Currys and Argos account warning issued by police
- philviles
- 2 hours ago
- 2 min read
Derbyshire Constabulary have received a number of reports from the public where Argos and Currys accounts have been compromised, and purchases made. This is not just local to Derbyshire - this is also happening nationwide.
With Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals flooding the internet, this warning from the police is timely. In some instances, particularly with Currys, the ‘buy now pay later’ option has been used, leaving the account holder with finance plans in their names, despite the purchase not being made by them, or the goods received by them.
In many of the Argos cases, purchases have been made using the true account holder's “saved” payment details, requiring them to have to cancel and replace cards.
On the back of these warnings, we would urge anyone with either a Currys or Argos account to take the preventative measure of changing their passwords at the earliest opportunity - unfortunately, neither company offer the option of 2-step verification (2SV), so our advice is to never save payment details on accounts that are not protected with 2SV. Until this becomes an option, we’d strongly advise removing any saved payment methods.
It's important to think of passwords as keys - different ones to secure different things.
Current best practice recommends putting three random words together to create a password - longer equals stronger, and also creates very little chance of anyone guessing or working out your password.
More info here : The benefits of using three random words for your password
If any of your online accounts are compromised, or if you lose money to a fraud, report to www.actionfraud.police.uk
Reporting
Report all Fraud and Cybercrime to Action Fraud by calling 0300 123 2040 or online. Forward suspicious emails to report@phishing.gov.uk. Report SMS scams by forwarding the original message to 7726 (spells SPAM on the keypad).