

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