Barclays ‘money saving’ tool that takes just seconds to use

Customers have been urged to ensure they are on top of things

Fraudsters are increasingly posing as banks, and the average person now receives around eight suspicious calls every month, according to Nationwide. These scammers often pressure victims into sharing personal details, security codes, granting remote access to devices, or transferring money to fraudulent accounts.

To fight this, UK banks have rolled out simple call-verification tools that allow customers to instantly confirm whether a call from the bank is genuine. The task takes seconds to do and could save you money by leaving your account, never to be seen again.

Consumer champions at Which? say that customers at Nationwide, Barclays, Monzo, Revolut and Starling all offer similar tools to help its customers identify phone bank and money scammers.

Money-saving tool – how to use it

• Nationwide: Customers can open the app, go to “More”, and “Call Checker”, and instantly see whether they’re on a call with Nationwide.” The screen will display either “You’re on a call with [name]” or “You’re not on a call with us.”
• Barclays: If someone calls claiming to be from Barclays – who have 20m customers – you can ask them to send a secure notification to your Barclays app via ‘app ID’.
• Monzo and Starling: Look for ‘call status’ warnings to see if someone from the bank is genuinely on the phone to you or not (Monzo shows this under its security settings, Starling within the payment screen).
• Revolut: Its new ‘we are not talking to you’ feature automatically detects if you are on a call when you open the app and flags whether or not you are talking with a Revolut agent. You can also hang up and use the in-app call feature to reach support securely.

Call 159

If your bank doesn’t have a call checker or you need that extra peace of mind, Which? say that you can hang up and dial 159 straight away. The consumer champion explains: “When you call the number, you’ll hear an automated message asking you which bank you would like to be connected to. Staff will then confirm if the call was genuine, or a scam.”

Participants

• The Co-operative Bank
• Danske Bank
• Chase
• First Direct
• Halifax
• HSBC
• Lloyds Bank
• Metro Bank
• NatWest
• Santander
• TSB