Santander issues warning as customers lose £300,000 to ‘worrying’ Wilko scam

Santander scam warning as £300,000 lost to Wilko scam Santander has issued another scam warning as customers have collectively lost £300,000 since last month. Fraudsters are reportedly targeting bargain hunters looking to make big savings in clearance sales. These fake deals are usually advertised on social media or through fake websites and often pretend to be from brands which are in the news. According to the bank, over 5,000 disputes were raised involving merchants that had been set up by scammers in the last month alone. Said disputes came from criminals pretending to be companies having closing-down sales or clearances. Wilko to cut 1,332 more jobs and shut 52 stores next week Notably, scammers taking advantage of the news that major retailer Wilko is closing down, according to Santander. This exploitation by criminals was evident and cases doubled from 869 in the week beginning August 14 to around 1,700 as of August 21. Over this period, many customers found out their attempt to secure big savings was in fact a scam. Throughout last month, the amount of victims remained high with over 2,200 cases in the last week of August. Scammers are taking advantage of retailers which are making the news SUBSCRIBE Invalid email We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info In this week, around £85,000 was lost to this convincing type of scam with customers losing around £37 each on average. As a result, Santander reports that a total of more than £300,000 since the start of August 2023. Chris Ainsley, the head of Fraud Risk Management at Santander, broke down why situations such as Wilko closing give scammers the opportunity they need to steal your cash. He explained: ‘Fraudsters see the news of large retailers closing shops as an opportunity to try and turbocharge their own closing down or clearance sale scams. Trending