Co-operative Bank’s mobile app and online banking are down, driving customers to vent frustration on social media.
There has been a surge in outages reported to the DownDetector tracking website since shortly after 1.30pm today.
Nigel Roberts took to X to complain that he ‘can’t log in to either’ Co-op Banks’ mobile app or online banking.
Another customer, Chris Weldon, posted: ‘Why is the mobile app unavailable again. Just get a message “Something’s not right. You’ve been logged our for security reasons”? Tried both my fingerprint and logging in via my pin code and neither work.’
The bank apologised to customers complaining on social media, saying: ‘We are looking into this issue, and are working hard to resolve this issue.’
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Metro has contacted Co-operative Bank for comment.
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Bank payments could take three days due to new anti-fraud measures
Currently banks have until the end of the next business day to decide whether a customer’s payment is processed or refused.
A new law proposed by the government could see this extended to 72 hours to allow banks more time to investigate suspicious transactions.
This could save people from losing money to romance scams, which cost Santander customers £3.8million in the last six months, as well as other types of fraud.
Banks would be required to compensate customers for any interest or late payment fees resulting from a delay, under the plans.
Tulip Siddiq, the economic secretary to the Treasury, said: ‘Hundreds of millions of pounds are lost to scammers each year, targeting vulnerable communities and ruining the lives of ordinary people.
‘We need to protect these people better, which is why we are giving banks more time to investigate suspicious payments and break the criminal spell that scammers weave.’
Rocio Concha, the director of policy and advocacy at consumer group Which?, described the plans as a ‘positive step in the fight against fraud’.
‘While it should not affect the vast majority of everyday payments, it’s important that banks can delay a bank transfer and take action if they think a customer is being targeted by a scam.
‘These measures should be used in a careful and targeted way.’
Martin Lewis shares the best time to remortgage as rates drop below 4% for the first time in years
Finally, it seems things are looking up for homeowners, as mortgage rates have dropped below 4% for the first time in years — and Martin Lewis has some tips to ensure you make the most of it.
The Bank of England voted to drop its base rate to 5% in August, but lenders are now offering fixed rate deals for far less (the cheapest coming in at under 4% for five or two years) which tends to be an indicator of where the market is headed.
And while this is undoubtedly great news after over two years of rapid inflation and rising bills, it raises the question: should you switch now, or hold off in case things continue to improve?
Thankfully, Martin is on hand to help, sharing a recent episode of his BBC 5 Live podcast on the Money Saving Expert newsletter dedicated to the topic.
Two-week warning for Tesco Clubcard holders to nab Christmas spending bonus
If you’re looking to keep costs down at Christmas, Tesco’s Clubcard Christmas Savers scheme is one way to do it.
The supermarket giant’s loyalty programme allows you to save up your Clubcard points throughout the year, which you then get during your November statement, to use at Christmas time.
Co-op Bank says ‘sorry’ as customers can’t access app or online banking
Customers have struggled to log into their accounts on Co-operative Bank’s mobile app and online banking website this afternoon.
Tracking website DownDetector shows a surge in reported outages since around 1.30pm today.
A spokesperson apologised to customers complaining on social media, saying: ‘We are looking into this issue, and are working hard to resolve this issue.’
Warning over fake Universal Credit app you should delete immediately
Universal Credit claimants have been urged to delete a fake app from their phones and iPads.
An app on the Apple store purports to allow users to apply for Universal Credit and manage their claim, with a monthly fee of $0.99 for an ad-free experience.
But the app, and any personal data entered into it, may not be secure given the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) offers no such service.
Despite touting the idea in 2021, the DWP requires benefit claimants to log into their Universal Credit account on the government website found at GOV.UK.
It is not clear how many people have downloaded the fake app, provided by a company that also offers apps claiming to allow users to check their MOT, immigration status and benefit entitlements in the UK, USA and South Africa.
Police and local councils have urged people to delete the app from their electronic devices.
In a statement, police said: ‘We’ve been made aware of a fake Universal Credit app that is available to download. This is not the official app for Universal Credit and may not be secure.
‘The Department for Work and Pensions is investigating. If you have it on your device the advice is to uninstall the app and access your UC account via the Government’s website.’
Metro has contacted the DWP for comment.
Starling Bank fined £29,000,000 for ‘shockingly lax’ crime controls
The bank has grown rapidly since 2017, but its ‘measures to tackle financial crime did not keep pace with its growth’ (Picture: Shutterstock / T. Schneider)
Starling Bank has been fined £29million for ‘shockingly lax’ sanctions screenings that left financial markets ‘wide open to criminals’.
The app-only bank grew from 43,000 customers in 2017 to 3.6 million last year.
But it failed to ensure criminals and people subject to sanctions weren’t among them, according to Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which issued the fine.
Therese Chambers, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said: ‘Starling’s financial sanction screening controls were shockingly lax.
‘It left the financial system wide open to criminals and those subject to sanctions. It compounded this by failing to properly comply with FCA requirements it had agreed to, which were put in place to lower the risk of Starling facilitating financial crime.’
Concerns about money laundering and sanctions were raised by the Financial Conduct Authority in 2021.
But Starling ‘failed to comply’ with an agreement not to open accounts for high-risk customers until its screening process improved.
The bank opened more than 54,000 accounts for 49,000 high-risk customers between September 2021 and November 2023.
Only a fraction of the list of people subject to financial sanctions was used for screening customers in the bank’s automated system, which Starling became aware of in January last year.
Since then the bank has reported multiple potential breaches of financial sanctions to relevant authorities, the FCA said.
Meta partners with UK banks to combat fraud
Meta has announced the expansion of a scheme that sees banks sharing information with the social media giant to help protect people against fraud.
The parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp had been working with NatWest and Metro Bank, but said it will now expand the scheme and enrol more banks.
Called the Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange (Fire), the programme allows financial institutions to share intelligence with the tech giant directly to help stop scammers.
Meta said that during the pilot, a significant concert ticket scam network attempting to target people in the US and UK was taken down because of data shared between those involved in the scheme, with around 20,000 accounts removed, which were run by scammers across 185 URLs.
The social media giant said this in turn had also helped it strengthen its fraud detection capabilities.
Rocio Concha, director of policy and advocacy at consumer champion Which? said it welcomed the scheme, but that more work still needed to be done in the area.
‘While it’s a positive step that Meta is partnering with UK banks to combat scams, much greater collaboration between key businesses and government is needed to put an end to the fraud epidemic,’ she said.
What are the most common HMRC scams?
As the UK’s tax authority, your data held by HMRC can be incredibly valuable to scammers.
They will often try to mimic HMRC to trick you into handing over personal data that could give access to your bank account and hard earned cash.
What could this include?
- QR codes are used in HMRC letters to direct you to advice o the GOV.UK website, but scammers might use similar-looking QR codes to direct you to a page where you are instructed to input personal information, which HMRC says it would never do itself.
- Text messages offering you a tax refund may include links where you will be asked to enter personal data are a common tactic used by scammers.
- Fraudsters may attempt the same with emails, so HMRC advises you not to open any links or attachments in such emails, which may come from senders who have changed the email address and display name to mimic HMRC.
- Have you ever received an automated phone call informing you that HMRC is suing you and asking you to press 1 to speak with a caseworker about payment? ‘This is a scam’, HMRC says, urging you to end the call and report it to Action Fraud immediately. Similar scams focus on National Insurance fraud and tax refunds.
Are you saving enough for your pension?
There’s a crisis looming when the UK’s working-age population reaches retirement, according to analysis by the Phoenix Insights think tank.
People just aren’t putting enough into their pension pots to afford their basic needs when they leave the workforce between 2025 and 2060.
Women born in the 1970s are expected to be worst affected when they do retire between the ages of 66 and 70.
That’s particularly the case for those earning less than £80,000, roughly half of whom earn less than £20,000 each year.
Nearly two thirds of millennials are struggling to save for retirement, with income change and childcare responsibilities the main reasons cited, according to Phoenix Insights.
Gen X, who are the next batch to retire, are among the least prepared for the cost of doing so, having missed out on auto-enrolment during their careers.
This pension crisis is expected to peak between 2040 and 2044.
It’s never too early to start saving for retirement
Household fuel bills rose this month – here’s how to make sure you’re paying the best price
You can get £200 for switching to Lloyds Bank
Lloyds Bank has followed the lead of Nationwide and Co-operative Bank with a cash enticement for new customers, Which reports.
It actually offers even more to those joining Club Lloyds – £200 compared with the £175 and £150 offered by the other two.
Plus you get to pick one ‘lifestyle benefit’, including a 12-month Disney+ subscription, cinema tickets, a magazine subscription, or coffee discounts.
You just have to transfer at least three active direct debits from your old account using the Current Account Switch Service.
The offer only runs until December 10, and is available to existing Lloyds customers as long as they switch from a non-Lloyds account to a new Club Lloyds one.
If you’ve previously received a switching incentive from either Lloyds or Halifax since April 2020, then tough luck but you’ll miss out this time.
Terminally ill pensioner lost £140,000 to scammer posing as Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore
Valerie Horwood, 81, thought her old schoolfriend had hit her up when someone posing as Ritchie Blackmore hit her up on Facebook.
Their communications needed to be kept top secret due to his celebrity status as the founding guitarist of Deep Purple, she believed, so they moved the conversation to the encrypted messaging platform Signal.
But it was all a con that cost Ms Horwood £140,000 after the scammer convinced her to buy them hundreds of Apple gift cards, promising she would get it all back and then some.
It’s left Ms Horwood from Fleet, Hampshire, with no money to fulfill her dying wishes after a terminal cancer diagnosis.
That includes a visit she wanted to pay her grandson in Antigua, in the Caribbean.
Her daughter Debbie only realised what had happened after Ms Horwood asked to borrow £2,000 from a friend so she could pay her bills.
‘Her world just completely fell apart’, said Debbie, who had noticed bizarre behaviour but hadn’t recognised the Signal app when she checked her mother’s phone.
‘She couldn’t comprehend what had happened. It is a hard thing to take on that you have just given all of your money away to a scammer.
‘It is a very crafty scam. I have been through the worst emotional rollercoaster with it all.
‘We all went into shock. My mum is not a stupid old lady. She is very streetwise and very switched on.
‘She was probably quite lonely. She was enjoying the chats that they were having.
‘It is quite heartbreaking that she was sucked in. I never would have guessed that my mum would be so vulnerable like that.’
Even after the scam was uncovered and Ms Horwood deleted Signal from her phone, the scammer persisted with threatening WhatsApp messages demanding more money.
The distress drove Ms Horwood to attempt suicide.
Debbie said: ‘It just made me so cross because if I had known about this app then I would have seen this in June/July last year and I could have nipped this in the bud.
‘I really want to raise awareness. The scammers will be working on their next scam.’
Tesco refunded the £12,500 Ms Horwood spent in their stores, but the family has been left to start a JustGiving page in a bid to recoup the losses.
A spokesperson for the supermarket chain, which has scam warnings on its gift card display, said: ‘We actively monitor gift card transactions and will investigate any suspicious patterns.
‘Our colleagues receive training and guidance on how to recognise that a scam may be taking place.
‘We also send regular updates to colleagues on what to look out for and how to report suspected scams.’
How to stay safe from romance scams in four easy steps
Netflix is full of documentaries about people who’ve fallen for an elaborate ruse, whether it’s the Tinder Swindler or scamming socialites?
We’re hooked on the spectacle, safe in the comfort of our own homes where, surely, we ourselves couldn’t possibly be fooled. Or could we?
Paul Gorton, star of BBC’s The Traitors, knows better than most how easy it is to pull off a con.
He said: ‘In my experience, it’s surprisingly easy to build deep trust, especially when someone is charming and says all the right things.
‘As we start to feel a connection, whether it’s real or not, we can end up overlooking red flags and ignore any warnings from others around us.
‘Stay vigilant to spot a traitor, it’d be too easy if they simply messaged you out of the blue asking for your money.
‘Approach any new relationship with cautious optimism, complete checks and having your wits about you at the start.’
Santander has put together four easy steps to follow so you can protect yourself and your money from romance or friendship scammers.
- It’s easier said than done, but try to remove emotion from your decision-making. No matter how urgent their reasons, always be careful if you are lending or giving someone money. Think it through first, and consider discussing it with a trusted friend or family member before the money is gone forever.
- Pictures can be edited and fake profiles can easily be made. Performing a reverse image search online can show whether the photos have been taken from another website or social media platform.
- It is likely a red flag if the person you have been talking to online will not video call or meet you in person. Fraudsters will make excuses about why this cannot happen or change plans at the last minute.
- Never send money or give card details, online account details, or copies of important personal documents to anyone you have only met online.
What is a romance scam?
We’ve all received the occasional flirty message on social media, even email or through a text to our phone.
It can be anything from a nuisance to a welcome boost for our ego – but sometimes it’s a scam.
Nearly a third of people would offer financial help to a romantic partner of less than six months, according to a Santander survey of 2,000 people in July.
Most, however, think they would never fall for such fraud, but could your emotions be ripe for exploitation?
Peter Staffell, a behavioural expert at the bank, said: ‘Scammers are experts at presenting themselves as someone you can trust, someone who ‘gets’ you.
‘They play the long game, building a relationship before executing on their scam and, as our research shows, it’s a natural instinct for many of us to willingly lend a financial hand to someone who we have formed an emotional bond with.
‘Then they’ve gone. The scam is complete, and the impact extends far beyond the financial losses, leaving emotional scars and often people feeling more isolated than before.
‘You can take control though, a few simple checks when you first start to speak to someone, and before your emotions take hold, can reveal a lot about the person you’re speaking to and save heartache further down the line.’
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