FORMER F1 World Champion, Jenson Button, is busy carving out a new career driving a Fish and Chip van around London.

Sort of.

Technically it’s a ‘Phish’ and Chip van and it belongs to Santander, for whom Jenson Button has been a brand ambassador for a number of years. It’s all part of an ongoing campaign highlighting the potential dangers of fraudulent emails and text messages. As a brand ambassador, Jenson is throwing his weight behind a national campaign to help the public avoid being scammed.

Driving a mobile chip shop around the streets of London serving Fish and Chips doesn’t quite match the jet set lifestyle normally associated with Formula 1 but Jenson appeared to enjoy the experience.

“Being behind the wheel of the Phish and Chip van around London was certainly a different driving experience! It was a lot of fun being part of the tour and serving fish and chips to the public in exchange for their scam emails. It’s been eye opening to see how many people receive these emails every day!” 

The Santander Phish and Chip van was created after research revealed the extent of the phishing epidemic gripping the nation. An astonishing 74% of Britons are targeted by scammers with phishing emails, smishing texts and vishing calls. With each person receiving an average of 16 fraudulent emails, texts or calls last year, that means up to 600 million phishing, smishing and vishing attempts potentially took place in the UK in the last 12 months. That’s the equivalent of over 1.6 million scam messages each day.

The Santander Phish and Chip van has been touring the nation to raise awareness of scam messages – serving over 3,000 portions of fish and chips to the public in exchange for phishing emails and SMS phishing texts (smishing).

Jenson took his turn at the fryer as the Santander Phish and Chip van made its appearance in London, following a month-long nationwide tour visiting Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leicester, Glasgow, Leeds, Cardiff and Bristol.

Along with the fresh fish and piping hot chips there was also advice on avoiding the tricks criminals’ use in their attempts to steal people’s money and identities.

  • Never share your Passcode, PIN number or online banking password with another person, not even bank staff
  • Never download software or let anyone log on to your computer devices remotely during or after a cold call
  • Never enter your online banking details after clicking on a link in an email or text message.

According to Santander the sophistication of scam messages has evolved since the term phishing first appeared. It used to be fairly easy to spot a fraudulent message but the scammers have learned from experience.

Fraudulent messages can appear to be convincing and genuine communications from consumer brands, but there are still signs to look out for. Spelling mistakes, generic greetings rather than your name and suspicious looking email addresses can indicate that a message isn’t what it appears to be.

Reza Attar-Zadeh, Head of Customer Experience at Santander UK, commented:

“Santander takes the fight against fraud very seriously – we have seen the life changing impact it can have on people’s lives. Consumer awareness is absolutely key to tackling what is currently one of the biggest threats to the security of people’s finances.”

santander phish and chip van

santander phish and chip van

 

Got a spare 30 seconds?

 Help us to provide you with better market insight by completing a very short survey. It is anonymous and only takes 30 seconds. You will get free access to the quarterly results.

Thinking of the switch to electric?

Need help in finding the right electric vehicle for you? Compare driving range, battery capacity, charging time, price, and features to find the perfect EV for you.

logo