Thanks for that. although I hardly get any calls let alone dodgy ones, but still good to know. R-
“Yes, I know the caller ID says ‘Mum’, but unless you enter the verification phrase I’m not going to talk to you!!”
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must remember that one…
RBS used to cold call me.
Co-operative Business Banking would cold call as well.
RBS has called me a number of times.
Co-operative business banking used to call me every single time I made a debit card payment.
I repeatedly told them that their action of calling me and then demand that I have to pass their security was the sort of behaviour employed by scammers and their actions normalised this for customers.
They continued to do it so I just ignored their phone calls, …and they let my debit card payments through anyway. 
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A small percentage of people will always be fooled by these scams.
I wonder if Monzo could do more to educate people though within the app itself. For example, the odd little pop up tip to say ‘remember, we will never ask you for your pin by phone’ or ‘we will won’t call you unless arranging in the app beforehand’ etc
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You say that, but I used to work for NatWest and we were made to stay behind late (fairly regularly) to cold call customers to try and sell them stuff if we were low on sales. They called it “prospecting” 
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Look we can all be armchair experts but until you’re faced with a phone call like that, it’s difficult to be 100% how you react.
I suspect it induced fear and panic, and emotion took over.
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Can confirm a NatWest cold call sold me their reward account.
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Ugh I hate these kind of articles.
- If someone calls you claiming to be from a bank, never EVER believe them and go through with it. Hang up and tell them you’ll call them back.
- Never give your PIN number to anyone.
Moral of the story… don’t be dumb.
I agree with the sentiment, but don’t victim blame. I know full well some of my elderly relatives would fall for this. Just because the victim is a young man doesn’t mean he is not a victim.
Everyone, young and old, needs educating on how these scams work.
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The issue I have is that this sort of scam is platform agnostic. It doesn’t matter which bank is the target. So I’m always unhappy when the article is framed as “THIS BANK has a problem” and not “THIS PROBLEM can affect anyone with any bank account”.
Articles should make people aware of the issue. They should not make people think “I should avoid this bank” when the bank is as much a victim as the actual victim. (Though there is the exception of when the bank handles the fallout incredibly poorly; then their actions reflect upon them.)
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I don’t care how old you are, it’s been drummed into us on TV, via these articles, via friends, via every possible method, that you should never give anyone your PIN number, bank details or any personal information to a cold caller.
If you do and then proceed to blame your bank for it AND then give your story to a newspaper like this to make the bank look bad then I’m sorry but you have zero sympathy from me.
100% this.
Clearly it has not been drummed into us enough, as it still happens. If it happens to one of your elderly relatives, I assume you will take great delight in telling them that they are dumb and offering no sympathy whatsoever.
I didn’t mention giving the story to a newspaper to make the bank look bad, you did, and I agree that THAT is bad form.
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None of my elderly relatives would blame the bank for their mistake in the first place. This guy isn’t getting my sympathy because of his bad mouthing of his bank (couldn’t care less if it was Monzo or another bank) when it was HIS fault.
I would sympathise with anyone it happened to in my family if it did and help them resolve it without kicking and screaming at the bank.
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I have been getting a lot of replies saying they have been legitimately cold called by their bank.
Maybe it’s just me, but I would automatically have just hanged up on them, assuming it was a scam.
My old bank manager even said himself to never trust a cold call from a bank.
Seems to be a bit of left hand/right hand lack of communication between fraud prevention and marketing/other departments.
Might be more accurate to say that banks shouldn’t cold call you.
But if they do, no real bank will object to you saying “I’m going to hang up and call you back using your publically available number. Who should I ask to speak to?” If they try and keep you on the line, they’re a wrong 'un.
(Or, if they tried to keep you on the line but it turns out when you do call back that they were legit, that’s grounds for making a complaint, I think.)
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The suggestion to call them back is a good one, but people have been caught out before by the scammer staying on the line (I’m presuming this trick only works on landlines tbh) and then acting like you’ve called them when in fact they went nowhere, so you have to bear that in mind and either leave it 5 minutes to make sure they’ve hung up (which is hard when “the bank” has an urgent issue with your money), or use your mobile/an alternative phone to ring them back.
I’m happy to be proved wrong, but I believe that this doesn’t work any more.