People born in these years at risk of bank accounts being 'hijacked'
People born in these years risk their bank accounts being HIJACKED. The Students Loans Company (SLC) is reminding students aged 18 to 21 - so born between 2003 and 2006 - to be vigilant of smishing scams as the new academic year starts.
Fraudsters are poised to target their victims throughout September and October as payments are released, with Monday 23 September the most-common payment date for the autumn term. Smishing, which is fraud involving text messages, is currently the most popular form of scam.
Students are usually asked to click a link to complete a task, providing an opportunity for a payment to be diverted to a scammer’s bank account. Alan Balanowski, Risk Director at SLC, said: “Starting or returning to university is an exciting time, but it’s also busy, with students getting organised and set-up for the academic year, which includes dealing with information from different organisations, including ourselves.
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"We aim to ensure our payment process is simple for students, but we do experience a rise in smishing scams at this time year. This means students need to be alert to any potential attempt to intercept their maintenance loan instalment.
“We have a range of preventive methods we use to target scams, but the most impactful tool we have is working together with students to stop scammers. If a student receives a suspicious message, they should delete it and report it immediately, but if a scammer does succeed in obtaining personal details, then we must collectively act quickly to spot and block the action”.
“Last year, we were able to stop £2.9m of maintenance loan payments ending up in the hands of scammers and we are focused on working as effectively as we can to protect students and their finance.- Our message to students is quite simply, think before you click."