Bank text scam asks customers about Amazon payments; GBP 1.1 mln lost

As such, victims received text messages asking whether they had made a payment to Amazon in the sum of GBP 2,999. If they didn’t recognise the transaction, customers were told to call a number, which was said to be a fraud prevention centre at HSBC. After this, they were deceived into giving criminals their confidential details. This scheme netted GBP 1,140,600 from HSBC customers.

Once asked to answer a series of questions to confirm their identity, the victims gave their personal data to the criminals. This the data was used by the fraudsters to transferred money into compromised or ‘mule’ accounts, including GBP 72,000 in June 2017. This was spotted by the bank and GBP 58,000 was subsequently recovered.