Students have been warned that they could be the target of scams aimed at stealing their loan payments. The Student Loans Company (SLC) has said that fraudulent emails are being sent to students by fraudsters pretending to be reputable finance companies. The emails request personal details including bank details.
If students pass over the information requested by the emails, the fraudsters are able to access their bank accounts to steal their cash, which sometimes can be large sums of money. Students are a target at this particular time of the year because scammers know that they are likely to be receiving large student loan payments into their bank accounts.
The Student Loan Company stated that they never request personal details by email and that you should be suspicious of any email claiming to be from them doing so.
Whoever you bank with, whether you are a student or not, the best way to stay safe is that if you receive an email asking for information, is to speak to the company directly by either visiting their website via your browser favourites or typing in the web address. You can even telephone them to query the email. Never click a link to the bank that is contained in any email requesting information as it could take you to a site posing as your bank to get your data.