Consumers have been warned to be on the lookout for “scamscriptions” and recurring payment traps as they have become one of the most common types of reports to Which?.
Complaints about unwanted recurring payments have dominated scam reports shared with the consumer group’s scam sharer tool in recent months.
Concerningly, scammers seem to have been ramping up their efforts. In November 2023, around a third (36 percent) said they saw unexpected recurring payments from companies they did not recognise in their bank statements.
This is up from 35 per cent in 2022, while only one in 10 (11 percent) spotted them in 2021.
Rocio Concha, Which? director of policy and advocacy, said: “Our research suggests ‘scamscriptions’ and payment traps are on the rise – and consumers should be careful of any ads, free trial offers or text messages that look suspicious.”
The consumer watchdog suggests that if you think you have fallen victim to fraud, you should call your bank immediately and report it to Action Fraud or contact Police Scotland.
There are several different tactics that perpetrators seem to be using again and again, according to Which? who sifted through hundreds of complaints from the public.
One of them is advert cloaking – which is when dishonest websites camouflage their content to evade detection – even though this is strictly banned by advertising platforms.
One advert on the Trainline app, created by a website called go.uk.mobiplaygames.com, featured an arrow inviting users to ‘continue’ and matched the brand colour of the Trainline app – making it extremely tricky to spot and likely to dupe someone trying to buy a train ticket.
Trainline has since blocked this advertiser and several others that Which? reported.
Which? also heard of scammers placing fake QR code stickers over genuine ones in car parks, shops, hotels, and restaurants and sending fake surveys with QR codes in the post to trick people into paying for overly expensive subscriptions.
The consumer champion received 10 scam reports about people inadvertently subscribing to a company called Media Craze via QR codes. In every case, people believed they were dealing with known brands and had no idea they were handing over their card details to Media Craze, which then charged them £29.99 a month for its entertainment package.
A third and very common subscription trap is ‘free’ product trials – often for nutrition and beauty products such as ‘keto diet pills’ and ‘CBD gummies’.
Typically, people are led to believe that they are authorising a one-off payment or covering postage costs – only to discover they will be charged tens or even hundreds of pounds every month.
These fees may be buried in the terms and conditions, although the worst offenders simply lie about their pricing model.
Ms Concha added: “To stay up to date with the latest scams making the rounds, consumers can sign up to the Which? scam alert service and get advice about how to protect themselves by visiting www.gov.uk/stopthinkfraud
“However, responsibility should not fall solely on the shoulders of consumers.
“The Government has brought forward some encouraging measures to tackle fraud in recent years but needs to go much further and ensure that telecom providers and online platforms are verifying the legitimacy of their users to prevent scammers reaching consumers.”
