In just five years of free Which? Scam Alerts, we've warned about hundreds of scams and helped our Scam Alert subscribers avoid an estimated £5.5m in scam losses*.
Here, we look back at some of the biggest scams we’ve reported on since 2020.
2020: NHS impersonations and endless shopping scams
Scammers love to seize a news opportunity to add an air of credibility to their communications. In 2020, we saw countless examples of fake Covid jab offers, NHS impersonation texts and emails, and plenty of dodgy offers for medical supplies.
The Covid jab and NHS scams typically started as a text message and claimed you needed to book a Covid jab. Once the recipient had engaged with the message by clicking the link, the scammer would gather personal and financial information. This would then lead to a bank impersonation scam.
Covid also forced our shopping habits, and so scammers flooded the internet with fake retail sites. In April 2020, the National Cyber Security Centre reported that it had removed 471 fake online shops selling Covid-related items. These scams typically involved victims buying things that simply never turned up.
Read more:2021: Delivery text scams and bank impersonation scams
Delivery text scams were rife in 2021, with scammers capitalising on the continued demand for online shopping and delivery. These scams involve various claims that you’ve missed a parcel, underpaid for postage or have incomplete address information. These scammers phished for details in the hope they could do further damage by infecting your device with malware or gain enough information to con you at a later date.
In a similar format to the fake NHS texts, many of these dodgy delivery texts led to bank impersonation scams. With information gathered from phishing links in text messages, these scammers could sound incredibly convincing.
2022: ‘Hi Mum and Dad’ WhatsApp scam and energy impersonation scams
As the cost of living crisis started to bite, it was no surprise that scammers saw yet another opportunity to catch people out. The UK’s energy crisis deepened and we saw scammers impersonating many of the big energy companies to offer refunds and grants - all examples were attempts to steal your details.
As households adjusted to sharp increases in bills, scammers also found success in impersonating adult children on WhatsApp and appealing to their parents for money to pay a bill or fix a broken phone. Which? was first made aware of these scams in late 2021, but 2022 saw a steep rise in cases being reported to Which?.
2023: The rise of QR code scams
These scams began to appear as stickers on parking payment machines to con you into using a fake website. More recently, they’ve appeared on restaurant menus and packages. It can be hard to tell if a QR code is genuine, so always vet the website it's sending you to before you click through. Inspect the link by clicking on additional settings within the scanner, or you could turn off internet access for your device (put it on airplane mode) and open the link to view the address details first.
Read more:2024: Parking fine scams and celebrity AI scams
2024 also saw an incredibly convincing new wave of celebrity impersonation scams using artificial intelligence (AI). Using free (and cheap) AI tech, scammers can create convincing footage and images of celebs endorsing and peddling all manner of goods and services - from fake crypto offers to Le Creuset giveaways.
Listen to our podcast:2025: Sim-swap and purchase scams thrive
Our top tip is to secure your mobile account by asking your network provider for additional security measures, such as a Pin or password to be used to approve any account changes in-store or over the phone.
* Estimate based on Which? Scam Alert annual subscriber surveys between 2021 and 2024, n=4,270.
source https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/which-scam-alerts-the-biggest-scams-of-the-past-five-years-aLzbv0a3sPQm