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Scams: telephone, email, texts 2023, 2024

pjmburns

pjmburns

master brummie
Just received the following email (I have blanked my email address). The link won't work as this is a photo image
1673362279885.png
 
Thanks Pete, but I already confirmed that my car is taxed for another 11 months. Plus the email address it came from is Spanish (.sp) - not sure if it is a hacked address. Reported to "phishing" and left it to them
 
pjmburns said:
Thanks Pete, but I already confirmed that my car is taxed for another 11 months. Plus the email address it came from is Spanish (.sp) - not sure if it is a hacked address. Reported to "phishing" and left it to them
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thats a straing one. amazon emails are a pain at the moment my mobile has hundred of them on it i might copy the ones i know are safe and reset the phone
 
Had an attempted scam this morning.
I received an email supposedly from ebay saying that a PC I had ordered had been dispatched to an address in Norwich. Momentary panic so I rang the phone number quoted for complaints problems etc. That was my mistake for not checking with the ebay website.
Person the other end, let us just say that he did not have a British accent although he gave his name as David (coincidence?), started talking about how they needed to check my accounts to block any attempts by the person who had placed the order etc. with Amazon and every one else. Odd I thought.
Then he asked me to log in to 'Easy Desk' Then the bell were ringing in my head and when I saw what Easy Desk did the sirens really went off.
When I said I did not understand why he wanted to log into my computer he rang off.
I then looked at the sender's email address which I should have done in the first instance. Although it started off ebayorders the rest of the address was nonsense.
I have reported the original email to the police [email protected]
 
That old "We have a fortune we want help with moving." scam is still on the go, had one this morning a long email from some named lady. in the bin immediately.
 
Just had an email allegedly from Santander asking me to update my mobile number - I do have an account but not listed with the email address used today. Then I noticed it said (tiny writing) email intended for ????? and had my late Dad's name. Alarm bells rang as a) he did not have an account with them, b) did not use a mobile and c) would not have known my email address togive them. Reported to phishing and then deleted.
 
i get loads of mesages from what suppose to be amazon, all in wing dings no phone number so i cant block them. amazon know nothing about them
 
Had a couple of scam emails lately claiming to offer £100 vouchers for McDonald's. This is particularly dangerous as it is obviously aimed a youngsters who would not possibly be so scam savvy. Both were sent from Italian email addresses.
 
I am noticing an increased level of spamming attempts and phishing emails this last few weeks. A few bots trying to join the forum too. The user names are looking quite authentic, but when I track the IP addresses a lot are originating in Russia.

The point I am making here is scammers are using dictionaries to make up authentic looking usernames and very well formatted emails. I had a couple myself pretending to be from Microsoft that were really well done. Beware, if it looks too good to be true, it is.

Make sure you also keep your computer and phone updates current. I know apple have recently released a couple of emergency updates because of security breaches.

I have a couple of older iPhones that I have kept in working order in case of emergency. I have now factory reset these devices and erased all data. With the older operating systems, there is a theoretical risk of hacking, so I have decided to do away with them.

Stay safe everyone.
 
touch wood since joining BT i dont get crank calls. like someone trying to get me bank details, and then telling me to stop coughing becouse she has a head set on and it hurts her ears
 
A different scam, I just wanted to say please be careful if you leave your dog tied up outside shops, a lady was very distressed this lunchtime when a man tried several times to steal her dog from outside the chip shop. Also my son found someone looking over the tall garden-gate at his dog, the man should not have been there in a private driveway.
rosie.
 
pjmburns said:
I have had several of those. All reported as scams.
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Ditto (that's three of us including Pedrocut #13). I really do think that something more should be done about these scams by the phone companies/banks/police. After all, it is a form of robbery, but I guess it isn't given enough priority to dedicate the resources to, that might stop or at least reduce the number of these particular phone scams.

I took my one to Action Fraud (which is the UK's national reporting centre for fraud), who passed it to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) for review. The NFIB examine the information you provide and apparently where possible, "the information is also matched against other available data in order to enrich and corroborate the details of the fraud". The NFIB then assess "whether there are viable lines of enquiry that would enable a law enforcement body, such as the police service, to investigate".

In my case, although I provided a lot of detail, I received the response "On this occasion, based on the information currently available, it has not been possible to identify a line of enquiry which a law enforcement organisation in the United Kingdom could pursue." Although my e-mail response, did have the look of a template and I'm not convinced that a great deal of time was made available to review whether it was possible to try to seek out these scammers, I felt that I had at least tried to do my bit. The e-mail added, "Please be assured that by contacting us you are giving the police vital information that they need to protect you and others. The information you have provided may be used to disrupt criminal activity and inform prevention advice and campaigns".

Hopefully such reports that we make, might lead to convictions or at least this topic will hopefully lead to members of this site, thinking is this a scam? should they also become an intended victim of these awful scammers.
 
John L said:
Ditto (that's three of us including Pedrocut #13). I really do think that something more should be done about these scams by the phone companies/banks/police. After all, it is a form of robbery, but I guess it isn't given enough priority to dedicate the resources to, that might stop or at least reduce the number of these particular phone scams.

I took my one to Action Fraud (which is the UK's national reporting centre for fraud), who passed it to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) for review. The NFIB examine the information you provide and apparently where possible, "the information is also matched against other available data in order to enrich and corroborate the details of the fraud". The NFIB then assess "whether there are viable lines of enquiry that would enable a law enforcement body, such as the police service, to investigate".

In my case, although I provided a lot of detail, I received the response "On this occasion, based on the information currently available, it has not been possible to identify a line of enquiry which a law enforcement organisation in the United Kingdom could pursue." Although my e-mail response, did have the look of a template and I'm not convinced that a great deal of time was made available to review whether it was possible to try to seek out these scammers, I felt that I had at least tried to do my bit. The e-mail added, "Please be assured that by contacting us you are giving the police vital information that they need to protect you and others. The information you have provided may be used to disrupt criminal activity and inform prevention advice and campaigns".

Hopefully such reports that we make, might lead to convictions or at least this topic will hopefully lead to members of this site, thinking is this a scam? should they also become an intended victim of these awful scammers.
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The other problem is that there is SO much scamming going on unless the situation is particularly egregious, the return on effort is not worth it. We were scammed a few years ago with our wireless phones, the provider came after us for payment. They filed a delinquent credit report against us. The authorities and the local police threw their hands up. Fortunately, my brother-in-law is an attorney and went after the provider who cancelled the credit report and acknowledge that they had allowed the scam to develop. I would not recommend this approach because it is very expensive. Fortunately, my brother-in-law and I were partners in an investment property together.
 
I heard on last night's news that the government is belatedly banning all cold calls as part of a much needed national crackdown on scams that is expected to take effect from this summer. Last summer, 41 million people were targeted by suspicious calls and texts, according to Ofcom. The ban is to cover cold calls selling financial products as well as legitimate calls. Exactly which financial products will be covered will be decided after a consultation. Anyone who then receives a call trying to sell them such products will then know it's a scam.

In addition, "Sim Farms", where a large number of Sim cards are used to send text messages in bulk, will be banned. Intelligence services and police will work with overseas partners to shut down call centres engaged in fraud. Advertising campaigns will warn people about the risk of scam calls. There will be new measures to tackle phone number "spoofing", where scammers alter Caller ID information to make calls look genuine. A new fraud squad will also replace the current Action Fraud service with 500, rather than the current 120 investigators, within the year and this should make reporting fraud easier. Work with international partners will be stepped up and greater use made of the UK’s intelligence community to identify and disrupt more overseas fraudsters. Banks will be allowed to delay payments from being processed for longer to allow for the investigation of suspect payments.
 
John L said:
I heard on last night's news that the government is belatedly banning all cold calls as part of a much needed national crackdown on scams that is expected to take effect from this summer. Last summer, 41 million people were targeted by suspicious calls and texts, according to Ofcom. The ban is to cover cold calls selling financial products as well as legitimate calls. Exactly which financial products will be covered will be decided after a consultation. Anyone who then receives a call trying to sell them such products will then know it's a scam.

In addition, "Sim Farms", where a large number of Sim cards are used to send text messages in bulk, will be banned. Intelligence services and police will work with overseas partners to shut down call centres engaged in fraud. Advertising campaigns will warn people about the risk of scam calls. There will be new measures to tackle phone number "spoofing", where scammers alter Caller ID information to make calls look genuine. A new fraud squad will also replace the current Action Fraud service with 500, rather than the current 120 investigators, within the year and this should make reporting fraud easier. Work with international partners will be stepped up and greater use made of the UK’s intelligence community to identify and disrupt more overseas fraudsters. Banks will be allowed to delay payments from being processed for longer to allow for the investigation of suspect payments.
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Hopefully they get some traction from this. There is significant upside for the scammers, I doubt they will be very compliant! Fingers crossed!
 
John L said:
I heard on last night's news that the government is belatedly banning all cold calls as part of a much needed national crackdown on scams that is expected to take effect from this summer. Last summer, 41 million people were targeted by suspicious calls and texts, according to Ofcom. The ban is to cover cold calls selling financial products as well as legitimate calls. Exactly which financial products will be covered will be decided after a consultation. Anyone who then receives a call trying to sell them such products will then know it's a scam.

In addition, "Sim Farms", where a large number of Sim cards are used to send text messages in bulk, will be banned. Intelligence services and police will work with overseas partners to shut down call centres engaged in fraud. Advertising campaigns will warn people about the risk of scam calls. There will be new measures to tackle phone number "spoofing", where scammers alter Caller ID information to make calls look genuine. A new fraud squad will also replace the current Action Fraud service with 500, rather than the current 120 investigators, within the year and this should make reporting fraud easier. Work with international partners will be stepped up and greater use made of the UK’s intelligence community to identify and disrupt more overseas fraudsters. Banks will be allowed to delay payments from being processed for longer to allow for the investigation of suspect payments.
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"A new fraud squad will also replace the current Action Fraud service with 500, rather than the current 120 investigators". A few more coppers on the beat would not go amiss, either. Quite how they plan to ban the calls which often come from India and surrounding countries, I'd like to see.
 

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Lloyd said:
"A new fraud squad will also replace the current Action Fraud service with 500, rather than the current 120 investigators". A few more coppers on the beat would not go amiss, either. Quite how they plan to ban the calls which often come from India and surrounding countries, I'd like to see.
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Seriously, think of the cost and lost opportunity with law enforcers to do all of that. Unless the penalty is severe it will not stop!
 
I keep receiving calls from area codes where I do not know anyone, Had one from Bodmin, Ballymena, Leicester in the last 5 days. I simply do not answer and just block the number. Curious though I may answer the next one.
 
Janet Hunt said:
I keep receiving calls from area codes where I do not know anyone, Had one from Bodmin, Ballymena, Leicester in the last 5 days. I simply do not answer and just block the number. Curious though I may answer the next one.
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I wouldn't myself. Have you tried "Who called me UK" (see below) it's a free service that provides an overall user rating for the mystery phone number that you input, along with it's location, who operates the number and whether it has been identified as a phone contact scam. It also includes comments from people that have answered calls from that same number.

who-called.co.uk

Who called me? | Free Reverse Phone Lookup

Received a call from unknown phone number. Use this FREE reverse phone directory to find out who called you!
who-called.co.uk who-called.co.uk
 
John L said:
I wouldn't myself. Have you tried "Who called me UK" (see below) it's a free service that provides an overall user rating for the mystery phone number that you input, along with it's location, who operates the number and whether it has been identified as a phone contact scam. It also includes comments from people that have answered calls from that same number.

who-called.co.uk

Who called me? | Free Reverse Phone Lookup

Received a call from unknown phone number. Use this FREE reverse phone directory to find out who called you!
who-called.co.uk who-called.co.uk
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Thank you John I will look at this later...appreciate
 
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