Tips to help spot ‘copy cat’ scams

The Council’s Trading Standards team is reminding folk of the ways they can spot ‘copy cat’ scams and help stop them in their tracks. 

This follows a spate of reports to the team of social media pages purporting to be local transport operators offering travel discounts - in return for personal and financial information. 

Copy cat scammers mimic genuine organisations, services or businesses to get people to part with their money or personal details. 

They may claim that they can arrange services or goods for you faster or cheaper. Or they may just claim to be someone they are not. 

Copy cat scammers operate in a number of ways. You could come across a fake website when you search the internet for services or follow a link from an advert on social media – or from flyers and cold callers.  

The dangers of falling for copy cat scammers include: 

• Paying more for something than you should - or even paying for a free service 
• Ending up with inferior products 
• Having your personal details gathered and sold to others 
• Falling victim to identity theft 

Look out for: 

• Offers that seem too good to be true 
• Poor spelling in adverts or social media posts 
• Web addresses that don’t match who they’re claiming to be 

Steps you can take: 

• Directly contact the organisation through a trusted phone number, website or email address to check the offer is genuine 
• Get a web savvy friend or relative to look at the offer with you 
• Use www.gov.uk for tasks and services administered by the government such as passport applications, tax and benefits. 
• Use my.orkney.gov.uk to pay for Council services 

Gary Foubister is Manager of Trading Standards at Orkney Islands Council and says there are two additional ways folks can help stop copy cat scammers in their tracks: "Please do report suspected scammers to the Council’s Trading Standards team who can check them out and issue public warnings if needed. 

“And if it’s a social media site, you can report the page – the more people that do this, the more likely the page will be taken down quickly. 

“Doing these things will prevent others in our community from falling foul of scammers.”