Victory Over the Scammers? We think so yes

Ever since we started in 2009, we’ve been warning members of the public about scammers cold-calling them, claiming to be us and informing them that they had been pre-approved for loans - if they were willing and able to pay upfront fees.

Righ after that, would we see negative reviews for Quick Loans, or people asking if Quick Loans were legit.

These scammers were prolific, relentless, and would never give up trying to defraud some of the neediest and most financially desperate people in the UK. We heard stories of people borrowing £200 from friends to cover these fees because they believed they could repay the money once the loan came through. Of course, once the fee was paid, there were only excuses - and demands for more fees. One of the worst cases we heard was from a victim who told us they had paid a total of £1,100 in fees for a loan that never materialised.

No matter what we did, no matter how many times we warned people, these fraudsters managed to get away with it time after time. Over the last 16 years, they have adapted countless times. When we first heard from victims, the scammers were asking for payment via Western Union (2009-2012), then uKash vouchers (2012-2015), followed by Google Gift Cards and iTunes vouchers (2015-2021). Gradually, these providers introduced security measures to stop the scammers. But over the past few years, the fraudsters simply switched tactics - getting people to set up UK bank accounts and asking to be paid directly into those.

What we’re seeing now is that recent banking changes seem to have crippled that final part of the scam. Banks are now required to inform the sender whether the name on the receiving account matches the one they think they’re sending money to.

For example, if Mr Smith thinks he is sending money to a bank account in the name of Quick Loans, but in reality it belongs to Mr Singh, the bank will tell him the name doesn’t match and warn that there’s a high chance it’s a scam - that’s a huge change. This single change has cut down around 95% of scams out there.

We don’t think we’re exaggerating here - we think the problem is almost over. We now hear from about 1-2 victims a month. Back in 2019, when these scams were at their peak, we would hear from hundreds over the same 30-day period.

We could be critical and ask why it took so long, but overall, a big thumbs up needs to go to the FCA for forcing through the changes that required banks to confirm the recipient’s ID.

There’s no doubt that scammers will return with some new variation of something, so we’ll always recommend vigilance - but for now, we’re very pleased with the way things have gone. Banking security doesn’t always mean an increase in Big Brother. Common sense changes in security have always been possible without crossing into less privacy.