The 2026 scam guide

The latest UK scams in 2026, and how to stay a step ahead

A clear-eyed guide for older adults and the people who worry about them · Last reviewed June 2026

For years, spotting a scam came down to looking for the cracks: the clumsy spelling, the logo that was slightly off, the email that didn't quite look right. In 2026, that approach has quietly stopped working. Fraud has become a slick, organised business, and cheap artificial intelligence now means a scam text can arrive in flawless English, carrying your real name and a perfect copy of your bank's website. A phone call can use a voice that sounds exactly like someone you love.

How a thing looks tells you very little now. What it asks you to do tells you almost everything.

If a message, a call or an investment has ever given you a moment's pause, that was good instinct worth trusting. The whole trade depends on talking you out of it before you act.

This guide gives that instinct better information: what has genuinely changed this year, the scams doing the rounds right now, and the handful of habits that beat nearly all of them, however polished they get. None of it asks you to be good with technology. Most of it comes down to one phone call that you make yourself.

Fraud is now one of the most common crimes in the country. In the year to September 2025, the official Crime Survey for England and Wales counted more than four million fraud offences. That is less a reason for fear than a reason to learn the playbook, the way you already know to lock the front door at night.

Why fraudsters go after older adults

Criminals pick their targets for practical reasons. Someone in later life may well have a lifetime's savings behind them, a home that's paid for, a clean credit record and a pension, all of which make them worth the effort. They also count on something most of us have, which is people we love and a readiness to drop everything the moment one of them seems to be in trouble. That instinct is a fine thing. They simply try to turn it against you.

Younger people are caught in large numbers too, often the ones most certain it could never happen to them. Being picked out says rather more about your bank balance than your judgement. Knowing how the trade works is most of the defence, and the rest of this guide is here to give you that.

What's genuinely new in 2026: the machines have joined in

Most of the scams further down this page are old ideas. What's changed is the polish, and artificial intelligence is behind most of it.

The messages are far better written than they used to be. The old giveaways, the clunky grammar, the "Dear Customer", the slightly wrong logo, are fading out. A scam text or email in 2026 can have perfect English, your actual name, your bank's exact branding, and a link to a page that is an exact copy of the real one. You can no longer trust how a message looks. What it wants you to do is the better guide.

The voice on the phone may not be real. This is the big shift. With only a few seconds of someone's voice, lifted from a video they posted or even a chatty voicemail greeting, criminals can now produce a convincing copy. That has revived the cruellest version of the old "Hi Mum" trick. You get a call or a message from your son, your daughter or a grandchild, sounding genuinely distressed, saying they've had an accident or lost their phone and need money straight away. Police forces around the country keep warning about it. The panic in the call is real even when the voice is not, and that's exactly why it works.

The face on a screen may not be real either. Deepfake video has reached the point where a familiar, trusted face, a well-known money expert or a newsreader, can appear to be endorsing some can't-miss investment. It looks like a genuine clip. It isn't.

Even the shop may not exist. AI now turns out convincing product photos and slick adverts for online shops selling things that arrive as poor copies, or never arrive at all.

If that all sounds daunting, the reassuring part is that the defence against a flawless fake is the same as the defence against a clumsy one. You don't have to win a technology race. You only have to refuse to act on the message in front of you, and check it instead through a route you already trust. We'll come back to that, because it's the single most useful habit there is.

The scams doing the rounds right now

You don't need to memorise these. It helps to know the shapes, though, because the same few keep coming back in different clothes.

• The "your account isn't safe, move your money" call. Someone rings, often with your bank's name showing on the screen, to say your account has been compromised and that you must move your money to a "safe account" to protect it. No genuine bank will ever ask you to do that, or to hand over a passcode, or to shift money to keep it safe. The request, on its own, is the proof it's a scam. Hang up, and call 159 (more on that below).
• The parcel text. "Your delivery is held, pay a small fee to release it," with a link. Couriers don't chase tiny fees by text with a payment link, and that small sum is bait to capture your card details. Don't tap the link. If you're expecting something, go to the courier's own website or app yourself.
• The taxman message. Either a tempting "you're owed a refund, click to claim" or a frightening "you owe money and could be arrested." HMRC doesn't contact you out of the blue by text or email asking for bank or card details, and it never offers refunds through a link in a message. If in doubt, type your tax account address in yourself rather than following the message.
• The romance that becomes an investment. It often begins as warmth and attention from someone who takes a real interest in you, then drifts towards a brilliant opportunity they'd love to let you in on. Sometimes it's called "pig butchering", after the slow fattening up before the kill. Watch for a new online connection who is quick to adore you, keen to move you off the dating app onto a private chat, and who eventually mentions a way to make money. Real affection doesn't arrive with a portfolio attached.
• The too-good-to-be-true investment. Guaranteed returns, high profits, no real risk, and a polished app or website showing your money growing nicely, except the figures are invented and the money has gone. There's usually pressure to act before a window closes. The giveaway is the certainty and the hurry. Real investments don't promise guaranteed returns, and they don't need a decision today.
• The pension call. An unexpected approach about your pension, perhaps a free review, a transfer into something with better returns, or a way to get at it early. The fact that you didn't ask for the contact is the warning. Pause, and get independent guidance before moving a penny. The government's free Pension Wise service exists for exactly this.
• The dodgy QR code. Newer, and growing. A fake QR code stuck over the real one on a car park sign, or pasted into a phishing email, sending you to a page that harvests your details. Be wary of any QR code that takes you to a payment or login page when you reached it from a poster, a sticker or an email rather than a company's own app.

Notice how few of these need the technology to be clever. They need you to act in the moment, which is what the next part is about.

The five tells that cut through nearly all of it

Forget trying to keep pace with every new variant. Almost every scam, old or freshly AI-polished, carries at least one of these fingerprints. Spot one, and slow right down.

• It's unexpected. You didn't start the contact. The call, text or email came to you, out of the blue.
• It rushes you. A deadline, a threat, a closing window, an account about to be frozen. As the national Take Five campaign puts it, only criminals will try to rush or panic you.
• It wants money moved, or a secret shared. A transfer, a "safe account", a gift card, a passcode, a password, a PIN. Anything in that family is a red flag.
• It pulls you to one side. "Don't tell the bank." "Let's carry on over WhatsApp." "Call this number instead." "Keep this between us." Honest organisations don't ask for secrecy.
• It makes you feel something strongly. Fear, panic, excitement, romance, guilt. That jolt of feeling is the product, because emotion quietly switches off the part of the brain that asks sensible questions.

It's perfectly all right to reject, refuse, or simply ignore a request. You owe a cold caller nothing, not even your manners.

The one habit that beats almost everything

If you take a single thing from all of this, take this. Don't act using the contact details the message hands you. The link in the text, the number that just called, the address in the email: every one of them leads back to the person trying to fool you. Break off the contact and reach the organisation through a route you already trust:

• the phone number on the back of your bank card, or inside your own banking app
• a number from an earlier bill or statement
• the company's website, found by typing the address yourself or searching for it fresh
• for anything to do with your bank, simplest of all, dial 159

That pause, the hanging up, the cup of tea, the ringing back on a number you chose, is the very thing each of these scams is built to prevent. It's free, and it works whether the fake was clumsy or flawless.

If you'd like a second opinion before deciding, there are good places to find one. You can forward a suspect text to be checked, ask a level-headed friend, or, if you use Dear Enid, paste in a message, a link, or a photo of something that looks off and ask its "Is this safe?" check for a plain-English read. We built that feature with one rule in mind: where money, banking, your pension, the NHS or your accounts are involved, it will never wave something through with a breezy "all clear". It tells you what to be wary of and sends you back to contacting the organisation yourself, which by now you'll recognise as the move that actually keeps you safe. Treat any second opinion as a sense check, not a verdict. The decision, and the phone call, stay with you.

Try Enid's "Is this safe?" check free →

Where to report it, and where to get help

Reporting matters even when you've lost nothing. Every report helps the people whose job is to shut these operations down, and it protects whoever they would have reached next.

• Suspicious calls about your bank or money: hang up and call 159, a trusted line that puts you straight through to your own bank's fraud team. It covers almost every UK bank, it can't be faked, and 159 will never call you.
• Scam text messages: forward them to 7726 (it spells "SPAM" on the keypad). It's free, and it helps your network block the sender.
• Scam emails: forward them to report@phishing.gov.uk, the National Cyber Security Centre's reporting service.
• Scam websites: report them at ncsc.gov.uk/report.
• To report a fraud: contact Report Fraud (the service that replaced Action Fraud in late 2025) at reportfraud.police.uk, open online around the clock, or call 0300 123 2040, Monday to Friday, 8am to 8pm. In Scotland, report to Police Scotland on 101.
• For free, impartial advice: the Citizens Advice consumer service on 0808 223 1133.
• For support aimed at older people: Age UK, on 0800 678 1602.
• If someone is in immediate danger, or a crime is happening right now: always 999.

If you think you've already been caught

First, move quickly, and don't waste a second on embarrassment. These schemes catch careful, capable people every day, which is precisely why they're so profitable. What matters now is speed.

1. Tell your bank at once, by calling 159 or the number on your card. The sooner they know, the better the chance of stopping or clawing back the money.
2. Report it to Report Fraud (details above), and ask for a crime reference number, which your bank may need.
3. Change the password on any account that might be exposed, starting with your email and your online banking.
4. Keep everything: the texts, emails, screenshots, names and numbers. All of it helps.

One thing worth knowing. For bank transfers you were tricked into making yourself, the kind known as authorised push payment scams, banks are now required to reimburse most victims, within limits. So it's well worth raising with your bank, and pressing the point if the first answer disappoints. Acting fast helps your case far more than staying quiet does.

A word for the sons and daughters

If you're reading this because you worry about a parent, the most useful approach is also the easiest one to get wrong. The instinct is to step in: take over the banking, set the rules, treat fraud as one more thing you now manage on their behalf. It tends to backfire. Few things make a capable adult stop listening faster than being handled like a child, and there's a hidden cost to it, because someone who feels talked down to stops telling you things, including the near miss you'd most want to hear about.

So make it a swap between equals rather than a lecture. Tell them about the scam that nearly caught you, because you'll have one, we all do. Forward the dodgy text you got and ask what they make of it. Agree that family safe word together, framed not as "in case you get confused" but as "so none of us gets caught by one of these fake-voice calls". Save 159 in both your phones at the same time. You're not putting a fence around someone. You're trading notes with another adult who has been reading people a good deal longer than you have.

The bottom line

The criminals are clever, well-funded and, this year, equipped with some genuinely impressive technology. All true. Set against it is one fact in your favour: their whole trade depends on getting you to act this minute, on their terms, down their channels, and the moment you refuse and check it your own way, the thing falls apart.

You don't need to be technical, and you don't need to memorise every scam. You need a pause, a little suspicion of anything that turns up unasked and tries to hurry you, and the number on the back of your own card. The odds are you have all three already.

The guidance here reflects advice from Report Fraud, the National Cyber Security Centre, Stop Scams UK, Citizens Advice and Age UK, current as of June 2026. Specific figures, fees and rules change over time, so when something matters, confirm it with the organisation directly using the contact details above. This article is general information, not personal financial or legal advice. See everything Dear Enid does → Buying for an older parent? See our guide to gifts for older parents.