Money mules are people used to help launder money, often without realising that’s what they’re doing. They help move illegitimate funds (money gained illegally) between accounts so that the money then appears to be legitimate. They may be asked to receive money into their account, then withdraw it and put it into another account, sometimes in another country. Sometimes the money mules are offered compensation or commission.

Even if money mules don’t know the money they’re transferring is fraudulent, they are still committing fraud and money laundering, and could be sentenced to time in prison or to pay a fine.

Money mules are often recruited into this activity through false job adverts, or social media posts that promote quick money-making opportunities. Sometimes they are duped by fake social media profiles that pretend to want a romantic relationship with the victim to gain their trust and affection before asking this favour or blackmailing them. This is also known as romance fraud.

Never move money between accounts you don’t know and trust, especially because someone else has asked you to, or if you don’t know where that money has come from. If you are suspicious of money laundering, call us immediately on 0330 355 0355.

Fraudsters often look for data on people that they can use to impersonate or defraud them.

They may research you or your colleagues, so we advise that you educate your staff about protecting their data and ensure they are fraud aware too.

What kind of data might a fraudster steal?

• Personal details, such as your name, address, date of birth and National Insurance number.
• Contact details like your mobile phone, landline, work number and email address(es).
• Memorable information used for security and passwords, such as mother’s maiden name, schools or university attended, pet names, car makes and names of family members.
• Your bank account number, sort code and card details.
• PINs, passwords, Digipass number or other login details.

Ways fraudsters might get hold of your data:

• Social media and online forums – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit – all public platforms could hold a wealth of information about you, your employees, your business and your customers.
• Your company website – if your business has a website, consider what information you include. We advise you not to put your bank details on your website, as fraudsters can use this to impersonate you or your bank.
• Competitions and quizzes – particularly those found on social media websites.
• Calling you and pretending to be a trusted organisation.
• Companies who sell your email address or phone number - always read terms and conditions when signing up for a product or service.
• Bank statements, post and paper documents. Always lock away documents that hold sensitive information and destroy them when no longer required.
• Hacking into email accounts. Ensure your IT systems are secure and be wary of using shared internet connections outside of work. Consider that your suppliers, customers and partners can also have their emails hacked. We recommend that you do not share sensitive data via email – if you need to, encrypt the information with a password.
  

Yes, you can split your ISA allowance into different types of ISA: Cash, Stocks & Shares, Lifetime, and Innovative Finance.

Do not respond to any email that asks you for information about your internet banking log in details. If you have received a suspicious email, do not respond and call our Contact Team as soon as you can during our opening hours on 0330 355 0355 to check if it is a genuine email.

Our Contact Team is available 8am-6pm Monday-Friday, and 10am-4pm on weekends for fraud related enquiries only.

Outside of these hours you can request a call back using our automated system. Our Contact Team will call you back as close to the time you request as is operational possible. Alternatively please email us at contact@triodos.co.uk from the registered email address we hold for you and mark it urgent in the subject line.

If the text is from a sender you know, or from a shortcode (five to eight digits long):

• Reply ‘STOP’. You shouldn’t be charged for this, and it will let the sender know you don’t want to receive their text messages.
• If you’re unhappy about receiving the text or continue to receive them after asking the sender to stop, you can complain to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) on 0303 123 1113 or online.

If the spoof text message (sometimes known as smishing) is from an unknown sender, or from an organisation you’re not familiar with:

• Do not reply or click on a link in the text. Responding confirms your number is active and could result in you receiving more messages or calls.
• Report the spam text to your network operator. Simply forward the text to 7726. An easy way to remember ‘7726’ is that they’re the numbers on your phone keypad that spell out the word ‘SPAM’. You may get an automated response thanking you for the report and giving you further instructions if needed, like forwarding on the number the spam text message was sent from. You won’t be charged for forwarding spam texts to 7726.
  

The ISA allowance is the maximum amount you can invest across all types of ISAs in any one tax year. You can put your whole allowance into a particular type of ISA or you can split it between the different types of ISAs: Cash, Stocks & Shares, Lifetime and Innovative Finance. The ISA allowance for the 2020/21 tax year is £20,000. For Junior Cash ISAs, the allowance is £9,000.

You can make payments into your Triodos Current Account by bank transfer or online. If you wish to pay a cheque into your account you can send cheques via our freepost service to our office in Bristol - Freepost TRIODOS BANK. Please include the sort code and account number of the account you wish the cheque to be credited to.

Please note that in order to protect our staff and to help reduce the spread of the Coronavirus, all our offices are closed to visitors from the general public at this time. This means it is not possible to deliver cheques to our office in person.

We support charities, social enterprises, mission-aligned “for profit” businesses and renewable energy projects to raise “non-bank” finance. A typical client is one who has a clear commercial proposition with equally clear social, cultural or environmental impact and who needs a form of finance that banks are typically unwilling to provide.

Many of our clients start by seeking bank debt but, often, lack the security or collateral required by those banks. Nonetheless, that does not mean they are not able to raise and service capital to grow and achieve sustainability – they simply need an alternative form of finance, often from alternative sources. It’s typically our role to help them access this capital.

When it comes to capital raising we:

• Help our clients get investment ready – meaning that when they approach the investor market they stand the best chance of securing investment. This may involve writing business plans, building financial models to help forecast future performance, advising on suitable governance structures etc;
• Advise on the right form of capital for the organisation and the best source of that capital;
• Advise on the optimal terms of any capital and help negotiate with investors to secure those terms.

Vishing is where a fraudster uses voice messages or phone calls to try to steal identities, and financial information like your PIN, card details and Digipass code.

The term comes from the combination of ‘phishing’ and ‘voice’. Phishing is where fraudsters use email, regular phone calls and fake websites to dupe people into giving them personal details and financial information.

Vishing is specifically the use of a VOIP service (Voice Over Internet Protocol, or an internet phone service), which enables fraudsters to communicate with their potential victims via automated voice messages and the phone keypad.

Vishers can create fake caller ID profiles so that their phone number seems legitimate, and vishing requests sound urgent, to panic the victim into acting without thinking.

 Examples of vishing:

• Your bank account has been compromised
  You receive call from what appears to be Triodos Bank’s phone number. When you answer, you hear a recording pretending to be from Triodos, saying that your bank account has been compromised, and you need to call a freephone number to reset your security details. Calling this number, you would hear another automated message asking for your bank account number, Digipass code or other personal details via the phone keypad.
• You’re eligible for a loan
  You are offered loan or credit terms too good to be true (they probably are), and to receive the money, you just need to pay an upfront fee or provide your security details.
• You’re due a refund
  You receive a message that says you are due a refund. This is usually someone claiming to be from a trusted organisation. If you opt in – usually by pressing a number on your telephone - you will be redirected to a call centre agent who will attempt to defraud you or steal your information.
• Don’t miss this investment opportunity
  An automated voice message tells you about an investment opportunity too good to turn down. You’ll be encouraged to transfer money to invest in a company or service that doesn’t exist.
• You’ve won a prize
  Victims hear an automated voice message about a free offer or prize, and just need to pay postage, redemption or admin fees to claim. There’s often a deadline to hurry people into handing over their card details.

What you can do

If you receive an unexpected phone call with an automated response, hang up, search for the company’s genuine contact details online and check whether the call was legitimate. If it was, the company will be able to help you, and if it was a vishing attempt, letting the company know enables them to take action, and you will have protected yourself from fraud.

If the call relates to an investment opportunity, check the FCA register to see if the investor is regulated, and confirm the company exists by checking Companies House.

How to report a vishing scam

If you think you have been a victim of a vishing attack, call us immediately on 0330 355 0355. Then report to the FCA using their reporting form.

If you have lost money to suspected investment fraud, report it to Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040.

Screen scraping happens when you allow a third party to log into your computer while you are using it, so they see what you are doing and can copy the data on the screens you are viewing. This is a way for third parties to be able to get access to your payment data or account overview.

Triodos Bank is not in favour of this practice, as it potentially compromises the integrity of your own computer and your passwords.

It can be very difficult to spot a fraudulent call. The best thing you can do if you get an unexpected call – especially if the person is asking you to make a payment or move funds, or rushing you to make a decision – is to call the organisation back on the number published on their website.

Fraudsters may call you or someone in your team and pretend to be a well-known business like BT, the bank, HMRC, the police, a supplier or even another person in your business.

Examples of what a fraudster might ask you to do:

• Move your money to a safe, secure holding account
  Fraudsters often call businesses pretending to be from their bank. They may ask you to move your money to a safe account because of suspected fraud or risk to your account. In reality, this ‘safe’ account is controlled by the fraudster. Hang up and report it to Action Fraud UK and your bank.
  
• Change the payment details of one of your suppliers
  Fraudsters often impersonate suppliers and ask businesses to pay into a new account – controlled by the fraudster. Check the caller is genuinely your supplier by calling back on the number on their website or, better still, by calling your direct contact at the company.
• Download something – software, a programme, app or other online tool
  Fraudsters may tell you there’s something wrong with your computer and it’s not secure. By downloading some software, they’ll be able to fix it for you. They might even offer you compensation or a refund for this inconvenience. In reality, the downloaded software could give them access to your computer. They may ask you to log in to your internet banking so they can issue your refund, when really they’re asking you to authorise payments into their own account. Triodos will never call you out of the blue and ask you to transfer money into another account, or download something onto your device.
• Tell them your Digipass codes
  Your Digipass codes give permission for money to leave your account. Never give these codes, no matter what they tell you. We will never ask you for these codes.
  

Yes, there are charges for foreign payments. Transactions will be processed using the exchange rate set by Mastercard

• Debit card payment in a foreign currency: 2.5% of the value charged in GBP
  
• Cash withdrawal in a foreign currency outside the UK: 2.5% of the value charged in GBP
  

See our tariff of charges for full details or the Fee Information Document for more information.

We will not charge you for cash withdrawals from any ATM in the UK. However, some ATM providers may charge for using their machines to withdraw cash. There is a charge for withdrawing cash from abroad, please see our tariff for details.

To top up your Triodos Stocks & Shares ISA, download and complete the Stocks & Shares ISA top-up form below and email it to clientservices@tbailey.co.uk – this is the company that we use to  process our investments.

Remember, to invest in the Triodos Impact Funds you:

• must be a UK resident
  
• should see your investment as long term (5-10 years), because it can go down in value as well as up, and you may not get back what you invest. Income is variable and not guaranteed.
• understand your total return is subject to the euro-sterling exchange rate, because the Triodos impact funds are operated in euros and quoted in sterling.
• should ask an independent financial advisor if  you're unsure which investment is right for you. Triodos Bank doesn’t offer financial advice.

You should also read the important information needed to make an informed decision about your investment:

• Terms and conditions
  
• Supplementary Information Document
  
• Addendum to the T&Cs and SID
  
• Prospectus
  
• Key Investor Information Documents:
  • Triodos Global Equities Impact Fund KR-Cap
    
  • Triodos Global Equities Impact Fund KR-Dis
    
  • Triodos Pioneer Impact Fund KR-Cap
    
  • Triodos Pioneer Impact Fund KR-Dis
    

If you receive a call from Triodos, we’ll be happy for you to question who we are and call us back on the number published on our website, just to make sure. If you can, call us back from a different phone, as an extra safety precaution. Fraudsters can clone numbers, so it may look like the number we use to call you.

We will never call you to ask you to transfer money or for your Digipass codes, and we will never ask you to download software onto your device. If someone calls pretending to be from Triodos, and they ask you to do these things, hang up immediately and report it to us on 0330 355 0355.

We’ll write to you one month before your bond matures, asking you where you’d like your funds to go. If you have internet banking you will be able to make your choice online and can decide to either reinvest or transfer your matured funds to another account. If we don’t hear from you before your bond matures, we’ll open a Triodos Saver account on your behalf and write to let you know. There will always be opportunities for you to reinvest your money with Triodos, and we hope you choose to do so.

Cash cannot be paid in to the Triodos Personal Current Account at the moment. However we are in discussion with a number of providers to investigate if we can offer this service in the future as we understand from customer feedback that this is a service that some customers would like us to offer.

You can open a Triodos Innovative Finance ISA if you are resident in the UK for tax purposes and are over 18 years of age.

We offer two impact investment funds - the Triodos Global Equities Impact Fund and the Triodos Pioneer Impact Fund. Both funds are available in two different share classes, distribution and capitalisation.

The minimum initial investment per Impact Investment Fund is £1,000, and the minimum top up amount is £500 per fund.

The minimum holding amount is £500 per share class. This means that your initial investment must be at least £1,000 per impact investment fund and £500 per share class. In addition to this, you are not able to sell part of your holding and leave a positive balance of below £500, and you will either need to sell your entire holding in that share class or if applicable a smaller amount.