Imagine a situation where you’ve built up your life savings and you’re ready to pay your solicitor your deposit (likely tens of thousands of pounds) to finalise the deal on your new home. You receive an email from your solicitor with the details of where you need to send the money. Only some days later does your real solicitor call you and ask you to send over the money… After some back and forth you realise that someone has hacked your emails and learned of your impending house purchase. They’ve written a very convincing email that looks as if it is from your solicitor and now your money is gone…

This is a real nightmare scenario that has unfortunately become a reality for many people. These scams are typically referred to as invoice or mandate scams. Fraudsters look for situations where you’d be likely to send large sums from your account, and try to insert themselves into the process. When successful, they’ll have managed to convince you that they’re the conveyancer, builder, or anyone else who was due a large sum of money. An estimated £114 million was lost to invoice scams in 2019 alone, with just 28% of funds returned to victims.