The biggest scams of 2024

2024 has been another big year for scams with some resurgences of old and well-known scams, and newer ones fuelled by artificial intelligence.

Fraud is the most prevalent crime in England and Wales, accounting for 40% of all crimes. The Financial Ombudsman Service revealed that in the first quarter of 2024, fraud and scam complaints hit the highest ever recorded level, with consumers filing 8,734 complaints.

At Which? we've reported on the latest scam trends, and the tactics used in them, to share advice on how to spot and avoid scams. We've shared our findings in our weekly Scam Alert emails to over 450k subscribers.

Below, we look at some of the biggest scams we've covered in 2024.

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Deepfake videos

Elon Musk, Martin Lewis, Taylor Swift and Holly Willoughby were all featured in videos where they appeared to promote lucrative investments. However, the celebrities never actually promoted these products and never said what they appeared to say.

That’s because these videos were the work of deepfake technology fuelled by accessible online artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

Sometimes, deepfake videos use cloned voices to create the impression that someone said something they never did. Other times, real footage of someone was manipulated and put together to make it seem as if the person was promoting something that they weren’t.

• Take our quiz to see if you can spot a deepfake video

Fake customer service accounts

We first reported on scammers posing as easyJet customer service reps in 2023 and found that they continued to pretend to be well-known retailers and airlines on X this year.

Fraudsters look through social media, sometimes using automated programs known as bots, to seek out disgruntled customers reaching out to the company they're having issues with. The fraudster then intercepts the conversation before the real company has the chance to look and respond.

In one example we found, a customer of Wizz Air contacted the airline on X about a delayed flight and received quick responses from two scam accounts impersonating the airline. The scam accounts told the customer they had escalated their complaint and asked for their WhatsApp number to continue resolving their issue.

We also found British Airways, easyJet, Jet2, Ryanair, Tui and Virgin Atlantic being imitated on X as well as 37 fake Zara accounts that were replying to customers on the platform.

Often, these scammers pretend to be carrying out a genuine complaint process in an attempt to steal your data through documents, such as passports, which can be used to commit identity theft.

Impersonated retailers

Scammers have become better at creating convincing scam websites over the years. Obvious attempts at imitation have now been replaced by sophisticated copycat websites complete with About us, Contact us, Privacy policy, and T&Cs pages.

Plus, there are clear professional logos and branding, too. When Wilko closed down at the end of last year, fraudsters sprung into action and created a series of Facebook and Instagram ads promoting large 'closing down' discount sales. These led to phishing websites that copied the official Wilko site.

These phishing sites typically gather your details and then use the personal data they’ve taken to scam you at a later date, using the details you shared on the website to convince you they’re genuine.

• Read more: how to spot a copycat or scam website

Ticket scams

2024 saw show dates being announced by popular artists such as Taylor Swift and Oasis. Many fraudsters used social media to peddle non-existent show tickets, particularly after big artists had sold out all their concert dates.

Between October 2023 and September 2024, Action Fraud received 10,278 reports relating to ticket fraud, resulting in £9.7m of losses.

A Taylor Swift fan contacted us after being targeted by a scammer on Facebook. The scammer posted one concert ticket for sale in a Facebook group.

Striking up a conversation with the fan, the scammer then discounted the price by nearly half when they said that they were on a budget. The scammer even sent a confirmation email impersonating Ticketmaster, complete with its logo and seat number.

Luckily, the fan sensed something was wrong after the scammer claimed there was an issue with the Ticketmaster app, which meant the money needed to be paid via bank transfer.

Government parking fine scam

Which? uncovered a series of convincing copycat government websites designed to phish for your personal and payment information.

These websites didn’t stand out as dodgy, and had links that led back to the genuine government website.

For all of the websites, the only real giveaway that they were scam sites were the web addresses – all government websites begin with ‘Gov.uk’.

We saw texts ‘reminding’ recipients about their ‘applications’ for cost of living payments and Jobseeker’s Allowance and a text claiming they had an unpaid parking charge.

In particular, the parking charge text continued to circulate for weeks, with some versions claiming to be from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA). Other versions of the text included a dodgy link hosted by ‘qrco.de’, which was a QR code generator, and some used a shortened link on TinyURL to mask the website’s real destination.

One of the texts said ‘an unpaid parking fine was found on your vehicle’ and that you need to ‘pay immediately’.

When we entered random characters into the ‘vehicle registration’ box, each time we were given a bogus PCN (penalty charge notice) number and told we owed a £25 fine. We were asked for more personal and payment data including our name, email, phone number and home address to pay the fine.

WhatsApp scams

Scammers often use an out-of-the-blue WhatsApp message to try and target potential victims. This year has been no exception: messages have impersonated adult children, job recruiters and even famous financial investors.

The messages might start with an innocuous ‘hi mum,’ or ‘have you heard of this job opportunity?’ and move on to a conversation designed to engineer you into believing a story about a fake emergency, an amazing new job or an investment scheme. It culminates in you transferring your money to a scammer’s account or entering your financial details into a dodgy site.

We also saw scammers impersonate popular retailers via WhatsApp to offer fake giveaways.

These messages always led to phishing websites that would ask for your details and ask you to share the initial message with all of your friends to receive your prize. This way, the WhatsApp message came from someone in your contact list, calming your reservations.

There was also a resurgence in messages offering ‘WhatsApp Gold’, a fake service boasting new features of the app, designed to steal data or download malware.

The message first started in 2016 and a version of this scam from this year led to a dodgy website to ‘sign up’ for the service, which then downloaded malware to your device.

Job scams

‘I was reassured it was a real job’

Evie (not her real name) received a message about a job opportunity on WhatsApp. ‘I asked about tax and everything, and was reassured it was a real job.'

The ‘job’ was to log in to a platform and complete daily tasks. Evie received a commission which she could only withdraw from the platform to Wise (an international money transfer app).

However, to access the money, Evie had to make a deposit using her own cash at the start of each working day using Bitget (a crypto exchange platform).

We saw plenty of lucrative ‘job offers’ from unsolicited WhatsApp messages this year. These ‘offers’ often involve you carrying out simple tasks online to earn a commission.

The catch is that you’ll always be asked to use your own money and you’ll never be able to withdraw your ‘earnings’.

QR code scams

Which? received reports from unsuspecting victims of QR code subscription traps this year.

They found charges for subscriptions they didn’t sign up for after trying to download apps on their phones or scanning QR codes in public places such as restaurants, pubs, shops, bus stops, stations and car parks. Some of these unwanted subscriptions charged victims up to £39.99 a month.

Scammers have continued to create dodgy QR codes by tampering with legitimate codes, something we’ve seen with fraudsters placing their own QR code stickers over genuine ones on parking meters.

Dodgy QR codes can also lead you to phishing websites or infect your device with malware.

QR codes are also increasingly being used in scam emails instead of phishing links. If you want to download an app, it’s best to stick to official app stores such as the Google Play Store or Apple App Store instead of using a QR code.

Between 1 January and 31 August 2024, Action Fraud received 821 crime reports relating to QR Codes.

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Our emails will alert you to scams doing the rounds, and provide practical advice to keep you one step ahead of fraudsters.

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