Students<\/a> Loans Company (SLC), the government body that administers loans and grants. You log in to check that everything is OK, put in your bank details and the screen says: \u201cThanks for confirming.\u201d But what you have done is supply this important information to criminals.<\/p>\nActing quickly, the scammers then use your log-in details to access your real account and change the bank account so that your student loan payment is diverted to them.<\/p>\n
Students are often stressed enough without dealing with scam texts trying to steal their precious loan payments. Photograph: Prasit Rodphan\/Alamy<\/p>\n
The government is making a fresh push to raise awareness of this fraud as the new academic year starts.<\/p>\n
This month, about \u00a32.6bn is being paid out in maintenance support to 1.1 million students. The first of three loan payments will be deposited in the accounts of students in England and Wales. Students from Northern Ireland and Scotland get their loan instalments every month.<\/p>\n
In the last academic year, \u00a3519,000 was lost to scammers who defrauded 168 students, according to the SLC. More than 1,100 people had their details changed but in most cases the fraud was stopped before money was lost.<\/p>\n
What the scam looks like<\/p>\n
Scammers are using several methods including text message, email or phone calls to target students.<\/p>\n
The messages can claim that a payment is at risk because bank details need to be updated. Or it may say that an account has been closed unless the student acts immediately to log in to their \u201caccount\u201d through the link provided.<\/p>\n
The link supplied in the message leads to a clone of the SLC site and students are asked to input their details.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a race against time because the criminals then use those details to log into our genuine site to change the bank account on the genuine student account to divert the maintenance loan payment before we spot it,\u201d said Alan Balanowski, the risk director at SLC.<\/p>\n
Criminals know that billions of pounds will land in students\u2019 accounts this month and have timed their approach to coordinate the fraud with a sense of urgency that people may not get their money when they need it. This is a common tactic used by criminals to get people to act in haste.<\/p>\n
In England and Wales, students are paid their loan instalments each September, January and April. Photograph: Kumar Sriskandan\/AlamyWhat to do<\/p>\n
Be aware of when you could be the target of scams \u2013 September, January and April are the months when the student loan instalments are paid in England and Wales.<\/p>\n
SLC says it won\u2019t ask you to confirm personal or financial information by email, text or on social media. Don\u2019t click on any links provided, instead log in to your account through the Gov.uk website.<\/p>\n
Students are also urged to not publicise when they are getting their payment by refraining from putting it on social media.<\/p>\n
SLC says that it does not provide services through WhatsApp and won\u2019t initiate contact on social media. So immediately be suspicious if you are contacted in either of these ways.<\/p>\n
Any fraudulent emails can be sent on to report@phishing.gov.uk<\/a> while scam text messages can be forwarded to 7726.<\/p>\nIf you suspect your account has been compromised, change the password immediately and contact SLC. Victims should be able to get a replacement payment so there is no financial loss to them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You are about to start university and can\u2019t wait but then you receive a worrying text message. It…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,85,46],"class_list":["post-607516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}