Take Five is a national campaign that offers straight-forward and impartial advice to help everyone protect themselves from preventable financial fraud. This includes email deception and phone based scams as well as online fraud – particularly where criminals impersonate trusted organisations.

More than 1 million incidents of financial fraud occurred in the first six months of 2016, according to official figures released by Financial Fraud Action UK (FFA UK) today (20th September 2016). Representing a 53 per cent increase compared to the same period last year, this means an incident happened in the UK every 15 seconds between January and June 2016.

The campaign - Take Five – aims to put consumers and businesses back in control with straight forward advice to help prevent financial fraud. It focuses on financial frauds directly targeting customers, such as email deception and phone and text-based scams, and is designed to remind people that it pays to stop and think. It will also help protect people from criminals duping them into moving money into bank accounts controlled by the fraudsters.

The Take Five campaign is asking consumers to help protect themselves from financial fraud by remembering some simple advice:

1. Never disclose security details, such as your PIN or full password - it’s never right to reveal these details
2. Don’t assume an email request or caller is genuine - people aren’t always who they say they are
3. Don’t be rushed – a bank or genuine organisation won’t mind waiting to give you time to stop and think
4. Listen to your instincts – if something feels wrong then it is usually right to pause and question it
5. Stay in control – have the confidence to refuse unusual requests for information

To find out more about keeping yourself safe and how you can ‘Take Five’ go to: www.takefive-stopfraud.org.uk.