VIDEO: The Project - 20 Nov 2023

Transcript:

So if your phone and emails are overflowing with deals right now, remember for scammers, the top Black Friday money-saving plan is taking yours.

Interviewer: Professor Richard Buckland's here to tell us more about how we can avoid those scams. Richard, how dangerous is the Black Friday sales period for scams now?

Richard: Well, yeah, it's a time we're all clicking and excited and buying and I guess, in fear of missing out on things. So our defences aren't so good. And also, there's a growing number of cyber criminals, we should call them, who are keen to get our money. So it's an unfortunate conjunction. So, yeah, pretty risky time coming up.

Interviewer: Richard, a dinosaur like me has never bought anything online, it's not going to be scammed, but if I was scammed...what do I do? Who do I report it to and is there any point reporting it?

Richard: What I do, if I was scammed, is I'd first of all contact the bank or hopefully I bought it with a credit card, not with some sort of method that can't be reversed. I'd contact my bank and put a stop on the card and I'd report it to the organisation if it was something like eBay or Amazon or a large retailer. I'd let them know because it's not helping you, but it would help others if they know about the scam and can stop it.

But, yeah, reporting is sort of almost too late once it's happened, except reporting it to your credit card company, of course.

Interviewer: We seem to be losing more and more to scams each year, though, which kind of suggests we need to change our approach to how we go about buying things on Black Friday and just otherwise, generally. What should we do?

Richard: If you wanted to defend yourself, I reckon you'd do the standard things. One is to limit how much you could lose. So, for example, I have a separate credit card I use for internet purchases. If I get scammed and I could get scammed as easily as you, at least there's a limit to how much they can take, and I set that limit to be something that won't ruin me. Then there's a longer-term thing, which is people need to be more aware and more skeptical. But I think modern scams are so good that it'd be very hard to get detected. So, I think probably we need some responsibility shifting. It'd be great to see if the banks, the payment companies and people upstream could take responsibility for stopping scams rather than just being the victim.

And one other thing I guess you could do is if it's a lot of money - hopefully your Black Friday purchases aren't too big, but if it's a lot of money at stake, someone's asking you to do something online and involves more than you could afford to lose, I’d check with someone else first, a neighbour, your mum and dad, your son, your daughter. I think often another pair of eyes with the other person's not all emotional can help stop it.

Interviewer: Richard, thanks so much.

Richard: Pleasure. Thank you.