WARNING re Currys and Argos accounts

We have received a number of reports from the public where Argos and Currys accounts have been compromised, and purchases made. This is not just local to Derbyshire – this is also happening elsewhere across the country.

In some instances, particularly with Currys, the ‘buy now pay later’ option has been used, leaving the account holder with finance plans in their names, despite the purchase not being made by them, or the goods received by them.

In many of the Argos cases, purchases have been made using the true account holders “saved” payment details, requiring them to have to cancel and replace cards.

We would urge anyone with either a Currys or Argos account to take the preventative measure of changing their passwords at the earliest opportunity – unfortunately, neither company offer the option of 2 step verification (2SV), so our advice is to never save payment details on accounts that are not protected with 2SV.  Until this becomes an option, we’d strongly advise removing any saved payment methods.

It's important to think of passwords as keys - different ones to secure different things.

Current best practice recommends putting three random words together to create a password - longer equals stronger, and also no chance of anyone guessing or working out your password.

More info here : Three random words - NCSC.GOV.UK

If any of your online accounts are compromised, or you lose money to a fraud, report to www.actionfraud.police.uk