WEDNESDAY 4 MARCH 2020Business news in brief
Masks are already in short supply and now sales of hand sanitiser have soared 255% in February due to coronavirus (PA)
Bank staff help prevent £100m of fraud
More than £100m worth of fraud has been prevented so far by a rapid response scheme that enables bank
branch staff to halt scams as they are happening. In some cases, elderly and vulnerable people are
frogmarched to banks and building societies by criminals in order to withdraw large sums of cash. The
intended victim may believe the criminal persuading them to withdraw their cash is from the police or
another legitimate organisation, and may think, wrongly, that they need to take money from their account
in order to move it to a “safe” account or to help the police with an investigation. PA
Auto-switch energy customers ‘not getting best deal’
Some energy customers using automatic switching services could be paying up to £70 a year more than if