Norfolk Charities targeted by scammers in run up to Christmas
Norfolk Citizens Advice has been the target of a particularly devious phishing campaign in the run up to Christmas.
The charity is one of several targeted by an email and phone scammer in recent weeks attempting to dupe staff members by pretending to be a named colleague. Fortunately, the deception was spotted before any transfer was made, but the scam would have led to the loss of hundreds of pounds.
“We are publicly announcing this scam attempt in the hope of alerting other charities to what is a very clever and quite despicable attempt to steal from those at the frontline of the cost of living crisis. We believe other charities and organisations working to support the most vulnerable in Norwich have also been targeted. Most of the sector will see obvious scam emails on a very regular basis. But the approach of targeting one member of staff personally with an email written in a very familiar way is less common. Clearly the criminals are researching who works in the organisation and mimicking specific staff members.”
Organisations should be particularly alert to emails written as if they come from named members of staff in their organisation. Mr. Hitchcock advises organisations across the sector to be vigilant and encourage staff and volunteers to take increased care with email and text correspondence.
“We regularly help clients who have been the victims of scammers but need to be aware that we are also a target for increasingly devious attacks as well.”
