Scam Secrets

A roofer's at your door - they've spotted a couple of loose tiles and they can fix them straight away. It's only a quick job. Would you know what to do?
Almost all of the scams we've dissected so far have been done remotely - on the phone, by text or online. But what if the criminal is standing right in front of you - perhaps even inside your home? That's what the Scam Secrets team are looking at in this episode. Because while criminals have embraced the digital world and AI, they'll still steal from you face to face too - and many of the techniques are the same.
We hear from Jane, who got one of those knocks on the door from a 'roofer' - before long, she'd had thousands of pounds stolen by criminals who even used a fake video of birds on her roof to try to steal more.
It's not just rogue traders though - who can resist helping someone in need? We'll hear what happens when a man approaches people at a motorway service station with a simple-sounding request for help...
PRESENTER: SHARI VAHL
PRODUCER: TOM MOSELEY

A group of young jobseekers are gathered outside a dental surgery in West London, nervously waiting for a trial shift for the job they've just applied for. But as time ticks on, they realise there is no shift. In fact there is no job. But it gets much worse - their identities have all been stolen.
Shari Vahl and the Scam Secrets team hear from one of those people, Joe. For him, the real impact of what the criminals had done only hit home several months later.
What started as a plausible looking job posting on a big recruitment site, from a business that checked out, ended with him trying to extract himself from thousands of pounds' worth of loans and the lingering fear of what the criminals would do next.
It's a growing scam aimed at anyone browsing online recruitment sites. Would you spot the red flags?
Remember you can get in touch with the Scam Secrets team: [email protected]
PRESENTER: SHARI VAHL
PRODUCER: TOM MOSELEY

If you buy from a website that turns out to be fake and run by criminals, your first thought is probably about the money you've parted with. But that's not all they're after. Because you're also handing over personal data that can be far more lucrative than whatever you paid for the rubbish clothes that you're left with.
In this episode, Shari Vahl, Dr Lis Carter and Alex Wood revisit the Great Knitted Cardigan Scam to find out what happens to the information victims enter into these sites. Email address, phone number, bank details...Shari calls it identity bingo. She's uncovered an audacious technique where victims' details are used as returns addresses to make these bogus sites look legitimate. And it doesn't stop there - cyber security expert Matthew Gracey-McMinn reveals how our data changes hands on the dark web and some of the other uses criminals make of it.
Remember you can contact the Scam Secrets team and tell us the scams you want to see investigated - [email protected]
PRESENTER: SHARI VAHL
PRODUCER: TOM MOSELEY

You've been invited onto a well-known podcast (not this one). They'll even pay you to take part. Would you know what to do?
Shari Vahl, Alex Wood and Dr Lis Carter unravel an elaborate scam that's aimed at people and organisations with a big social following. They hear from a dog groomer who was tricked into handing over her Facebook account by an extremely convincing-sounding invitation to appear on a US podcast. The same trick has been used on other charities and influencers and it's made even harder to spot because the podcast does exist. So how are you supposed to check?
And crucially, what are the criminals really after?
PRESENTER: SHARI VAHL
PRODUCER: TOM MOSELEY

You've booked a holiday and the hotel gets in touch to ask for a payment to confirm your booking. They know your name and they've got all the details of your reservation. Would you know what to do? In this episode, people using booking.com are targeted by a hard-to-spot scam where official-looking messages arrive, asking for payment. Needless to say, that payment doesn't go to the hotel. But how do the criminals do it? And what chance do you have of spotting it?
Shari Vahl, Dr Lis Carter and Alex Wood find out, with the help of cyber crime expert Rafe Pilling.
Remember you can contact the programme at [email protected].
PRESENTER: SHARI VAHL
PRODUCER: TOM MOSELEY