Category: Scam Call

December 23, 2016

Lorraine’s Battle Over Fridge Insurance

Lorraine is retired. She has insurance against breakdown on her fridge and freezer and other items as it gives peace of mind. This is paid monthly by direct debit to Domestic General. Ltd

Then she received a call from the company about her insurance saying the company had changed ownership but they could start a new insurance policy to cover her fridge etc. and the best deal was to take 3 year cover.

Lorraine is a canny person and questioned to herself whether this was true, but the company knew about her fridge, the direct debit and that she had taken out the cover in 2003. So it all appeared correct and she agreed and paid in advance for the new 3 year deal (at the significant cost of £150).

She told her daughter Fiona about this sometime later and Fiona was suspicious when she found out the original direct debit was still in operation. She checked the documentation and found that the new cover was with Domestic Appliances.

She called them and realised it is a separate company nothing to do with Domestic General Ltd. Fiona tried to get the money back but Domestic Appliances refused to acknowledge the deceitful approach by their caller and refused a refund. They also denied having a recording of the telephone conversation and claimed their staff were well trained and would not engage in such subterfuge.

What to do?

Fiona cancelled the direct debit with the original company Domestic General Ltd. and explained to them what had happened. They couldn’t help but did say that this problem had happened before with Domestic Appliances.

The reputable company Domestic General Ltd offered monthly payment and a contract that could be cancelled whereas Domestic Appliances insisted on payment up front for a 3 year deal and no cancellation.

Unfortunately there seems to be no redress in this situation – no way to get the money back from Domestic Appliances.

Will they provide a good service if Lorraine has problems with her kitchen fridge?

We don’t know.

If you have any experiences with scammers, spammers or time-waster do let me know, by email.

November 23, 2016

What is Vishing?

One scam on the rise is ‘vishing‘, or voice phishing. Con artists phone people and pretend to be bank staff or the Police or some other authority figure and have a story that lets them try to get the subject’s personal details, credit card details, bank account password etc. depending on the specific scam.

For the bank account scam, they typically warn of fraudulent activity on your account. They then persuade you to move your account to a safe place (which happens to be an account owned by the scammer) and they convince you to give them the details necessary for the transfer or convince you to move the money yourself.

Then you finds out the account belongs to someone else and the money is gone.

One trick commonly used is to tell you to call their bank and confirm what’s happened but the scammer stays on the line and you thinks you are talking with bank staff but in fact it’s another member of the scammer’s team.

Some scammers are sophisticated enough to use Voice Over IP lines and display a number of their choice on your phone display.

Voice phishing is very difficult for the authorities to monitor or trace and the best answer is to protect yourself.

Do not be pushed into precipitate action where money is concerned. If in doubt – use someone else’s phone to contact your bank or go in and talk with them.

The fraudsters have also started using the bank’s own technique of making recorded message calls to their customers but in this case to warn the customer of a problem and giving a number to call which is the scammer. This adds an air of authenticity to the scam. Alternatively when called it may be a computer responder that asks for the subjects bank details etc.

There are lots of variants on this illegal activity but be careful and verify who is calling you and always take the time to think – don’t be pushed into doing something that could turn out badly.

If you have any experiences with scammers, spammers or time-waster do let me know, by email.

November 9, 2016

The Ten Most Common Scams

For more details, refer to www.fightbackonline.org/index.php/guidance/12-explanations/23-the-ten-most-common-scams

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Online Shopping and Auction Website Scams	Online auction sites such as eBAY are huge business and there are con artists who pose as buyers. They appear to pay for the goods that you then send to them. However, the payment bounces and you cannot get your goods back. There are also sellers who take your money but don’t send the goods or claim to have sent them but they never get to you.
Lottery Scams	This can be for the UK lottery or Euromilions or any other lottery around the world. If you didn’t buy a ticket then you cannot have won.
Premium Rate Telephone Number Scam	You receive a letter or email or text message or automated voicemail telling you that you have won a large prize and all you need to do to claim it is call a phone number. This turns out to be a premium rate number costing you up to £4 per minute. Over a million people a year fall victim to this, according to the Office of Fair Trading.
Identity Theft	Identity theft occurs when someone assumes your identity to perform a fraud or other criminal act. Criminals can get the information they need to assume your identity from a variety of sources, including by stealing your wallet, rifling through your trash, or by compromising your credit or bank information.
Phishing Scams	People pretend to work for a trustworthy organisation as a way to get you to divulge identity information and/or financial information such as credit card details or bank accounts.
Nigerian 419 Scams	Also known as the Advance Fee scam. This is a scam where you are promised a large sum of money in return for a small advance fee. But the large sum is from a dubious source and will share it with you in return for that advance fee.
Dating Scam	Scammers take advantage of people looking for romantic partners, via dating websites, apps or social media by pretending to be prospective romantic partners.
Holiday Scam	This can be a holiday or flight or holiday accommodation that you pay for but then find doesn’t exist. Or it could be a genuine holiday but with a ‘catch’ that you wish you’d never accepted.
Cold Caller Scams	The scammer will convince the victim to buy goods or services but once they’ve got the credit card details and identity information – they can then make unauthorised purchases or sell the information to other scammers.
Fake Loan Scam	This can be a free phone number or you apply online. You are told that your loan is agreed but you need to pay insurance costs via a money transfer. Once you’ve paid the fee, you never hear from the company again.
Investment Related Scams	Ponzi schemes are where people get paid from money coming in from new members but there is no investment and it all collapses as there cannot continue to be enough new members to existing members. Market manipulation is where the scammers find ways to artificially push up the value of a stock then sell at the top price and everyone else loses.

September 30, 2016

Dealing With a BT OpenReach Scammer

“Hello, My name is Katie and I’m calling you from BT OpenReach.”

Then she paused , waiting to see if I said I didn’t have a contract with OpenReach. When I didn’t say that she continued.

“The reason for the call is that we have to suspend your account in the next 48 hours.”

Again the pause to see if I was worried by the statement.

Me: “Right”

“We have to do that because we have received reports of some unauthorised activity at your IP address and because your IP address is active between 2 am and 4 am

So we have to suspend your account.”

Me: “OK”

“To help us fix the problems you need to tell me some information

Sir, are you using the Internet on your computer or mobile phone or other device?”

Me: “Oh I don’t think I can tell you that”

“But Sir you must tell us or we cannot fix the problem and that means the whole network is in danger”

“That’s terrible, but can’t you fix the problem anyway?”

Katie put the phone down.

This is a variant of the Microsoft support call scam where the caller tells you your PC is infected with a virus and they can fix it for a payment.

In this case, I assume she was after basic information of who I am then she would no doubt need my login and password details etc. And likely would want to download remote control software to my PC so she could take control of it and find credit card details etc.

Just a pathetic scam.

When you recognise a scam phone call – you can choose to tell them straightaway what you think of them or you can choose to play along and let them talk or even join in and act the part as if you are being conned. At some point they realise you’re not falling for the scam and typically they just put the phone down and move on to their next target. But wasting their time is quite fun.

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September 23, 2016

How Mrs. X Was Scammed

There is a very common scam where the scammer calls to tell you that your bank account has been hacked in some way and your money is no longer safe. But they will help you to move it immediately to a safe account.

Several years ago, Mrs X was caught out by this scam.

Mrs. X received a call claiming to be from her bank to tell her that her account had been compromised and it was unsafe to leave money in it. Also, that the perpetrator was a bank employee so Mrs. X should not phone them directly. In order to catch the perpetrator and save Mrs. X’s money, it needed to be moved immediately to another bank, to a safe account the caller had set up for her.

The caller was very persuasive and determined but Mrs X wanted to check the story.

She then called her bank and was assured the story was correct and Mrs X agreed to the transfer.

Mrs X didn’t realise that the scammer had left the phone line open so she was in fact talking to another of the scamming team rather than her bank. They had even faked the ring tone.

She didn’t give the caller the information he wanted but instead went into the bank to transfer the money and it was transferred to another bank which Mrs X now believed was her new safe account. Her bank made no attempt to query such an action even though they knew this scam had been used before.

Her husband Mr. X heard what had happened and realised there was a problem. He contacted both banks and the supposedly safe account had been largely emptied but the remaining money was then blocked from being removed.

The scammer called Mrs. X to ask for the block to be removed (these people have no shame) and the call was recorded by the Police, but the Police made no real progress in tracking the scammers.

The end result is that after months of effort and legal involvement (and the Press), the two banks did return much of the money that was stolen but some was permanently lost.

Remember:

Do not trust a cold caller unless they can prove who they are and you can independently verify their story.

Do not be pushed into precipitate action by a caller’s story. Take your time and consider your actions carefully where money is involved.

Always be aware there while most people are honest, there are some who will stop at nothing to steal from you.

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September 2, 2016

Ollie and The Microsoft Scammer

A guest post by Ollie

Ollie says he rarely engages with scam callers, but last week he did.

“I had that scam caller that purports to be from Microsoft and telling you that you have a virus on your PC. Ok, so I thought let’s talk:

Me – “Oh so I have a virus and you really are Microsoft calling me, wow, thank you. Where are you actually ringing from?”

“the USA”

Me – “ha, yes I guessed that Microsoft is a huge American company, but where, what address in America”

“Los Angeles”

Me – “OK, Los Angeles, I was just wondering what address”

“I don’t know just in USA”

Me – “You don’t know where you are working from?”

“Microsoft in America”

Me – “Yes I know, you said, but can you tell me the street and building in Los Angeles”

“No, I don’t know”

Me – “You don’t know where you actually are in Los Angeles. Are you sure you are in Los Angeles? Not perhaps Seattle where Microsoft are based?”

“No”

Me – “I think you are trying to scam people and I do not want to talk to you anymore. I will just wish you and your company lots of BAD luck, bye”

By the way I only did this because I saw his caller ID showing starting with a number 1 so I believed it would cost them to hang on………

This is a common scam – do not believe a caller who tells you that your computer has a virus or has been hacked or is being used for illegal purposes or anything similar. They are just calling randomly in the hope of finding someone with a computer who will fall for the lies and then end up paying the scammer to fix non existent problems.