Why are you getting these reports? Are they impersonating you

or companies that you might regulate? Both.

So lots of people do try and impersonate us, but often people will pretend to be from one of our authorised firms as well.

So in that case, you know, they will say, you know, we're authorised, we've got this information about you, we want to give you money back.

And it's the same stories we've heard there where, you know, it's getting people to pay dribs and drabs of monies up front to get their money back.

So what we did to try and combat this along, there's other reasons behind it as well, but earlier this year, we launched the FCA's firm checker so that people can go online and they can see whether or not firms are legitimate, what they're actually authorized to do.

On that, they can see the accurate telephone number of the firm.

So if you see it on FirmChecker, does that not have the danger of just confirming what the criminals are telling you? Oh yes, oh yes, we're legitimate, we're regulated.

What type of person does that term describe?

So I think we all know the definition of influencers, who are people obviously on social media who have a large following, and this is a term that we've given people who are giving financial advice or encouraging people to invest in financial products, and so therefore we've, we've used the term finfluencers.

So we're seeing a lot of this.

I think we're seeing that a lot of fraud has moved online.

That is the main way that people see all of these adverts, and there has been a big rise in finfluencers.

So often if you went onto social media, you would see people who are often looking like they're in Dubai or some other nice location on a nice sunny beach, normally with a fantastic sports car behind them, and they're basically saying, "Well, I've got some trading tips.

I'm a phenomenal trader.

And I suppose while the technology may be new and the types of scams may be new, that advice is a tale as old as time really.

I mentioned that this happens to both men and women, but what's the difference when women are targeted?

So we found that equally men is just as likely to fall victim as women.

More women report between the ages of 30 and 79, whereas men report between the ages of 50 and 79.

And we did find that women are twice as likely to have a relationship with someone for over a year.

So I guess because someone's having a longer relationship, then they're more likely to give away more money over that period of time.

And women particularly targeted and men actually between the ages of 50 and 79, we found average losses from our study to be in excess of £22,000.

and thinking that's largely because people are still working, so they've got the financial resources, but they might be at a time in life where they're going through divorce, separation, or potentially the loss of a partner, and so therefore they're more vulnerable.

Okay Beth give us more advice though how can we make sure we don't get ourselves into this situation?