Farmers can become targets for fraudsters who try to relieve them of their hard-earned money at this time of year when they are receiving their Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) payments.
As the National Farmers Union (NFU) points out, there is a lot of publicity around payments to farmers around this time, as BPS cash is coming in, as well as normal CAP payments covering agri-environment and the like. Fraudsters see this as bonanza time, so farmers are urged to be on the lookout.
Criminals have a number of ways to try and relieve farmers of their cash, such as through emails purporting to be from the bank or the rural payments agency (RPA) or by calling them, pretending to be official.
Therefore, farmers should be on the lookout for any suspicious emails or phone calls, and should remember that their bank, the RPA or the police will never ask for an online password, PIN or bank account details.
In particular, farmers should look out for emails supposedly from suppliers that ask for funds to be transferred to a different bank account than the normal one. In this instance, calling the supplier and asking if this is really the case would be a good option.
The NFU goes on to warn farmers that they should never discuss their bank account details with anyone they don’t know, or open unknown or unexpected website links or emails.
Fraudsters can be very clever at trying to replicate official website addresses, so if in doubt, business owners could go a trusted site and see if the same information is there. Similarly, if they are asked to call a number they are unfamiliar with, they should look at official letters or websites and call the number displayed.
Anyone who believes they have been the subject of fraud should contact Action Fraud to register their concern.
