I got a message from my child on a new number — is it really them?

It arrives on WhatsApp or by text, from a number you do not recognise, saying something like "Hi Mum, this is my new number, I dropped my phone down the loo". Then a payment is urgently needed — a bill that must clear today, a deposit, a locked banking app. The story is always ordinary. That is the design: nothing about it invites a check.

Safety

Step by step

1. Do not reply on the new number at all.Replying tells them the number is live and that you have engaged. It also starts the conversation on their terms, on a channel they control.
2. Ring the number you already have.Not a message — a voice call. If the phone really is broken, it will ring out or go to voicemail, which tells you nothing on its own. Move to the next step.
3. Ring another family member.A sibling, the other parent, a partner, a housemate. Two minutes of asking around settles it in almost every case, and it costs nothing if the message turns out to be genuine.
4. Do not accept a voice note or a call as proof by itself.Voice cloning now needs only a few seconds of recorded speech, and short clips from social media are enough. A voice that sounds right is no longer evidence of identity.
5. Ask something only they would know, that is not online.Not a birthday or a pet's name — those are guessable or public. Something specific and shared: what you had for dinner last Sunday, what the neighbour's car looks like.
6. Agree a family word now, before you need it.One short word everyone in the family knows and nobody has ever typed into a message. It is the only check that works under pressure and against a cloned voice.
7. Report and block.Report the chat inside WhatsApp, forward a scam text to 7726, and report it to Action Fraud, or Police Scotland on 101 in Scotland, even if you sent nothing.

Tips

• The request is nearly always a bank transfer to a name that does not match your child's, explained away as "it's my friend's account, my banking app is locked". A mismatched account name is close to conclusive on its own.
• Banks show a confirmation-of-payee warning when the name does not match the account. That warning is not a formality. Stop when you see it.
• If you have already sent money, ring your bank immediately or dial 159. Transfers reported within minutes are far more likely to be stopped than transfers reported the next morning.

Common mistakes

• Sending a small amount to see whether it is real — There is no such thing as a test payment here. It confirms you will pay and the next request will be larger and more urgent.
• Treating a photo of a bank screen as proof — Screenshots are trivially faked and are a standard prop in this scam.

Questions people ask