Category: Warning

Discover Org

You may have received requests from privacy @discoverorg.biz claiming to be a notice of data processing.

The message does explain that they are gathering business contact information for people working in certain corporations.  That seems honest, but not entirely honest as the email has been sent out to a vast number of email addresses gathered by spammers.

The radio station received dozens of these emails – to all sorts of fake email addresses long ago made up by spammers and sold on to idiots who don’t know any better.

Discover Org do give you the option of editing your data that they have and explains about opt-out rights, so it does comply with the law and they say they only ask for business information – name, company, business telephone number, business email address, job title and job function, rather than the scammer and spammer staples of private email address, home address, home phone number etc.

If you’re going to buy lists of contact details, then there are far worse choices to avoid than Discover Org but maybe best not to answer their emails unless you want to receive mountains of unasked for marketing messages.

Do enter your email address and click on the subscribe button on top right to keep up to date with new posts.

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Direct Debit Fraud

Direct Debit fraud is the common form of “Mandate fraud” which is the name for when someone gets you to change a direct debit, standing order or bank transfer mandate, by falsely claiming to be an organisation you make regular payments to. It’s also known as payment diversion fraud.

This can take place over the phone, by post or email and is used to defraud businesses and the public.

How Does Mandate Fraud Happen?

  1. You receive a letter or email or text message that claims to be a company supplying a monthly subscription for you. It provides details of the company’s new bank account and asks you to change the direct debit or mandate of payment accordingly.
  2. You make the changes and next month receive an overdue statement from that company as you haven’t paid them.
  3. Your online bank account has been hacked into by a fraudster and monthly payment details are altered so that the money is transferred to the fraudsters account.

In that case, the sum of money may be quite small, but this scam also applies to much larger considerations.  Even if the notification of change of bank details seems to be from the appropriate person, you must check before taking action.

How to Prevent Business Mandate Fraud

  • Educate all staff about this type of fraud
  • Enable staff to properly verify contact from senior management
  • Always review financial transactions to check for inconsistencies/errors, such as misspelt company name
  • If a company notifies you of a bank account change then verify that change directly using the contact details you already have
  • Question when the delivery address differs from the historical ones
  • Check your bank statements regularly for any suspicious transactions. If you notice anything unusual, notify your bank immediately

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

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The Fake Marriage Rebate

There is a marriage allowance worth £250 that can be claimed from HMRC each year.

Marriage Allowance Limited has taken to sending out letters and emails to people advising them to get this rebate and they will do it for you. What they don’t tell people is that although the claim is free, the company charges 42% plus a processing fee and that doesn’t leave much of the rebate remaining to actually get to the tax payer.

Their website is designed to make people believe it is HMRC.

This activity is legal as they don’t explicitly claim to be from HMRC and the company runs similar operations targeting other tax allowances.

As always, read messages carefully to see who they are actually from, be careful with Google searches not to just pick the top of the list in case it’s an advert and the official site you want is lower down the list.

If you want to claim the marriage allowance, go to www.gov.uk/apply-marriage-allowance or call 0300 200 3300

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Big Increases in Identity Fraud

Identity theft is when someone collects enough information about you to pretend to be you in order to access your bank account, use your credit card details, open accounts in your name, take out loans in your name, block your access to your own accounts etc.

This is a very destructive form of fraud as it can be very difficult for the victim to prove it wasn’t them taking out the money and to get their identity back, including access to the various accounts.

UK Government statistics show almost 190,000 cases of identity fraud in a 12 month period with CIFAS (the fraud prevention service) recording increases of 8% per year.

The figures also show that levels for older people are rising faster, suggesting they are being targeted for this type of fraud.

Most people do not realise they have been a victim of identity fraud until bills start arriving and demands for repayment for loans they didn’t request.

To avoid becoming such a victim, you need to make sure you keep personal information to yourself – starting with setting social media network privacy levels to high, use strong passwords and never reveal passwords to anyone in emails or by phone.

Always be cautious of emails or websites or text messages offering anything too good to be true.

Stay safe.

If you have any experiences with identity theft, do let me know, by email.

TV License Plus

The official website for renewing your TV licence, registering a change of address etc. Is www.tvlicensing.co.uk

You have to pay for a licence of course but address changes etc. are free.

Operators such as www.licenceplus.co.uk  make money from offering free services at a premium price, such as TV licence address change and often users don’t realise they’ve been conned into paying for something that is actually free.

This is legal but it catches people out as they trust the first result on Google search and may unintentionally choose a service without realising they are being charged for it.

To try to combat this, the official site  www.tvlicensing.co.uk pays for Google adverts, so they appear twice on the search results.

If you were warned in advance by the website that there will be an extra charge to pay then most people would stop and go to the official website, but often for people in a rush they expect Google to show up the official site and just start entering their details.

You will still get your licence renewed or address changed etc. by using one of these premium operators but it will cost you more for no good reason.

If you have any been caught out by these premium charge operators – do let me know, by email.

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The Timeshare Resale Scam

Timeshares were a great idea – you buy the rights to the same holiday home for set weeks each year and then you can book travel early on, save money and you know the place so no worries about a poor holiday.

But, that great idea was largely taken over by con artists who used high pressure sales techniques to get people signed up at huge expense and facing risings costs each year that they didn’t expect.

That collapsed and everyone realised it was better to stay away from timeshares.

But what about the people left with timeshares they can’t sell and facing high costs each year for basically no return?

Another generation of con artists sprang up to make life even worse for those people by making false promises – “We will sell you timeshare at no cost to you”.

Often they claim there is no upfront cost to you at all. But once they have you hooked – a variety of upfront charges appear, such as a closing fee which strangely has to be paid in advance of a sale or an assessment report needed for the sale to go through or Brokers fees (they will be allied to the Broker if it exists and hence get that money themselves).

The con artists take whatever they can from you (and many others) then disappear – the phone number goes dead, emails are bounced back, the company name turns out to have been false or they used the name of a legitimate company not connected with the scam.

Guaranteed Sale Scam

Watch out for companies that guarantee a sale as no company can realistically guarantee that. They can certainly guarantee to advertise it until sold, but that’s all. They’ll also likely tell you that you’ll get your money back at closing if anyone else sells it before they do, but that carries the same level of truthfulness as the guarantee i.e. none.

Guaranted Offer

Be cautious of companies who guarantee to bring you an offer on your timeshare. What typically happens in these cases is that the same company who is guaranteeing to bring an offer will themselves make you the offer for a ridiculous price, maybe $100. This keeps their guarantee of an offer “legitimate,” but obviously isn’t what you had in mind. Guaranteed offers are never worthwhile.

The Buyer Waiting Scam

Some companies try to get you to sign-up by claiming they have a buyer waiting to purchase your property. Of course you’ll be required to pay a fee in order for them to forward this buyer to you. Once you pay the fee, the buyer either suddenly gets cold feet, or you never hear another word from the person or their company again.

Timeshare scams continue, so be careful. Don’t be caught out a second time.

If you have any experiences with Timeshare scammers do let me know, by email.

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