“Sadly, in our wild west, underregulated online world, scams are now a daily part of life for people of all ages. How to check and trust a source is something that should be taught from the day a young person first gets online.
“Scams are a plague that don’t just destroy people’s finances, they can hit their self-esteem, mental health and life confidence. Don’t think ‘they’ll never get me’ – scammers can be psychologically adept, manipulative and use sophisticated dark marketing techniques. Anyone can be caught, children and adults.
“And there’s still far too little prevention. Having campaigned hard for changes to the law, even though that succeeded, we still must wait at least two years before new rules come in to make big tech responsible for the scam adverts they’re paid to publish. Even after that, many smaller firms will still be outside of the regulation. So this Safer Internet Day is a good opportunity to educate and take care of ourselves and our families. And to those already good at scam spotting, let’s work together to always report them and deny scammers any oxygen of publicity.”