Spotting Scams Easily

Across the ASHL Group of Companies, we want to keep our community of financial advisers safe from scams. 

Anyone with an email account is likely subject to numerous emails everyday and often it can be difficult to know which are real and which are potentially harmful. As online scams are becoming more and more believable, it is important to know how to spot the fakes, so your personal information remains safe.

Types of common scam emails:

Phishing: A phishing email is an illegal way to ‘fish’ for your private data. This scam works by using a false narrative to ruse you into revealing your financial and personal information such as passwords, credit card numbers and bank account details.

Credit/banking scam: These scams are designed to get you to reveal your banking information using a warning message such as “Act now, or your account will be deactivated” or “your account has been compromised, click the link to confirm your details”. The links used take the individual to a false website designed to look identical to national banks. Once you have filled in the online form to confirm your details, the scammer then has access to your account password to clean your account out.

Winner emails: These emails tend to be bright and bold telling you that you have won the lottery or a prize. They often make you fill in an online form to claim your prize and once your information is out there, you are at risk of not only having your bank account cleaned out, but also at risk of identity theft.

How to protect yourself from falling for a scam:

Is the senders email address suspicious? When you receive an email from ASHL it will be either from a generic inbox like enquires@adviserservices.co.uk or an individual like jbloggs@adviserservices.co.uk. If the senders name is ‘ASHLsecuritycentre’ or comes from an email addressing ending in something like @adviser0services-.co.uk for example, it is a giveaway that the email is not legitimate.

Do they know who you are? Be cautious of emails greeting you as ‘customer’ or ‘subscriber’. Any correspondence starting with “Dear valued customer” is highly likely to be a scam. If you subscribe to ASHL, Sense or Lyncombe communications, you will be addressed by the name you provided.

Do the URLs contain random letters and numbers in the domain? Links in the communications ASHL send to our financial advisers will direct them to legitimate websites such as www.sense-network.co.uk or www.lyncombeconsultants.co.uk. Clever scammers will make the URL look as it should but it in fact reads differently when you look closely, such as sense-network-.co.uk. If you hover over the URL in the email, but DO NOT click on it, you will see if the URL is legitimate or not. If you are ever in any doubt about a URL, do not click on it.

Does it convey a false sense of urgency? These emails will start with warnings along the lines of “SECURITY BREACH: Your data has been compromised” then threaten that if you do not follow the recommended actions in the email then your account will be suspended.

Does it contain poor grammar and typos? Emails containing many typos of basic spelt words is a sign it could be a scam. Likewise, emails allegedly from professional companies that are written in poor English are often scams. When looking at emails think, would a native English speaker make this mistake? or is this a common typo like hitting an adjacent key?

Taking these precautions, which usually only take a second, could protect you from potentially harmful data breaches. If you are ever in doubt, do not click on any links or open any attachments.