Newcastle private school parents targeted in scam asking them to pay £13,000 fees with bitcoin

Fraudsters tried to con tens of thousands of pounds from private school parents by inviting them to pay their fees in bitcoin.

Families at Royal Grammar School (RGS), in Jesmond, Newcastle, were warned of the scam in an email in December.

And experts at the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) say it's among a number of "phising-type attacks" which have been directed at schools.

RGS headmaster John Fern told families the cyber attack, through which their email addresses had been accessed, had been reported to the police.

The emails, which included spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors, were apparently sent on 29 December from the address of the school's bursar.

It invited parents to send money to a bitcoin address within a day, offering a discount on the fees for those that did so.

Fees at RGS's junior school run to £3,696 a term (£11,088 a year) while at the senior school, parents pay £4,388 a term (£13,164 a year).

Once sent, bitcoin cannot be recalled, so hackers may have been hoping parents taken in by the same would hand over cash they wouldn't get back.

A statement on the RGS wesbite read: "We are aware that parents have received an email claiming you'll receive a 25% discount on fees for passing over details or claiming that you can now pay by bitcoin/cryptocurrency.

"Please note these are phishing emails and should not be opened or any links clicked.

"We are currently investigating this breach and information will be passed on to all parents in due course."

Details were passed on to the ICO, because the emails of parents had been accessed - though the school said no financial information had been stolen.

The ICO did not provide details of how many schools were affected but told the BBC: "[We are] aware of other phishing type attacks that have been targeted towards schools.

"Royal Grammar School has made us aware of an incident and we will assess the information provided."