Hi all,
Unfortunately, we’ve seen an uptick recently in scammers, pretending to be giffgaff, sending text messages to members to try and trick them into giving away personal information. We’d like to remind anyone that if you get any text asking you for information, to take a break and question whether it might not be the person or company it seems to be. These scammers try to use urgency and fear to get people to act quickly without thinking, but taking a breath to check if a message is real can prevent that.
This particular wave of messages is trying to use the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic to justify giving away these details, pretending it’s to update your account. We are not asking members to do this, and any message that asks you to give away information for this reason should be treated with suspicion. We will never ask you for your password anywhere except a giffgaff.com login page, and we will only ask for payment information when you choose to make a payment or purchase.
So that you can tell that a message is from us, we will always include your member name in messages that relate to account security. We will also only ever direct you to a link on giffgaff.com (or giff.ly if we’re short on space), and not anywhere else. While the scammers might use an address that looks like a giffgaff address, if it’s not one of these links, it’s not from us. You can read more about how to identify a legitimate link in this post I made late last year. When in doubt, go to giffgaff.com yourself in your browser to manage your account.
We’re always working hard to shut down these scammers, but if you still get one, we’ve got some tips below.
If you’ve received a suspicious message
- If you’re not expecting the text, you can verify if it’s legitimate by asking in our community Help forum.
- If you’ve received a text that looks suspicious, make sure that you forward it to 7726. I’ll be the one who gets the report of this text, and it really helps to shut them down.
- Do not click the link or visit the site. These fraudsters can often reveal some information about you just from a visit, such as what model of phone you have, even if you don’t fill out any information.
- Make sure that you use a different, unique and strong password for every website, service and app that you use. To help with this, we recommend using a password manager such as LastPass, or another that you trust.
If you think you’ve already been affected
First of all, don’t panic. You can prevent yourself from being a victim of fraud by following a few easy steps.
- If you have submitted any card or bank details to a website like this, contact your bank immediately, using the number on the back of your card. They will be able to place fraud protections on your account and cancel your card if necessary.
- If you’ve put your password or other details into a website like this, change your password on giffgaff.com as soon as possible. That will mean that anyone looking to hijack your account will not be able to gain access with your password. This password should meet all of our password requirements, and be a password that you have never used on any other website, service or app.
- Change your password on any other account that you’ve used that password with. It’s good practice to make sure that all of your passwords across every app, service and website that you use are different to one another. A password manager such as LastPass, or another that you trust can help with this.
If we keep an eye on this, we can make sure we shut down as many of these scams as possible, and don’t let them take advantage of the current situation. Please continue to report any of these messages that you find, and we’ll keep working to get them shut down. Please make sure you learn how to spot scams like this, and teach others who might not be aware, so they can avoid getting caught by scams like this.
If you have any questions about how to stay safe, please ask, and either myself or the team will be happy to help out.
Thanks,
Ben
