Hi there, I’m Laura - I’m the fraud and payments manager at giffgaff and I’ve been here for just over a year keeping an eye out for anything suspicious. In my spare time you’ll find me on a yoga mat or eating lots of cheese - sometimes at the same time!
Day-to-day, I keep an eye out for payments issues and help protect our members and business from fraudsters. Because of that, I’m here with a couple of important safety tips.
Number one - I want to remind everyone that we’re an online-only business, and we don’t do any business over the phone. We’ve seen a little bit of a rise in reports recently of people getting phone calls from scammers claiming to be from giffgaff, offering deals on new phones, and then collecting a lot of personal information from the person they’re calling, including payment or bank information. In some cases, there are actually phones ordered on their behalf, but only to further the scam - by ordering the wrong device, and then the fraudster collecting the phone (often pretending to be a courier who is returning the phone) and the purchaser losing out.
If you ever receive a phone call claiming to be from giffgaff, please make sure that you don’t engage with the caller - if you don’t give them any information, there’s very little they can do. If you block them on your phone, some phones have features that will share this block with other users as well.
If you think you’ve been a victim of fraud, Action Fraud has a great guide on what steps you should take.
Number two - We’ve also seen a few scams floating around of dodgy sites offering bonuses on your topup. The scammers might offer something like £30 airtime credit for £15, and then once you’ve paid the £15 to them, they use a stolen card to buy you the credit. When the person who owns the card gets the fraud sorted out and the credit gets removed, you’re out of pocket, and it could affect future payments you make elsewhere.
As always, we’d advise that you never share your giffgaff account password with anyone else, and use a password you’ve not used for any other service. If you need, you can change your password in My giffgaff.
Unless you see these offers on giffgaff.com, they’re not legit - don’t fall for them.
If anyone has any questions or concerns, please feel free to ask and I’ll drop in soon to respond.
Thanks,
Laura
