FINANCE
COMPUTING
FAKE OR REAL EMAILS: HOW TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE By James Flynn, Milborne Port Computers Recently there has been an explosion of email and website frauds. The purpose is usually to get you to send them money or to give them enough personal detail for them to defraud you. Fake emails often (but not always) display some of the following characteristics: • The sender’s email address doesn’t tally with the trusted organisation’s website address. • The email is sent from a completely different address or a free web mail address (gmail.com, outlook.com, hotmail.com). • The email does not use your proper name but uses a non-specific greeting like ‘dear customer’. • A sense of urgency; for example, the threat that unless you act immediately your account may be closed, or threatening to send revealing pictures to your friends and family. • A prominent website link. These can be forged or seem very similar to the proper address, but even a
single character’s difference means a different website (for example, barlcays.co.uk, nawtest.com).
existent account could have been hacked … and the penny dropped!!
• A request for personal information such as user name, password or bank details.
What should you do if you’ve received a scam email?
• The email contains spelling and grammatical errors. This is very common, and they may contain phrases that an English speaker would never use. • You weren’t expecting to get an email from the company that appears to have sent it. • The entire text of the email is contained within an image rather than the usual text format. • The image contains an embedded hyperlink to a bogus site.
• Delete the email! • Do not click on any links in the scam email. • Do not reply to the email or contact the senders in any way. • If you have clicked on a link in the email, do not supply any information on the website that may open, just close your browser and restart your computer. • Do not open any attachments that arrive with the email. • If you think you may have
compromised the safety of your bank details and/or have lost money due to fraudulent misuse of your cards, you should immediately contact your bank. Sometimes, following a link in an email opens a fake website telling you your computer has been infected and you must call the number on the screen … DON’T CALL THE NUMBER! … no matter how dire the consequences might seem … without even trying to close the browser, shut your computer down and start again. 99% of the time you’ll be back to normal, can return to your emails and delete the offending item. If in doubt or you need help, you know where to come!
• A begging email purporting to be from somebody you know. I recently received a call from somebody that has received an email saying their PayPal account had been hacked. I asked if they even had a PayPal account, and they said, NO! I then asked them how they thought their non-
THE NEW NORMAL FINANCE
By Becky Rogers, Financial Planning After a turbulent 2020 many small and medium-sized business owners may now be looking at their business model afresh in what we are told is the ‘new normal’. Many of you may be thinking about the need to increase revenue or drive down costs or, more likely, a mixture of both. Whilst revisiting the way your business operates, protection is often overlooked, be it protection for the business, for the directors and their families or for your workforce, but 2020 has taught us to expect the unexpected and take nothing for granted. When dealing with our small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) clients we ask ‘what happens to your share of the business upon death’ and ‘what would happen to the business if either yourself or a key member of staff was unable to work’. The typical responses range from a reliance on the other business owners ‘to do the right thing’ in respect of their family or 14
an admission that the business would be likely to wind up within 12 months of losing a key person. Often SMEs are highly reliant on their people for their success which makes considering insuring against this loss highly important, but often overlooked. We tend to find that this either comes down to lack of time, confusion or simply a lack of awareness of the options available. Business protection can be broken down in a simple way as life or critical illness insurance protecting: Profit - by releasing a cash injection into the company should a key person be unable to work through serious illness or death. This could be used to recruit a high calibre replacement and aid business cash flow during the recruitment process. Debt – if a business loses a key person, the policy can help repay a business debt, including the repayment of a director’s loan
account. Ownership – if the business loses a partner or shareholder, the policy proceeds can help the remaining business owners to buy the affected individual’s share of the business. Business protection is normally tax efficient, with some policies meaning the premiums can be an allowable expense for corporation tax or the proceeds payable tax free. In 2017, a survey carried out by Legal & General found that 26% of directors didn’t know the company had to repay the loan account upon death, add the cost of this to the high possibility that the director was also a shareholder and actively involved in the business – how would the business afford to meet its liabilities and keep trading? The survey also highlighted that 75% of SME owners/directors wanted to find out more about
business protection from their financial advisor and 84% of businesses took out cover once they understood the benefits and had received advice to do so. If you are interested in discussing your business plans and finding out more about your options, contact Fort Financial Planning on 01935 813322 for a free, confidential and no obligation chat.
