Scammers are continuing to impersonate representatives from genuine organisations such BT, Amazon and HMRC.
The warning comes from ScamwiseNI.
The organisation says these three organisations which would never normally call householders and pressurise them into taking actions such as downloading software onto the PC or mobile phone or demanding that funds are transferred to pay fines or overdue bills.
Alarmingly, in the case of the HMRC scam, the criminals use ‘number spoofing’ to make the consumers’ caller ID on their mobile phone show a number which was a genuine HMRC number in an attempt to make the call seem more legitimate.
“Just because the caller ID shows a number which looks genuine, doesn’t mean that it is, and if the caller is trying to use this as proof that they are the genuine business this should be a warning that things are perhaps not what they seem,” warned ScamwiseNI.
There are also a number of purchase scams facilitated by adverts on popular marketplaces such as Facebook Marketplace, Gumtree, Depop, Instagram and Snapchat.
Criminals are posing as sellers and placing adverts for goods which do not exist and seeking payment, usually by bank transfer, up front.
After sending the funds the seller blocks the customer.