The major impact of phishing scams

The major impact of phishing scams on people can be significant, which is why we can represent victims of a data breach on a No Win, No Fee basis for a legal case.

Read on for some advice below, or contact our team here now for free, no-obligation legal help in respect of your situation to see if we can represent you for a legal case now.

Major impact of phishing scams in breach context

The major impact of phishing scams in the context of a breach can be substantial. It can only take one simple data breach where just email addresses have been exposed for huge volumes of people to be targeted by scammers in many ways.

Even if a breach list contains a thousand email addresses, scammers could send them multiple emails over several weeks or months claiming to be from different legitimate organisations. They can dress their emails up to look as legitimate as possible and, if they manage to successfully dupe someone into clicking a link, and they enter legitimate access credentials, the damage has been done. Sometimes, people could be targeted by phishing scams years after their information has been exposed.

This is why we are always quick to address the issue of organisations suggesting that a data breach and the exposure of information has been a “minor incident”, and where it is publicised that no financial information was affected. This could purport that there is little to worry about, but it only takes an email address for the major impact of phishing scams to be felt by those affected. Simply put, even a small amount of information can go a very long way for scammers to misuse.

When you could claim data breach compensation

If you have suffered as a result of the major impact of phishing scams, you may know all too well how significant the distress can be. Even if you have not lost any money, the mere fact that you have been affected by an incident, with your information in the hands of criminals and you being targeted, can cause significant distress.

The GDPR recognises how we feel when we have lost control of our personal information. This is why the GDPR can allow us to recover compensation for the distress that we suffer from, and a claim could be settled in the thousands of pounds region, depending on the level of distress suffered. Distress can be subjective and can affect different people in different ways, and there is also the context of the data breach and how badly people have been targeted to consider as well.

As things stand, our current average data breach settlement is just over £6,000, which means it is well worth pursuing a case, particularly because we may be able to represent you on a No Win, No Fee basis.

Talk to our team for free, no-obligation legal advice about pursuing a claim for data breach compensation here now.

Risks from the Virgin Media data breach

One of the major risks that arose from the Virgin Media data breach was the issue of phishing scams because email addresses were affected in this incident. The company was quick to suggest that the breach was minor given the nature of the information affected but, as we said above, it is important to recognise that even a little information can go a long way.

We continue to represent thousands of people pursuing compensation in our Virgin Media data breach group action for justice. You can find out if you are still in time to claim by completing a few forms and our dedicated website here now.

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