Citizens Advice 2021 Scams Awareness Campaign

The Citizens Advice 2021 Scams Awareness Campaign will take place from 14 - 27 June.

This annual campaign is all about creating a network of confident, #ScamAware Cardiff and Vale consumers who are able to recognise a scam, report it to the appropriate agency and talk about their experiences to help raise public awareness of scams.

The coronavirus pandemic has made it even more important to empower the public to protect themselves against scams. Last year, we saw an increase in scams relating to coronavirus as fraudsters tried to take advantage of all the uncertainty of the pandemic. As the country moves towards economic recovery, scams continue to be a prevalent issue, with scammers seeking to exploit the fall out of the pandemic.

Spam emails, ‘suspicious activity’ alerts from your bank, news stories about data breaches – unfortunately, scams and fraud seem to have become part of our daily lives. They can affect anyone - a recent Citizens Advice report found that almost three quarters of people surveyed had been targeted by a scam in the previous two years - and can cause a lot of harm. The National Audit Office (NAO) has estimated that individuals in the UK lose £10 billion a year due to fraud, not to mention the emotional impact.

As a result, this year’s Scams Awareness campaign will be focusing on the financial scams that have emerged as a consequence of the coronavirus outbreak. Through the campaign we want to:

• Equip consumers with the knowledge and skills they need to recognize scams,

• Empower people to take action by getting advice and reporting scams and

• Encourage people to talk about their experiences and help others.

This annual campaign is all about creating a network of confident, #ScamAware Cardiff and Vale consumers who are able to recognise a scam, report it to the appropriate agency and talk about their experiences to help raise public awareness of scams.

The coronavirus pandemic has made it even more important to empower the public to protect themselves against scams. Last year, we saw an increase in scams relating to coronavirus as fraudsters tried to take advantage of all the uncertainty of the pandemic. As the country moves towards economic recovery, scams continue to be a prevalent issue, with scammers seeking to exploit the fall out of the pandemic.

Spam emails, ‘suspicious activity’ alerts from your bank, news stories about data breaches – unfortunately, scams and fraud seem to have become part of our daily lives. They can affect anyone - a recent Citizens Advice report found that almost three quarters of people surveyed had been targeted by a scam in the previous two years - and can cause a lot of harm. The National Audit Office (NAO) has estimated that individuals in the UK lose £10 billion a year due to fraud, not to mention the emotional impact.

As a result, this year’s Scams Awareness campaign will be focusing on the financial scams that have emerged as a consequence of the coronavirus outbreak. Through the campaign we want to:

• Equip consumers with the knowledge and skills they need to recognize scams,

• Empower people to take action by getting advice and reporting scams and

• Encourage people to talk about their experiences and help others.

The annual campaign has gone from strength to strength thanks to all our partners work. This year I am encouraging all our partners across Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan to participate in the campaign to protect members of our local communities.

If you would like to get involved in the campaign, Citizens Advice have provided plenty of free resources on their public campaign page to include:

-        Information resources (key messages, scams messaging toolkit, scams glossary etc)

-        Poster/leaflets

-        Social media resources and graphics

If you decide to participate in any way, I’d be grateful if you could let Ceri Morgan, Business Manager, Citizens Advice Cardiff & Vale know what activities you completed so that he can write a report about how organisations across Cardiff and Vale came together to support our communities. So whether you re-tweet our social media posts or run your own training session for your service users, please let Ceri know!

Please don’t hesitate to contact Ceri on 07885 455518 or email ceri.morgan@cacv.org.uk if you would like more information on participating in the campaign.