[Software] 2020: The year in scams

[Angel of Death]

On top of a global pandemic resulting in lockdowns that plunged the economy into a looming recession, 2020 was a year filled with scams and fraudsters seeking to take advantage of people living in fear for their future finances.From tax scams to investment fraud, to scammers posing as Amazon Prime to trick people into revealing personal details, authorities have been hard at work issuing warning after warning to members of the public to be wary.According to UK Finance, the number of impersonation scams almost doubled in the first half of 2020, with nearly £58m lost to such fraudsters between January to June.Of nearly 15,000 impersonation scam cases reported by UK Finance members in this period, over 8,220 involved impersonations of the police of a bank, while 6,730 saw criminals imitating utility companies, communications service providers or government departments.These were some of the most prominent and dangerous scams that took place this year:HMRC Self Assessment scamThis year, HM Revenue and Customs responded to more than 846,000 reports of suspicious contact from scammers claiming to be from the government department. Almost 500,000 of these offered fake tax rebates.