Scammers pose as victims of the war in Ukraine to steal money from well-meaning British residents.
Scammers are also taking advantage of people’s eagerness to help victims of the crisis by creating fake charity websites to trick people into donating.
One expert said the scam was “evil” but unsurprising given the profile of the conflict.
The prevalence of such scams is expected to increase in the coming weeks.
“As with any global crisis, we will see a sharp rise in these scams,” said anti-fraud expert Charlie Shakeshaft.
He said three specific scams have emerged as scammers try to take advantage of the situation.
The first is a donation scam. Scammers ambush people with emails or text messages encouraging them to donate money to war victims. The messages contain a link to a fake charity website.
The messages may target the number of people already on sucker lists because they have been tricked before, or they may represent promising targets for scammers.
The second scam uses emotional posts from scammers pretending to be war victims asking for money.
Third, there is a variation of a common scam in which a person is alleged to be a Ukrainian businessman trying to move money out of the country and has to use a bank account outside the country to do so. In reality, it’s a scammer trying to steal this volunteer’s bank details and empty his account.
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Separately, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is warning people to be on the alert for fraud after the self-assessment tax return deadline.
The UK Internal Revenue Service says it received 570,000 fraud reports last year.
The most common at this time of year are texts, emails, or calls offering either a “refund” or demanding unpaid taxes, with victims mistakenly believing the contact is related to their self-assessment statement.
Phone calls have become a bigger problem recently, HMRC said, with 3,995 reports in January compared to 425 in April 2020.
Myrtle Lloyd, HMRC’s director general for customer service, said: “If someone contacts you claiming they are from HMRC and wanting you to transfer money or give out personal information, be on your guard.”
She urged people not to rush and double-check via a dedicated page on the government’s website.
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