BEWARE A great time for scammers

Criminals are using the Coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity by some to con people out of money.

Shops may be closing due to the Coronavirus situation, but one group of ‘enterprising’ people certainly aren’t taking time off ‒ scammers.

You’d like to think that these people retain enough common decency to knock their nasty schemes on the head during a global pandemic leaving thousands dead, but sadly that isn’t how this works.

Instead, these crooks are spotting all sorts of ways to trick unsuspecting people into handing over their cash, directly playing on fears around Coronavirus itself and its impact on our way of life.

The scams have included:

Fake 'live infections' update message: scammers promising to provide the victim with a list of active infections in their area, so long as they follow a link which redirects them to a credential-stealing page or which demands a ‘donation’ into a Bitcoin account

Fake Coronavirus newsletters: fraudsters sending out articles about the Coronavirus outbreak, with a link to subscribe to a daily newsletter for further updates

Fake Coronavirus investment and trading mails: scammers sending ‘advice’ about investments and share trading pushing people to attempt to take advantage of the stock market turbulence.

Fake tax refund messages: fraudsters posing as HMRC, offering tax refunds if people go to a fake website and provide certain personal and financial details.