SCAM victims tricked into sending money to fraudsters from their accounts will see compensation sliced under plans confirmed today.

Customers who unwittingly transfer cash to con artists had been due to receive reimbursement of up to £415,000 under new rules coming in days.

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But now payouts have been given a ceiling of £85,000 when rules take effect on October 7, the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) confirmed today.

The change comes after a “lobbying campaign” from some firms in the payments industry,” according to Rocio Concha, director of policy and advocacy at consumer group Which?.

She added: “People don’t fall victim to scams because they’re careless, but because they’re ruthlessly manipulated. 

“As the disastrous consequences of this decision for scam victims become apparent, the regulator must carefully monitor its impact and be ready to intervene with better protections for victims along with stronger financial incentives for banks and payments firms to tackle fraud.” 

Fraud is broadly split into authorised and unauthorised.

People who are tricked willingly giving cash or providing consent to fake payments are classed as authorised fraud.

Victims were tricked into giving away £459.7m through authorised push payment (APP) fraud, according to financial figures from industry body UK Finance. 

Purchase scams are the biggest driver of authorised fraud with people buying in advance for bogus goods or fake services that never materialise, usually through social sites such as Facebook.

Unauthorised fraud, on the other hand, is where criminals typically steal financial information to take out products in victims’ names.

Victims of APP fraud currently receive 62% of cash back after being scammed compared to 98% of unauthorised targets.

The new rules were part of efforts to tackle this issue to make sure victims are fairly reimbursed.

Up until now, banks have just signed up to a voluntary reimbursement code.

In a statement the PSR said new requirements will provide “world-leading protections” to people who fall victim to scams.

The body added: “This was a carefully balanced decision – which provides significant protection to fraud victims and strikes an appropriate balance having regard to the PSR’s innovation and competition objectives and making sure that payment systems work well for everyone.”

More than 99% of APP claims will be covered by the £85,000 reimbursement cap, according to the PSR.

A final policy statement to explain the reasoning for the decision is due to be published next week.

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) revealed that scam-related complaints have recently reached their highest level since at least early 2018.

In the first quarter of this financial year (April 1 to June 30), consumers lodged 8,734 gripes about fraud and scams.

More than half were in related to authorised push payment scams.

HOW TO PROTECT AGAINST SCAMMERS

More than three quarters of authorised fraud starts online.

When handing over cash for goods or services found online that you haven’t yet received you should be extra vigilant for scams. 

Fraudsters often use popular events such as the recently announced Oasis concerts, to prey on victims.   

Buy from reputable sources and sites to protect yourself.

Alarm bells should be ringing if prices are too good to be true.

Take the time to carry out extra checks on unknown sources. 

Fraud cases that originate through phone calls make up fewer cases but losses are often far larger. These are typically when criminals impersonate banks or other trusted sources.  

It’s ok to reject, refuse or ignore requests for cash. Usually it is criminals that will try to pressure or rush you into payments.

If you are in doubt over a caller’s identity, call a trusted company or organisation phone number to check. 

AS dawn broke and the rave neared its climax, the music stopped and festival goers gazed up at what they thought was a firework display in the sky.

But within moments they realised to their horror that the bright lights overhead were not part of the entertainment – but rockets which signalled the start of a brutal massacre.

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Miraculously Ziv Abud survived the bloodbath – hidden from Hamas gunmen beneath a pile of dead bodies and dismembered body parts.

The atrocity on 7 October 2023 left 364 people murdered and 44 others taken hostage.

That day was the start of one of the most deadly massacres in the history of the bloody Middle East conflict.

As Hamas began their grisly campaign of terror, gunmen descended on paragliders into the desert festival and rained bullets down on innocent revellers.

In the confusion and chaos that followed, terrified partygoers sheltered under stages, in fridges, in toilets, bushes, cars and even a skip full of rubbish. 

They witnessed widespread slaughter ‘like Squid Game‘ as dozens of hostages were seized.

Ziv, 26, told The Sun of her harrowing ordeal ahead of a new documentary We Will Dance Again: Surviving October 7 airing on BBC1 tomorrow.

She attended the festival with her fiance Eliya Cohen, nephew Amit and his girlfriend Karin – today, she is the only one of their group left alive.

“Eliya and I had never been apart since the say we met, now I fall asleep in tears and wake up in tears every day,” she said.

The couple danced joyfully with their friends all night but when the music stopped, screeching to an abrupt halt at around 6am, they quickly realised something was very wrong.

“Eliya is a music producer so it was very normal for us to spend the weekend at a festival, but when we arrived I thought, ‘Wow this is the biggest music festival I have seen in Israel for five years,’” she recalls.

“As it started to get light the music stopped and we were all trying to figure out what was happening.

“Everyone was looking up at the sky, people thought it was fireworks and so at first I was very calm, but then I realised they were rockets and we had about 15 seconds before they fell.

“That was the moment I panicked.

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“Then we saw a man dressed in black running towards us firing an automatic weapon screaming, ‘Either you run now and survive or you stay here and it’s over for you.’

“There were a lot of police officers but they all told us to do something different so I got more panicked because the police are supposed to save us.

“We tried to leave. 

“We managed to get inside our car and out of the site on to the road, but there was a lot of traffic.

“We drove for six minutes and then we got a phone call from Eliya’s cousin, she told us that someone was shooting up ahead.

“She told us to get off the road.

Either you run now and survive or you stay here and it’s over for you.

Ziv Abud

“We thought maybe they were shooting from the border, we didn’t realise there were terrorists inside Israel.

“We saw a small shelter at the side of the road, without doors or anything, we were the first in there but more and more people came.

“We could not leave because there were terrorists outside with guns and grenades.”

Being stuck right at the back of the shelter would ultimately save Ziv’s life when terrorists started bombing.

She went on: “There was one Muslim guy outside trying to save himself but instead they tortured him for 10 minutes.

“We heard him scream and yell and cry, then we heard a shot, and then silence.

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“Then the first grenade was thrown inside the shelter.”

Terrorists threw seven live hand grenades but a British artist living in Jerusalem called Aner bravely picked them all up and hurled them back out to explode on the road.

But the hero was killed when the eighth grenade exploded in his hand. 

Then an American man called Hersh Goldberg-Polin, sheltering with them, was grabbed by militia, thrown into a pick-up truck and taken as a hostage into Gaza.

He was one of six hostages whose bodies were discovered by Israeli troops in a tunnel under Rafah in August – murdered after more than 300 days in captivity.

This is the feeling of dying.

Ziv Abud

“When the grenade exploded inside the shelter that was the most terrible moment,” Ziv continued.

“All the people fell back on me, there was a lot of screaming, a lot of crying.

“Then I heard Eliya for the first time, he was screaming and told me his leg was injured – he grabbed my hand so hard it was painful. 

“I couldn’t feel my body because there were so many bodies piled on top of me and I thought to myself, ‘I’m dying – this is the feeling of dying’.”

At that point Ziv lost consciousness for around three hours – and avoided being kidnapped as the gunmen assumed she was already dead.

Astonishingly, she woke up at around 11am. 

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But to her horror she was trapped under a pile of dismembered body parts.

“I realised I was alive but under a lot of bodies and two of them were Karin and Amit,” sobbed Ziv.

“They were murdered inside the shelter.

“I was trying to figure out where Eliya was because I couldn’t see him, I tried to find his shoes or shirt, or bag or wallet.

“I found nothing and an hour later one of the survivors said the terrorists had grabbed people who were still alive.”

“They took him, I realised they had taken Eliya.”

When all the hostages are home then I can find a place to think about what happened.

Ziv

Finally, at around 3pm, Ziv was rescued.

“The guy who came in was the father of one of the people that was inside, he had called his dad,” she said.

“By the time he got there his son was murdered.

“But he saved us anyway.

“When we got to the hospital I saw pictures from Gaza Now channel, they were showing pictures of Eliya and the headline was ‘Israeli man kidnapped to Gaza.’

“Since then we have heard nothing.

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“We just have that picture from the 7th of October showing he was alive inside Gaza.

“I don’t have a message for the terrorists, I don’t talk with terrorists and I try not to think about that day because it makes me very angry. 

“I lost a lot of friends that day and I need to be focused and stay strong for the fight to bring Eliya home. 

“When all the hostages are home then I can find a place to think about what happened.”

The trance party which had been billed as a celebration of “peace and love” is now etched forever in the collective psyche of Israel.

Many are still missing and at least 50 survivors have killed themselves in the aftermath, unable to cope with the haunting memories.

The Israeli authorities compared the outrage to the worst IS atrocities and released a deliberately blurred picture of bodies piled up in a tent.

The attack provoked Israel to launch what has become a catastrophic siege, bombardment and invasion of the Gaza Strip.

The harrowing accounts from Nova Festival are retold in the BBC documentary We Will Dance Again: Surviving October 7th, which airs on Thursday.

It is a shocking account of the assault on party goers with a minute-by-minute account of the day.

The deeply moving testimony of survivors is interspersed with unseen CCTV, mobile phone and car dashcam footage, as well as shocking GoPro footage from Hamas’ own live stream and calls to emergency services.

The film shares the very telling personal stories of those who lived, those taken hostage and those who died – as confusion turned into fear, and then chaos when Hamas arrived and began to slaughter anyone in sight.

We Will Dance Again: Surviving October 7th, which airs on Thursday.

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As the leaders from around the world gather in New York this week to speak at the annual UN General Assembly, Jasmine Yazid is gearing up to host her own version in Washington early next year.

She is secretary-general of the North American Invitational Model United Nations (NAIMUN), created at Georgetown University in 1963, less than 20 years after the UN itself was founded. Her team is bracing for a record 3,300 high school students role-playing the negotiations between governments on contested international issues.

“You learn to completely remove yourself and understand someone else’s perspective,” she says. “A lot of the countries the students represent as delegates are ones they have never been to, heard of or agree with. Yet they are able to represent these views wherever they are coming from.”

Model UN is one of an expanding set of programmes attracting growing participation in the US and beyond, as educators looks for ways to engage students with current affairs. It also involves learning to be civil even when views strongly diverge.

At a time of rising polarisation, “no platforming” and a preference for slogans over interacting directly and empathetically with people who hold different opinions, the programme offers scope to ease tensions intensified by the explosion in social media use and young people’s isolation during Covid.

“You hold the duty of representing that country or those ideas you are allocated, and it also teaches you how to say things in a non-offensive and sensitive way,” says Lucille Applegate, secretary-general of the Secondary Schools’ United Nations Symposium, a Model UN run for more than 30 years by students at Montreal’s McGill University.

Many teachers say that young people’s concern about causing offence (or being criticised for their own views) has sharply damped discussion of sensitive topics. That frustration leads to periodic explosions such as the Gaza protests on university campuses and risks feeding into the divisive US presidential election and other polarising moments around the globe.

Model UN is not alone. “We the People”, organised by the Center for Civic Education, brings together competing teams of high school students to learn about the constitution through simulated congressional hearings. The National High School Ethics Bowl asks teams to discuss ethical dilemmas, awarding points partly for engaging respectfully and supportively with opponents.

The sharp uptick in programmes seeking to provide ways to foster tolerance and debate includes a jump in interest for the Constructive Dialogue Institute, which has programmes at 88 universities across the US. In schools, meanwhile, iCivics is among a number of non-profit groups to launch a fresh range of non-partisan lesson plans and games to help students understand electoral politics and tackle disinformation.

The more intensive, immersive competitions like Model UN have limitations — not least the extensive time commitment and the travel costs. Jie Xin Ching, executive director of Georgetown’s NAIMUN, concedes that most participants are drawn from the east and west coasts, with far less representation from rural and continental states despite scholarships and active outreach and promotion. “It’s seen as elite and wealthy.”

Peter Cowhey, dean emeritus at the School of Global Policy and Strategy of the University of California San Diego (and a secretary-general of NAIMUN in the 1960s), adds that many participants were self-selected, with a pre-existing interest in a career in international affairs.

But he recalls many high school students arriving “with a glaze in their eyes that the UN was a place where important things happened, and very little realistic concept about how it really operated. They saw that they would engage in tortuous diplomatic discussions that often leave it in deadlock with worthy pledges that do not come to fruition.”

His own experiences convinced him to abandon aspirations to work in the state department and opt for an academic career. But for all their downsides, these programmes deserve a place in efforts to combat the current climate of polarisation.

andrew.jack@ft.com

A SHOPPER has revealed a cheap hack for making Starbucks at home for a fraction of the price using an unexpected item.

The coffee lover shared their secret Lidl alternative to buying a current Starbucks fan-favourite that can be made at home.

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The product is the Italiamo pistachio spread, which can be bought in Lidl for £2.99.

The cream spread has become a viral sensation, made up of 45% pistachio nuts and available to buy in 190g jars.

It comes as people are raving about the latest pistachio addition to the 2024 winter Starbucks menu.

The Iced White Chocolate & Pistachio Oat Shaken Espresso is priced at £4.35 for a tall size.

One creative shopper took to the Couponing and Bargains UK Facebook group chat to share their original recipe: “Off the back of the Lidl pistachio spread hype… I bring you Starbucks pistachio latte dupe!”

She explained that you need to “use half a teaspoon (or more if you want stronger flavour) of spread, then pour in your hot milk, stir, and add coffee.

“I added brown sugar syrup to enhance the sweetness of the pistachio but it’s just as good on its own!”

Members reacted to the post saying they “will be trying this” and that it was a “game changer”.

The recipe requires just one teaspoon of spread (roughly 15g), making 13 homemade luxury coffees per jar – that is 23p a cup.

This means you could save £2.76 on buying a Starbucks coffee, making a saving of 92%.

Prices do vary at the coffee chain from site to site.

However, no matter where you live you will be making a considerable saving.

Members also took the chance to share their own DIY ideas, offering cheesecake and pastry recipes, or recommending buyers try adding the spread to porridge.

Other pistachio spreads are available online, but if buying from Ocado, its Borna Foods smooth pistachio butter would set you back £8.50.

It always pays to compare prices so you know you’re getting the best deal.

We couldn’t find a similar product anywhere online at other supermarket retailers.

To find the Lidl closest to you, or see whether the product is available in your local store, use the Store Locator tool on the supermarket’s website.

Prices can also vary day to day and by what deals are on at the time, plus remember you might pay for delivery if you’re ordering online.

Making coffees at home is always a cheaper alternative, and can save you huge cash over time.

According to Wholesale Coffee Co, Brits spend on average £5.50 per week on coffee, which is £286 a year.

People who bought Starbucks coffee 3 times a week would spend approximately £51 a month, which is a whopping £612 across the year.

By spending a little more on your favourite home coffee ingredients, you could satisfy the same cravings and have your pockets feeling fuller in no time.

Other ways to save money on coffee

Join Costa Club

If you become a Costa Club member, you can access free drinks faster by getting a free drink every 5 purchases.

Non-Costa Club members get a free drink every 10 coffees bought.

But remember – incentives such as these are made to encourage buyers to spend more money, so don’t use it as a reason to splash more cash on hot drinks than you usually would.

Tesco Clubcard Scheme

Tesco’s Clubcard  holders can get cheaper prices on over 8,000 items thanks to Clubcard Prices, such as the Costa Barista Creations sachets which are reduced to £1.75.

With this deal, you can make a range of Costa items from home, such as the Salted Caramel, Maple Hazel and Gingerbread Latte.

Morrison’s Cafe

There are a range of deals in Morrison’s cafes which means you can enjoy coffee dates for a reduced price.

It offers a Cake and a Hot Drink for the price of £4, and customers can also enjoy free refills on self serve drinks.

The conditions of this deal varies between store and location.

Other supermarkets such as Sainsbury’s and Asda offer kids to eat for £1, and in Tesco kids can eat free if bought alongside an adult purchase.

To find out the conditions of your local supermarket cafe, visit their website.

Additional vouchers can also be accessed through Clubcard and Nectar voucher schemes, or on websites such as Groupon.

Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing money-sm@news.co.uk.

Plus, you can join our Sun Money Chats and Tips Facebook group to share your tips and stories

A POPULAR area in Glasgow’s southside has been named one of the trendiest in the world.

Strathbungo beat stiff competition from Ekkamai in Bangkok, Thailand, and Palace Quarter in Budapest to come in 22nd place in Time Out’s list of the 38 coolest neighbourhoods for 2024.

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Time Out contributing writer Sarah Gillespie claimed it was time for the district to step into the “spotlight.”

She wrote: “Cool new venues have been creeping up Pollokshaws Road for years, and now it’s time for Shawlands’ tiny-but-mighty neighbour to step into the spotlight.

“Strathbungo, in Glasgow’s Southside, began as a village of crofters and weavers before it was consumed by the city’s nineteenth-century expansion.

“Thanks to a dedicated group of residents, it became Glasgow’s first Conservation Area (together with Pollokshields) in 1973, preserving its Victorian terraces and tenements for future generations.

“That same independent spirit endures in its fresh, young businesses: laid back restaurants such as Lobo, boutiques such as BAM and Seamster Vintage, and bars supporting local breweries.”

It went on to point out other popular attractions in the area, such as its wildlife pond, rose gardens, and views over the Southside.

Strathbungo is also on the outskirts of some of Glasgow’s most-loved cultural attractions, including Pollokshields arts venue Tramway.

According to the magazine, the list focused on places that balance great local culture, food, street life, community, and one-of-a-kind local flavour.

To rank the list this year, Time Out’s global network of editors and experts factored in not just great vibes, food, drink, nightlife and independent culture, but also community.

And Notre-Dame-du-Mont in Marseille bagged the top spot.

Despite its reputation as an ‘unholy area’ with a ‘rebellious spirit,’ the town named after the local church boasts colourful cul-de-sacs, graffiti-covered alleyways, streets lined with plane trees, and twisting staircases.

Although it is a far cry from the ‘picturesque charm of Vauban,’ the neighbourhood exudes the jovial, laid-back atmosphere of a local market, the magazine claims.

Grace Beard, Travel Editor at Time Out, said: “Time Out’s annual ranking of the World’s Coolest Neighbourhoods celebrates the most unique and exciting pockets of our cities. The neighbourhoods on this year’s list have a lot in common: great places to eat and drink, cutting-edge culture, street life and a thriving community.

“But they’re also a distinct reflection of their cities, with each of them offering something special you wouldn’t find anywhere else.

“Some have only just reached their moment; others have been ‘cool’ for some time and are finding a new groove – all of them should be on your radar to visit in these cities.”

Last year, we told how Glasgow’s West End and Edinburgh’s lovely Leith made the popular list.

Leith in Edinburgh and Glasgow’s trendy West End came in at 16th and 20th in the top 40 of the World’s Coolest Neighbourhoods.

A family’s pit bull became an unlikely hero when it fought off a deadly king cobra that had slithered into their garden.

The drama unfolded in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh on September 24th when children playing in the backyard suddenly started screaming.

Their cries alerted Jenny, the family’s pit bull, who was tied up nearby. In a remarkable display of protective instinct, Jenny broke free from her leash and rushed to confront the venomous intruder.

Footage of the encounter (Can be seen at the bottom of the article) shows Jenny, a black and white pit bull, locked in a fierce struggle with the cobra. For a nail-biting five minutes, the dog gripped the snake in her jaws, shaking it violently until the threat was neutralized.