Scammers contact new recruits and demand that they make transaction immediately.

The so-called spear phishing or boss scams are designed to panic workers into buying gift cards when they are unaware of company protocols and who they should be answering to.

It is difficult for us to recover gift card purchases under any APP reimbursement scheme.

A senior solicitor at our firm explained to the FT: “The issue is that technically, even though you then send the gift card code to the scammer, you get what you pay for.

“You have that value, and then you transferred it onwards . . . there’s no breach of contract, if you like, in terms of the purchase of the gift card. And therefore they wouldn’t [be obliged to] refund it on that basis.”

Read the full story: Spear phishing: the ‘boss scam’ that targets new starters

The post Gift Cards Scam Story- FT appeared first on Richardson Hartley Law.

We hosted an event at the Houses of Parliament attended by stakeholders to discuss the report which had revealed that fraud in the UK was eight times higher than previously reported.

The story of the APP fraud report was picked up by The Express, The Times, The Sun and the Mirror newspapers. Reporters from the FT, Daily Mail and Which magazine? also attended the event.

While banks and regulators have said that APP fraud payments stand at around £380million a year, the report calculates that these losses are, in reality, about £3billion per annum.

MP Phil Brickell MP, who prior to his election in July 2024 worked for more than a decade across a number of financial institutions tackling financial crime and corruption said: “The findings of this report reconfirm my gravest fear – that fraud is one of the biggest challenges facing our country today. Banks spend billions of pounds every year trying to contain the problem. But given the prevalence of fraudsters on social media platforms, tech firms in particular need to go much further to protect consumers and businesses.”

As well as MPs and journalists, the event has attended by banks, other payment service providers, fraud victims and regulators.

Martin Richardson, senior partner at Richardson Hartley Law, said: ‘The event was a great success. There was huge consensus in the room that everyone must do more to fight the fraud plague.

‘It was a good opportunity to raise awareness of APP fraud in the media.

‘We cannot leave the fight to the banks. Everyone needs to be better at fraud prevention, particularly tech platforms.

‘Our law firm will always fight for scam victims to reclaim their money but we also want to help prevent fraud.’

If you have lost money through APP fraud contact us today.

The post APP Fraud Parliamentary Report appeared first on Richardson Hartley Law.