Jason Smart, chief executive of Elite, pointed out that his firm represents only 2.8 per cent of the PII market, which suggests the actual cost of this kind of fraud could be much more than the £40m figure often quoted.

Sophisticated fraudsters  

‘Vishing’ generally involves an individual calling a firm’s cashier to ‘confirm recent transactions’. The caller will have obtained details about the firm by researching via social media and hacking into systems. The cashier, lulled into a false sense of security, gives out information such as challenge responses that are then used to empty bank accounts.

The golden rule

Mr Smart said that the key to avoiding such fraud is to have the person who takes the initial call not deal with the query, but take the name and number for someone else to call back. This should be from a separate number, to prevent the technique of pretending to hang up while remaining on the line. Source: The Law Society Gazette