Santander customer left ‘panicking’ after criminals try spoofing scam

Twitter user Emma (@_justemma_) received a message about a new payee that had purportedly been set up on her account. She sent a screenshot of the message to the bank asking if they could confirm if the message was real./finance/personalfinance/1693644/santander-scam-warning-block-cryptocurrency-paymentsShe said: ‘Just received this and I’ve not added anyone, checked my mobile app and online and I can’t see anyone has been added.’It’s come through on the same number I receive OTP codes so I’m panicking now! Is this genuine please?’The fraudulent message read: ‘An attempt to add D Hicks as a new trusted payee was successful on 07/11. If this was NOT you please visit: https://recipient-failed-attached.com.’Another Twitter user, Dom (@about_a_dom) responded to warn her the message looked ‘dodgy’ to them.READ MORE: Cold Weather Payment pays £25 when there’s very cold weather – are you eligible? A Santander customers was targeted by scammers (Image: GETTY)Emma replied to share her confusion about the situation: ‘I can’t see anyone added but it came from the normal number. Don’t know if that can even happen! Scared rn [right now].’Dom responded again to warn her that smishing fraudsters are able to send messages that appear genuine.He said: ‘Yeah they can spoof the number that the text appears to have come from to make it look like it came from the genuine number.’Emma expressed her surprise that scammers can do this in response, saying she ‘didn’t even know that could happen’.DON’T MISSUniversal Credit warning as your earnings could impact the amount you get [BENEFITS]Mortgage calculator shows how much more you can expect to pay after interest rate rise [PAYMENTS INCREASE]You could avoid inheritance tax with a gift of any amount – but there’s a catch [TAX] Scam victims sometimes lose thousands of pounds to fraudsters (Image: EXPRESS)The bank is also looking into blocking certain cryptocurrency payments however it has not yet announced a date when this will happen and will notify customers in advance of the block.This block will include telephone banking and in-branch payments in addition to online and mobile banking.Santander said it will ‘continue’ to keep its position under review and will continue to keep customers updated on future changes.The group said each bank in the UK makes its own decision with regard to cryptocurrency scam protections for customers and that it was not the first in the UK to introduce restrictions on customers’ payments to cryptocurrency exchanges.Last year, Natwest Group capped the daily amount customers could send to cryptocurrency exchanges.