Latest Scam

HMRC scam phone calls spoof a real 0300 200 xxxx HMRC phone number, so you can't go by caller ID.
Though at the links I posted HMRC say (approx) ”they can’t spoof the most used numbers anymore after agreements with the telecomm industry“.
so it is possible stop spoofing but I suspect BT etc makes too much money from it:(
 
"Amazon" just called. A synthesised voice with an American accent told me I'd just signed up for Prime, and payment was about to be taken. If I wanted to cancel, I should press 1 to speak with an operator...
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Trouble is, Amazon are the biggest scammers in this. you need to keep your wits about you to avoid signing up to Prime. Once you are signed up against your wishes, it’s quite hard to find where to unsign...

its happened to me twice now. I’m sort of wondering that if it happens a few more times (and I get free delivery, even though I’ve unsubbed from Prime) they might ban me from signing up to it again?
 
Trouble is, Amazon are the biggest scammers in this. you need to keep your wits about you to avoid signing up to Prime. Once you are signed up against your wishes, it’s quite hard to find where to unsign...

its happened to me twice now. I’m sort of wondering that if it happens a few more times (and I get free delivery, even though I’ve unsubbed from Prime) they might ban me from signing up to it again?

Amazon do push Prime, but they're pretty easy going about cancellations. That's been my experience anyway. I think there's a limit on how often you can sign up for a free month in a given period though.

My wife signed up a while back, and it seemed like a good idea at the time because she was placing quite a lot of orders for my kids/grandchildren. She doesn't use it very often now, and I've suggested that she should cancel , but she keeps 'forgetting' to. I know Amazon count on this customer inertia, but it doesn't cost a great deal and I'm not going to nag her about something relatively trivial if she wants to leave it in place. I do use her account occasionally myself!
 
Amazon do push Prime, but they're pretty easy going about cancellations. That's been my experience anyway. I think there's a limit on how often you can sign up for a free month in a given period though.

My wife signed up a while back, and it seemed like a good idea at the time because she was placing quite a lot of orders for my kids/grandchildren. She doesn't use it very often now, and I've suggested that she should cancel , but she keeps 'forgetting' to. I know Amazon count on this customer inertia, but it doesn't cost a great deal and I'm not going to nag her about something relatively trivial if she wants to leave it in place. I do use her account occasionally myself!
If Amazon offer a free trial you can sign up and cancel next day (actually probably immediately but I haven’t tested that) and it still runs for a month ;).
 
Yes, that’s right. I was wondering if they block you from doing that, eventually.
 
Yes, that’s right. I was wondering if they block you from doing that, eventually.

I think there may be a limit on how often you can sign up for a free trial and cancel within a specified period, but I don't know if they actually enforce it.
 
The latest one in my inbox...

Dear Friend

I am a banker in Cambodia. I contacted you for a reason , one of my late customer have the same last name as yours. He died 7 years ago and left , 17.7 million United States dollars in his account. Since then no relative have come to claim his money. I think we can work things out.


Unfortunately, my client died with his family in a car crash during summer holiday of 2011 in France. His account mandate does not have any contact of any of his relatives as next of kin. I have made several inquiries to your embassy to locate any of his relatives without any success, I have been mandated by my bank management to provide the next of kin to his account. If I don't get any of his relatives in 29 days the account balance of $17.700,000 will be returned to the government treasury.

Since you have the same surname with the late account holder and i cannot find any of his relatives I now I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin to the late account holder. You and I will share the money 50/50 after the money is transferred to you. I think this is fair decision instead of the Cambodian government taking the money.

I was his personal accountant before he died , i have all the vital information for us to claim the money without any problem .I only worry about your ability to keep this transaction secret to protect my job . The transaction is 100% risk free as I have studied and investigated the transaction properly as a professional banker and discovered that it's risk free before making contact to you.

If you are interested do let me know by replying.

Regards

Robert Rees


I loved reading this..so funny and as I've said before we need a laugh these grim days (on many fronts). Also laughed at the opening of Sphexx's reply.."Go for it,.What could go wrong"Lol

To find this hilarious you'd have to imagine that someone believed it and considered responding or worse, actaully did. I just did a Google hoping to get some stat on how much similar scams reaped rewards. Unbelievably, the famous, or rather infamous, Nigerian Royalty scam nets them $700,000 a year just from Americans. I have some very intellegent american friends who would immediately trash any such Email before anyone says anything..Lol.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/18/nigerian-prince-scams-still-rake-in-over-700000-dollars-a-year.html

The paragraphs I found so funny were 3 and 4. In three he/she suggests that the victim 'commits' fraud. Paragraph four tells the potential victim that it's 100% risk-free. Well, from a point of view that the victim will never be at risk of being charged by the police for fraud I suppose that's true. The risk, I assume, is forwarding a sum of money to the scammer.

This report is dated November 19 2019, so not long ago.The link is really worth reading. You'd have hoped that having been incarcerated in Kirikiri maximum security prison in Lagos State, Nigeria, it would, in the meantime, bring a stop to a prisoner's nefarious activities but not so. Wouldn't surprise me if there was some corruption by staff in facilitating Aroko's activities. That's being investigated by the authorities

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-50480495

Just a tit bit of info. I checked what kind of prison it is. Maximum Security. February 1st 1990 official capacity 956..in reality 1645 inmates and in March 2018 that had risen to approximately 5,700 of which 3,500 were still awaiting trial. Some inmates are on Death Row too.Many have been there without trial for 5 years.Also, in March 2018 the UK allocated $939,000 to build a new 112-bed wing for prisoners that been deported from the UK..as they did with a number of Jamaicans on Tuesday morning...originally 50 but a temporary court order not to deport many reduced that to 17.
 
Just had a phone call 020 number .... something about finding £500 and press 4 immediately to speak to a police office! Female, English ”accent”. Can see why some would ”press 4”.

I’ve only posted this because of the oddity that I’ve had a series of calls with various stories but they’ve all mentioned £500 not some other figure :)


Richard..Do you answer all calls regardless of whether you recognise the number or not ? I don't know for sure but I thought all phones..mobile or landline, show the caller's number.The only call I'll answer ..the number shows on our home phone (ie landline) are those from my wife's mobile and any that show our local code. Calls with those long 03330 etc I don't answer then call 1471 ,get the number, then Google 'Who called me ?' and see what it was about as many people do answer. Sometimes, I think I should answer then I can add to the comments on the number (Who called me web page) and relate what the caller was about, if someone speaks. I wouldn't answer that London code 020 but is someone lived in London I suppose they would. As you'll know scammers can clone area codes when they are, infact, based abroad. I trust absolutely nothing..by phone or Email.
 
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Richard..Do you answer all calls regardless of whether you recognise the number or not ? I don't know for sure but I thought all phones..mobile or landline, show the caller's number.The only call I'll answer ..the number shows on our home phone (ie landline) are those from my wife's mobile and any that show our local code. Calls with those long 03330 etc I don't answer then call 1471 ,get the number, then Google 'Who called me ?' and see what it was about as many people do answer. Sometimes, I think I should answer then I can add to the comments on the number (Who called me web page) and relate what the caller was about, if someone speaks. I wouldn't answer that London code 020 but is someone lived in London I suppose they would. As you'll know scammers can clone area codes when they are, infact, based abroad. I trust absolutely nothing..by phone or Email.
John, no I never hold a conversation but I do pick up sometimes because it may not be for me or a withheld number (which can be police, hospital etc). In those cases they usually start with “can I speak to Mr P******* and when I say which “Mr P******* do you want” they plough on regardless with their spiel and I hang up. However, most of these recent one have number so I let the answerphone do it’s job and listen to them later and usually check the number on https://who-called.co.uk/ or similar.
 
John, no I never hold a conversation but I do pick up sometimes because it may not be for me or a withheld number (which can be police, hospital etc). In those cases they usually start with “can I speak to Mr P******* and when I say which “Mr P******* do you want” they plough on regardless with their spiel and I hang up. However, most of these recent one have number so I let the answerphone do it’s job and listen to them later and usually check the number on https://who-called.co.uk/ or similar.

When I've answered, it's usually an American accent or an Asian accent and they will say.."Hi..is that John ? " It's easier for us as there's just my wife and myself whereas from what you say it sounds like you may have a few people in your home which makes it important for you to answer.
 
When I've answered, it's usually an American accent or an Asian accent and they will say.."Hi..is that John ? " It's easier for us as there's just my wife and myself whereas from what you say it sounds like you may have a few people in your home which makes it important for you to answer.
Today I got a “withheld” which went answerphone and was the Hospital “Friends and Family Survey” following up an appointment yesterday, which I find annoying. Then an hour later another “withheld” where the message was “press any key to continue”. I think the spam calls are machines and start speaking immediately on connection so the first bit is lost.
 
Just a heads up in regard to phone scams or not as the case maybe!

Having had an online declined CC purchase, after a few attempts it did go through......................the following day I had an automated call from an unknown number purporting to be from Barclays. Cautious cynic that I am I wondered how can I be sure that the number was not some spoofed number?

Well, Barclays have a phone number checker here https://www.barclays.co.uk/digisafe/phone-number-checker/

It confirmed that the number that had shown up on my CLI was genuine...............so called it and it turned out to be a fully automated fraud prevention check/confirmation system :) The last time anything similar had happened, some years ago, I think it was person making direct contact???

So, IMO there are ways of checking the bona fides of the CLI displayed number and use them if in doubt that you might actually be receiving an important call!!!
 
Scammers often present the genuine number of the organization they're claiming to represent, so if it's saved on your phone it'll show as "My Bank"/"HMRC"/"Amazon"/etc., and if you call it back, you'll get the real deal. You can't guarantee if you answer a call though, that the number displayed is the one the caller is actually calling from.
 
And of course, if at all possible, you should never call back on the same phone that the suspect call came in on
 
And of course, if at all possible, you should never call back on the same phone that the suspect call came in on
This! Because the scammers can hold the line open and any number you dial will go to them. Not sure this works if you have never picked up, better safe than sorry.
 
Had a text earlier telling me EE were unable to collect my latest payment and a link to a website to sort it.
Big giveaway for me was the start of the address hpps://id.ee.co.uk

Didn't open it, but apparently it does take you to what looks like a genuine ee site
reported it to the spam department so hopefully another number blocked
 
Had a text earlier telling me EE were unable to collect my latest payment and a link to a website to sort it.
Big giveaway for me was the start of the address hpps://id.ee.co.uk

Didn't open it, but apparently it does take you to what looks like a genuine ee site
reported it to the spam department so hopefully another number blocked

FWIW I have seen such 'sub domain' URL addresses before and they are typically genuine, as per EE

Their primary URL for contact info
https://ee.co.uk/help/help-new/mana...anaging-my-account/why-cant-i-log-in-to-my-ee

And their forgotten password page, with the sub-domain that you got in the text
https://id.ee.co.uk/id/reset-password

As I say FWIW, but if (like checking a spurious phone number ~ look it up independent of the originator message?) you go to the primary URL and drill down as needed, hopefully you can check the bona fides AOK?
 
Now, though not a scam as such but................................

I had an email re: photographers insurance from a company telling me I had been in touch last year about the insurance and asking if they could save me money this year?

Firstly, I have no record or recollection of comms with this company and my renewal is not due at this time of the year :LOL:

So, IMO not a scam but more a mis-guided attempt to lure me in........................................................................................:bat::bat::bat::rolleyes:

Oh, and though my phone email does not Spam filter my main PC did filter it out as Spam into the 'spam' folder :)
 
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FWIW I have seen such 'sub domain' URL addresses before and they are typically genuine, as per EE

Their primary URL for contact info
https://ee.co.uk/help/help-new/mana...anaging-my-account/why-cant-i-log-in-to-my-ee

And their forgotten password page, with the sub-domain that you got in the text
https://id.ee.co.uk/id/reset-password

As I say FWIW, but if (like checking a spurious phone number ~ look it up independent of the originator message?) you go to the primary URL and drill down as needed, hopefully you can check the bona fides AOK?
True but it’s best *never* to click on links in emails. Having said that, I’ve just done it myself clicking on a long link for an Amazon delivery update though I usually try to go the the web site ‘manually’. I am expecting a delivery but so is half the nation so it’s an ideal email to spoof and the long link makes it perhaps more likely to catch people out.
 
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FWIW I have seen such 'sub domain' URL addresses before and they are typically genuine, as per EE

Perhaps but I took the best action and spoke to EE direct through their customer care number
and the confirmed it as a scam, so been reported as such
It may not have been, but by saying that it makes people less aware and they may just get caught out
 
True but it’s best *never* to click on links in emails. Having said that, I’ve just done it myself clicking on a long link for an Amazon delivery update though I usually try to go the the web site ‘manually’. I am expecting a delivery but so is half the nation so it’s an ideal email to spoof and the long link makes it perhaps more likely to catch people out.

Yes, I agree re: URL links in emails....hover over and see the 'real' address.

But the mantra for me is "when in doubt, check it out...." :) Though a pity in this modern digital age that I/we have to be suspicious and cynical about comms and other matters :(
 
Perhaps but I took the best action and spoke to EE direct through their customer care number
and the confirmed it as a scam, so been reported as such
It may not have been, but by saying that it makes people less aware and they may just get caught out

Hi Ingrid

Sorry I was typing my reply to @sphexx when you posted before me.

As noted in that reply, though intrigued that an EE agent said that the id sub domain of EE is not genuine....................whereas they clearly have that system???
 
True but it’s best *never* to click on links in emails. Having said that, I’ve just done it myself clicking on a long link for an Amazon delivery update though I usually try to go the the web site ‘manually’. I am expecting a delivery but so is half the nation so it’s an ideal email to spoof and the long link makes it perhaps more likely to catch people out.
A friend of mine was caught out by an email supposedly from Amazon regarding a delivery when she clicked on a link, she lost almost £1000 and had a struggle getting it back from her bank, so be careful. I am very wary about clicking on links contained in emails especially if I am not expecting them.
 
A friend of mine was caught out by an email supposedly from Amazon regarding a delivery when she clicked on a link, she lost almost £1000 and had a struggle getting it back from her bank, so be careful. I am very wary about clicking on links contained in emails especially if I am not expecting them.
The problem comes when you are expecting them because scammers know that some people among the thousands they send the scams to will be expecting something similar. Really it’s a bit like fly fishing.
 
The problem comes when you are expecting them because scammers know that some people among the thousands they send the scams to will be expecting something similar. Really it’s a bit like fly fishing phishing

I took the liberty of 'correcting' that ;)
 
I took the liberty of 'correcting' that ;)
Yes, but in a way you’ve destroyed the point I was making because phishing doesn’t necessarily require that folk are expecting anything :(.
 
Yes, but in a way you’ve destroyed the point I was making because phishing doesn’t necessarily require that folk are expecting anything :(.

Ah! though it is maybe in the same category of.................................the autobot phone calls telling you they have taken £39.99 out of your account and to cancel "press 1" triggering the thought in the recipent of, I have Prime so the call must be from Amazon because they 'know' me and I had better press 1 to get it sorted out?

i.e. not so much expecting the call but some will be responsive to the call (because they already have a relationship with Amazon) in a detrimental way to them :(
 
Ah! though it is maybe in the same category of.................................the autobot phone calls telling you they have taken £39.99 out of your account and to cancel "press 1" triggering the thought in the recipent of, I have Prime so the call must be from Amazon because they 'know' me and I had better press 1 to get it sorted out?

i.e. not so much expecting the call but some will be responsive to the call (because they already have a relationship with Amazon) in a detrimental way to them :(
Indeed, but my point that your “correction” means we are now ‘explaining by analogous example’ with something else (phishing) that also needs explaining and so on ... . Anyway I’ll leave it there :) because we could go on forever on this ;):D:eek:.
 
Indeed, but my point that your “correction” means we are now ‘explaining by analogous example’ with something else (phishing) that also needs explaining and so on ... . Anyway I’ll leave it there :) because we could go on forever on this ;):D:eek:.

;) :agree::jaffa::woot::coat:
 
As noted in that reply, though intrigued that an EE agent said that the id sub domain of EE is not genuine....................whereas they clearly have that system???

Perhaps for a lost password, which would relate to id but not for an unpaid account which is what we were discussing,
I knew the answer to my security question and know my password should I need it and TBH I would rather they erred on the side of caution then find my bank account had been emptied
Perhaps that link you put is a scam, not testing it to find out though
 
Ah! though it is maybe in the same category of.................................the autobot phone calls telling you they have taken £39.99 out of your account and to cancel "press 1" triggering the thought in the recipent of, I have Prime so the call must be from Amazon because they 'know' me and I had better press 1 to get it sorted out?

i.e. not so much expecting the call but some will be responsive to the call (because they already have a relationship with Amazon) in a detrimental way to them :(


The autoboot tells you they will be taking 39.99 but (the ones we've had) don't specify a currency.
 
I haven’t heard of this one until now so apologies if it’s already known about. My wife read about it on her regular forum This morning. After reading the first few words you can guess the rest.

A lady calls at your home and tells you her car has broken down and asks to use the telephone (landline, I assume) to call her husband...yes,you’ve guessed it as I did..she calls a premium number and no doubt makes the call last a while. From a landline it can be as much as £1.50 a minute, a mobile much more.

What could you say to someone doing this ? The line is dead and I don’t have a mobile....naff off..lol...send them next door..lol..or, I suppose you could ask for the number and call it yourself but you’d have to know what the code for premium lines are and if more than the 070 and 076 often used in the ‘call back’ scam it would be impossible. I suppose the ’lady’ would say her mobile battery is dead or some other excuse as just about everyone carries a mobile so why be asking to use your phone.

Re internet scams, it just shows how many people have criminal intent lurking within when it doesn’t need to involve breaking into homes, face to face deception and theft of all kinds. They just need to be technologically savvy.
 
Yipeee.........

We (living in the UK) have just had a phone call telling us we have just won £190k (or thereabouts) on the Australian Lottery :)

My wife was so excited she hung up before finding out how we might avail ourselves of this windfall......

One wonders why the Australian lottery prize was in UK Pounds & not Australian dollars, not to mention the fact we have never bought a ticket?:LOL:
 
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I can’t find the link but yesterday it was reported they’d arrested the boss of the scamming outfit in India that featured in the recent “hack back” on BBC Panorama. :)
 
I can’t find the link but yesterday it was reported they’d arrested the boss of the scamming outfit in India that featured in the recent “hack back” on BBC Panorama. :)
Here's a link to the story on BBC news.
 
Here's a link to the story on BBC news.
Ah, it’s filed under “Technology” which I think is a bit odd and they didn’t offer it in my search :(.
 
Puzzling one today. Number shown is 00410780791881 which is an invalid number and doesn't turn up in searches :thinking:. I did not get to phone in time to answer and no message was left :(. The number is exactly as shown but it’s just occurred to me that if I remove the zeros and add a + it looks like a valid number so I’ll try that :).

Edit: It seems 0041 can be USA or Canada without any pluses, +41 is Switzerland. So it’s probably a scam call from US, not sure why it’s reported “invalid” in that case. Got that wrong, US to Switzerland put 0041 instead of +41! So it remains a mystery.
 
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If it's a fake presentation number, coming in through a VoIP gateway via a VPN, they could have been calling from anywhere in the world.
 
If it's a fake presentation number, coming in through a VoIP gateway via a VPN, they could have been calling from anywhere in the world.
Yes, I know they can spoof the numbers but it’s a bit odd to spoof an invalid number, rather destroys their system :).
 
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