A scam warning has been issued to three million Brits as a text could see criminals access your bank. Which? warned a scam text is targeting the three million university students who are currently receiving their latest maintenance loan payments.
The text pretends to be from Student Finance England and includes a link to a phishing website which imitates the official Government website. The text tells you to follow the link to make sure “your maintenance arrives on time”.
Once you’ve clicked the link, the fake website asks for personal data including your bank details. This could potentially give the scammer access to your bank account. The text read: “SFE: Sumit below to ensure your maintenance arrives on time: student-finance-registry.com.”
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SLC will also never ask students to provide their personal or financial information via email or text message. If a student receives a suspicious message, they should report it to SLC’s Financial Crime Prevention Unit immediately by emailing [email protected] or calling the dedicated hotline on 0300 100 0059.
Alan Balanowski, Risk Director at SLC, said: “At SLC, our mission is to support students to invest in their future. Unfortunately, we know fraud is becoming more sophisticated with different methods and technologies being used to target students, especially around the start of the academic year when the first maintenance payment is made.
“Over the last two years, popular scams included impersonating SLC or students via phone calls (vishing) or through emails (phishing), but this year we are seeing more fraud involving SMS. For example, students being asked to click on a link to change their bank details.
“We have a range of prevention methods that we use to identify and stop scammers, and we are constantly evolving our approach and techniques to prevent fraud. Working together with students is an important part of our approach as they need to know what to look for in suspicious communication and where to go for help.”
