Phone-Paid Services Authority

https://psauthority.org.uk/

The Phone-Paid Services Authority is the UK regulator for content, goods and services charged to a phone bill.

Phone-paid services are the goods and services that you can buy by charging the cost to your phone bill or pre-pay account. They include directory enquiries, voting on TV talent shows, donating to charity by text, joke lines, chat lines, games or downloading apps on your mobile phone. They are referred to as premium rate services in law.

UK regulation is open, fair and robust, underpinned by a Code of Practice approved by OFCOM.

Ofcom. As the telecoms, internet and payments sectors continue to grow globally at an unprecedented rate, the Phone-paid Services Authority takes action to safeguard consumers and help cutting-edge providers of digital content and services to thrive.

Their vision is a healthy and innovative market in which consumers can charge content, goods and services to their phone bill with confidence.

The Mission of the Phone Pre-Paid Services Authority

To protect consumers from harm in the market, including where necessary through robust enforcement of our Code of Practice and to further their interests through encouraging competition, innovation and growth in the market.

They seek to do this through:

  • Providing clarity about the market for content, goods and services charged to a phone bill
  • Applying an outcomes-based Code of Practice
  • Delivering a balanced approach to regulation
  • Working in partnership with Government and other regulators
  • Delivering high standards of organisational support.

What are Phone-Paid Services and How Do They Charge You?

Phone-paid services is a generic name for goods and services that you purchase and are charged to your telephone bill or pay-as-you-go credit. Here are some examples of phone-paid services:-

  • Quizzes and competitions
  • Voting (e.g. X-Factor, Britain’s Got Talent, Strictly Come Dancing)
  • Charity donations (one-off donations or subscriptions)
  • Digital content (e.g. apps, in-app purchases, digital media,
  • one-off purchases or subscriptions)
  • Directory enquiries (e.g. 118 numbers)
  • Adult services (e.g. chat, dating)
  • Gambling

The job of the Phone Pre-Paid Services Authority is to look after the industry and ensure people are not cheated. But it’s everyone’s responsibility to behave sensibly and that includes not downloading unsafe APPS, checking all payments and not handing over confidential information to unknown people or APPS.

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Crypto Code Bitcoin Scam

The email says I have had 0.7 of a Bitcoin transferred to my name and I just have to click to accept the payment.

The value of Bitcoins goes up and down dramatically but 0.7 Bitcoins converts to thousands of dollars.

Who wouldn’t want such a windfall?

To accept the transfer you click the link, which does not get you any Bitcoins but rather the website of crypto Code and a sales pitch for their software.

“Unleash The Power Of CryptoCurrency and Earn $15,000 in 24 Hours”

So, it’s just speculation on the price of cryto currencies of which Bitcoin is the most famous.

Is it possible to make lots of money speculating on Bitcoin? Yes. Many people have done so.

But the price can go down just as easily as it can go up and then you lose.

There is a disclaimer at the bottom of the website page

“Trading can generate significant profits but is also highly speculative and involves a high level of risk which can result in partial or full loss of funds”

The email claimed I had Bitcoins transferred to me and that was untrue.

The website claims you can make $15,000 in a day but the disclaimer warns you might lose everything.

Not a good deal to make. For most people it’s safer to choose another investment, but if you’re going to invest in Bitcoin then do your research first and don’t respond to email offers.

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Jim Browning is a Scambaiter

Scambaiting is the practice of conning scammers – when they phone or email or text, the scam baiter plays along and if possible, gets the scammer’s bank details etc. to pass along to the relevant bank and the Police.

Jim Browning is the alias of a Northern Irish YouTuber with nearly 3.5 million subscribers who has been posting scambaiting videos for the past years.

Browning regularly gets access to scammers’ computers and has even managed to hack into the CCTV footage of call centres in order to identify individuals. He then passes this information to the relevant authorities including the police plus banks and other organisations where relevant.

Jim says “I wouldn’t call myself a vigilante, but I do enough to figure out who is running the scam,’ and I pass it on to the right authorities.”

He adds that there have only been two instances where he’s seen a scammer get arrested. Once where he worked with BBC’s Panorama to investigate an Indian call centre – as a result, the centre was raided by local police and the owner was taken into custody.

Browning says becoming a YouTuber was “accidental”. He originally started uploading his footage so he could send links to the authorities as evidence, but then viewers came flooding in. “Unfortunately, YouTube tends to attract a younger audience and the people I’d really love to see looking at videos would be older folks,” he says.

In his most popular upload, with 40m views, he calmly calls scammers by their real names. “You’ve gone very quiet for some strange reason,” Browning says in the middle of a call, “Are you going to report this to Archit?” The spooked scammer hangs up. One comment on the video – with more than 1,800 likes – describes getting “literal chills”.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

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Scams on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a business social media network with over 500 million members. LinkedIn profiles show a lot about you that is of use to scammers. If scammers find a way to connect with you, they have an easy way to send you email and generally people are more trusting on LinkedIn than other social media networks.

There are two common types of scams that involve LinkedIn.

  1. Emails that appear to have come from LinkedIn. Fraudsters ask the recipient to click a link within the email to accept the invitation or to view the sender’s LinkedIn profile. The links within these emails are often to another website and these may be scam sites ready to download malicious software to your computer.
  2. Requests coming from LinkedIn members. The fraudster creates a LinkedIn account. With the fake profile, the fraudster can then send LinkedIn connection requests. These invitations arrive in the LinkedIn inbox, which makes the request look less suspicious, especially if the criminal has been successful in connecting with a few other people that you may know or who may be on your contact list.

Pointers to a Scam

  • The sender has very few connections
  • The sender’s profile is mostly blank
  • There are numerous misspellings and grammatical errors
  • The photo is not of a person but is a graphic or a logo or something meaningless
  • The sender’s job title typically makes them an executive at a bank or other financial institution

If you accept a connection request from one of these scammers, the only value is that it makes their profile look more legitimate as it now has a larger number of connections . But what the scammer wants is to talk with you online, pull you into their fraudulent world and steal from you.

If you regret having agreed to a connection, you can block it and if there is evidence of fraud then pass that on to the LinkedIn authorities so they can stop the account.

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