At the start of the 24/25 academic year, the Students Loans Company (SLC) is reminding students to be vigilant of smishing scams.
Scammers target students at this time of year as they receive their first maintenance loan payment. SLC is expecting to pay £2bn to students over the autumn term and last year it stopped £2.9m of maintenance loan payments being taken by smishing and phishing scams, where students received and acted on false communications.
Smishing, which is fraud involving text messages, is currently the most popular form of scam, with students usually being asked to click a link to complete a task - for example verifying bank details or confirming their personal information, providing an opportunity for a payment to be diverted to a scammer's bank account.
SLC will never ask students to provide or verify their personal or financial information via email or text message, and Alan Balanowski, Risk Director at SLC, is urging students to pay attention to any communication they receive from Student Finance Wales (SFW) or SLC over the coming weeks.
He said: "Starting or returning to university is an exciting time, but it's also busy, with students getting organised and set-up for the academic year, which includes dealing with information from different organisations, including ourselves. We aim to ensure our payment process is simple for students, but we do experience a rise in smishing scams at this time year. This means students need to be alert to any potential attempt to intercept their maintenance loan instalment.
"We have a range of preventive methods we use to target scams, but the most impactful tool we have is working together with students to stop scammers. If a student receives a suspicious message, they should delete it and report it immediately, but if a scammer does succeed in obtaining personal details, then we must collectively act quickly to spot and block the action".
"Last year, we were able to stop £2.9m of maintenance loan payments ending up in the hands of scammers and we are focused on working as effectively as we can to protect students and their finance.
"Our message to students is quite simply, think before you click."
SLC's top tips
- Neither SLC nor SFW provide any services through WhatsApp and will never initiate contact with a student through social media channels, including Facebook, X, Instagram and Tik Tok, to discuss their application or student finance entitlement. If a customer receives a communication from SFW that they are unsure of, they should log into their online account to verify if it's genuine.
- Check the quality of the communication - misspelling, poor punctuation and bad grammar are often signs of phishing.
- Keep an eye out for any suspicious looking emails, phone calls or text messages, especially around the time of an expected payment.
- Scam emails and text messages are often sent in bulk to many people at the same time and are unlikely to contain both a first and last name. These commonly start - 'Dear Student'.
- Messages that convey a sense of urgency are also unlikely to be genuine - for example 'failure to respond in 24 hours will result in the account being closed'.
- Think before you click. If an email or text message contains a link, hover over it to check that it goes where it's supposed to. If in any doubt don't risk it, always go direct to the source rather than clicking on a potentially dangerous link.
- Scammers can use a variety of methods to try and get students to pay money or share personal details, including the use of fraudulent phone calls, social posts and direct messaging on digital platforms. Always use official phone numbers, the online account and official communication channels to verify the contact received is genuine.
- Be mindful of the information you share about yourself on social media, and elsewhere online, to help guard against identity theft. Identity theft happens when fraudsters access enough information about a person's identity, such as their name, date of birth, customer reference number, course information or their current or previous addresses to impersonate them online and over the phone.
- SLC or Student Finance Wales (SFW) send a text message to students in Wales if a change has been made to their bank details. If you haven't changed your bank details and receive a message, contact us immediately.
- Check out our guide to identifying a scam at www.gov.uk/guidance/phishing-scams-how-you-can-avoid-them
If a student receives a suspicious message, they should report it immediately by email
