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 opening hours are published on our help and support page.
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.
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:
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.
Phishing is a common type of internet fraud. Phishing emails are designed to appear as though they are from a legitimate source, but intend to steal personal information that can be used to access your account.
Do not respond to any email that asks for any information in relation to your internet banking log in details. If you have received a suspicious email, do not respond and call us if you need any further information.
Our opening hours are published on our help and support page.
Identity fraud happens when someone steals and uses your personal information to buy products or services. They get hold of this information in many ways - taking post from your bin, looking for information about you online, or contacting you directly, pretending to be from a real organisation.
There are several things you can do – offline and online - to protect your personal information. Here are a few tips.
Protect yourself offline:
Protect yourself online:
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?
Ways fraudsters might get hold of your data:
Bank impersonation fraud is when a fraudster impersonates someone from the bank in order to trick a victim into making payments to a fraudulent account.
What a fraudster might do:
What Triodos Bank will never do
What you can do to protect yourself
As you'd expect from a bank, we take security very seriously - here are some things we do to keep you safe. To help you spot fraud, we’d also like you to know the things we’d never do.
What we do
What we’ll never do
We will never contact you out of the blue to ask you:
If in doubt, call us on the number on our website, or delete the email without opening it.
Learn more about how to stay safe online or visit the action fraud website.
For card related fraud, block your card in the Triodos Mobile Banking App or in Internet Banking. Then, please call us on 0330 355 0355 (or +44 (0)1179 739339 if calling from abroad) to speak to our 24/7 card services department.
For other fraud issues and queries, we're available 8am-6pm Mon-Fri (9am-6pm Thu), and 10am-4pm weekends.
We’ll ask you for all relevant information related to the scam, loss or theft and in some cases may ask you to report this to the police.
We’ll advise you on any next steps, and we may provide you with advice to help keep your account secure whilst we investigate.
Where Fraud is confirmed you should also report it to Action Fraud – the UK’s national fraud and cyber crime reporting centre:
This is when fraudsters send fake invoices claiming to be from a real business you work with. Sometimes they hack the emails of your supplier to send the invoice, so the email address is genuine, but the payment details are changed to those owned by the fraudster. It’s sensible to call your suppliers on the number on their website to verify their payment details before you pay new account details for the first time.
Steps you can take to protect against invoice fraud:
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:
Identity theft is when someone steals your personal details. They might go through your post or rubbish to find bank and credit card statements. Or they might use social media sites, forums and other online platforms to steal your personal information.
Identity fraud is when someone uses your stolen identity to buy products or services, like credit cards, loans or mobile phone contracts.
You might not know your identity has been stolen until you get a bill, invoice or delivery for something you didn’t buy. Or until you receive a letter from debt collectors for debts that aren’t yours.
There are ways you can protect yourself, however. Read our How-to guide on how to protect yourself from identity theft and identity fraud.
Fraud can affect anyone, and you can help protect your friends, family and neighbours by telling them about different types of scams to help them be savvy about fraud.
You can also help by looking out for signs that could mean they are being targeted by fraudsters:
Fraudsters try getting money from organisations by sending fake emails and texts to gain access to their internet banking details. It can be difficult to spot a fraudulent email, but there are things you can check for clues it’s a fraudulent email.
Common email and text scams to look out for:
If you think someone is being targeted by fraudsters or has fallen victim already, speak to them about it and reassure them that they aren’t to blame – fraudsters use various tactics to trick people into giving them money or private information, and anyone could be taken in. Many people can feel ashamed or embarrassed by falling victim to fraud, so it’s important for them to know there’s support available.
Help them to report it to Action Fraud. If they bank with Triodos, report it to us immediately by calling 0330 355 0355.
They could also talk to Victim Support - a charity that provides practical and emotional support to people affected by crime.
For more information, download a factsheet from Independent Age: Scamwise: Spotting, avoiding and reporting scams.
Contact us immediately on 0330 355 0355 (or if abroad on +44 (0)1179 739339) if:
For fraud related queries, we're available 8am-6pm Mon-Fri (9am-6pm Thu), and 10am-4pm weekends.
Once you've contacted us we'll ask you for all information you have about the loss or theft and may require you to report it to the police
We also advise you to report it to Action Fraud – the UK’s national fraud and cyber crime reporting centre:
We’ll investigate all fraud claims and we will let you know the next steps when you report the fraud to us, including any timescales for reimbursement. We may ask for additional information or documents to help us assess your claim, and we will ask for your consent to share information with the other banks involved.
Every claim will be assessed on a case-by-case basis. As part of the process, we will consider the evidence presented by you, any service providers involved and – where relevant – a third party, such as the police.
We take all incidents of fraud or suspected fraud seriously and understand it can be very worrying for our customers. We have systems in place to help monitor and protect against fraud but in some instances you may be concerned about a transaction. If so please contact us as soon as possible. For further information on safeguarding yourself against fraud please see the Take 5 campaign information.
Business (or corporate) identity theft is a type of fraud that involves a criminal stealing a company’s identity and using it to buy goods and services by establishing lines of credit with banks or retailers.
Organisations are often targeted because:
How to protect yourself:
If the text is from a sender you know, or from a shortcode (five to eight digits long):
If the spoof text message (sometimes known as smishing) is from an unknown sender, or from an organisation you’re not familiar with:
If your card or security details are used to make a payment or transfer without your permission, we will refund the full amount (minus £35 where applicable) of the payment as soon as is operationally possible. This includes repayment of any interest or charges incurred as a result of the payment. However, you must notify us as soon as possible and no later than 13 months after the debit date. After this time we will not be able to issue a refund.
You may have to pay up to £35 if:
You may be responsible for money taken from your account up until the point you report it to us, if you:
You will not be responsible if you’re unable to notify us because our phone lines are unexpectedly unavailable or closed, as long as you call us when our lines open the next day.
Investment fraud comes in many forms, but is typically when someone poses as an investment service provider, Financial Advisor or fund manager to convince you to transfer large sums of money into a company or service that doesn’t actually exist.
They can create convincing-looking websites and adverts, and send you emails, texts and automated voice messages offering investments that sound too good to be true. They often are.
Before you transfer any money:
Genuine financial services will never:
As a general rule, if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is. Beware of promises of high returns and guaranteed returns with no risk.
Useful resources
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.
CEO Fraud is when cyber criminals hack into company email accounts, or set up a fake personal email account, to impersonate the CEO, Managing Director or senior staff and ask an employee to make payments to an account managed by the fraudster. They’ll typically target a company's finance department, but may also target other employees who have authority to make payments.
Usually the request sounds urgent, to panic the employee into acting without thinking and going through the usual checks and balances. The kinds of payments they’ll ask you to make are invoices for a supplier, utility or service, or products the company needs.
Search our help and support section for more
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