The Call that Could Wipe Out Your Life Savings

Four in 10 people have never heard of tech being misused by scammers to gain access to devices and hack into bank accounts.

Scammers posing as IT departments, telecoms providers and banks are tricking victims into relinquishing control of their devices to hack into their accounts and steal sensitive data.

One of the worst cases we came across resulted in a Which? member losing £80,000 after a ‘BT engineer’ phoned about service problems in the area. Her bank eventually agreed to refund the money but other victims of remote access fraud have been told their banks will not cover losses if they give access to their devices.

Impersonation fraud shot up by 84% in the first half of 2020, with almost 15,000 reports and £58m lost, according to UK Finance. At a more granular level, Action Fraud says that it has received14,893 ‘computer software service fraud’ reports between October 2019 and September 2020, with reported losses reaching around £16.5 million over that period.

Yet the use of remote access software is not very well known – our survey of the general public in September 2020 found that four in 10 people have never heard of it, even though we had explained how these tools are misused by scammers to gain access to devices.

What is remote access software?

Remote access software enables you to use one device to access another from any location by downloading a smartphone app or installing a program on your computer. A simple passcode will then connect the two devices.

Although many legitimate businesses use this technology, including the Which? Tech Support team, criminals also use it for nefarious purposes.

Typically, you get a phone call from someone claiming to be from a known company (commonly impersonated firms include Amazon, BT and Microsoft), in which they try to convince you to grant them access to your device, claiming they will fix a spurious problem.

Action Fraud recently reported that an Amazon Prime scam involving remote access software has cost victims over £400,000 in two months.

Other scammers are sneakier still, directing you to websites where clicking on the various brand names downloads the software, although they would still need you to enter a code to connect to your device.

Once they have access, they may put up a fake screen and work in the background to download other software or steal passwords and other personal data.

Based on reports to Which?, TeamViewer is the brand of remote access software reported as being misused by scammers most often, although others include AnyDesk, LogMeIn and GoToAssist.

Source: Remote access scams: the call that could wipe out your life savings