New scam to beware of

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A fair cop, Rod

MichaelG.

Thanks Grindstone!

It's not often I can second guess Michael, And I still expect a clever riposte.

Rod

Well me and my big mouth. my wife was checking a recent bank statement and there were two transactions for amazon. Now we have dealt with amazon a fair bit recently but fortunately my wife is red hot on the accounts side and keeps meticulous records of what we spend and these figures didn't ring a bell at all. Reference to our amazon account showed no such transactions for that value and date. Got onto the bank who cancelled card and said the sum would be refunded.

No harm done in that sense then but unnerved us a bit as we are so careful.

I have also deleted our card details which amazon tends to keep, makes it easier when doing orders and details are supposed to be safe? but from now on I will enter a card for each order and delete it afterwards.

Where do these scammers get peoples card info from?

Bill D

Bill, I recently had an attempt to use my card, luckily my bank account is linked to my phone, and if it detects use at a location it assumes I'm not at, it stops the transaction, and sends me a text msg asking me if the transaction was me, a 'no' reply will freeze your account instantly, and a new card will need to be ordered.

While ordering my new card, I asked how someone could have got my card details, she told me it could be possible that an unscrupulous employee at a legitimate business either uses your info, or passes/sells it on as I haven't used my card any sites that could be considered even slightly dodgy.

The person who had my details tried making a fast food delivery from 'deliveroo' or something for less than a tenner, so not a professional fraudster.

"Not a professional fraudster "?? How sure can you be, that transaction could have been a test and if it went through, next one could have cleaned you out.

John

If you have a number of cards, I suggest only using Sainsburys cr card to buy in Sainsburys, Tesco cr card only to buy in Tescos, M&S cr card to buy in Mark's only.

Keep all till receipts for each company on a separate bulldog or similar Spring clip to await comparison with Statement.

Strict adherence to para. 1 will soon show up, say e.g., Tescos petrol on Sainsburys Statement and draw attention to a dodgy transaction. Amazon items on Tesco Statement?, same thing. Keep say, a Halifafax card for swipe n go at smaller food shops in general or only takeaways and use Nationwide card for smaller food shops other than takeaways. No fraudster is going to know what each card is used for, exclusively.

Dont allow card issuers to "award" you with ridiculously high credit limits. I used an Esso garage in Brighton many years ago, paying witha a card witha very low limit with several items already on it. Got a call from the issuer asking if I had any connection with a certain district of Brighton and have I tried to buy a computer with that card because it busted the credit limit! "No." so card was replaced and Police visited house involved. Bit surprised that they shared so much info with me. I should add that I always pay cards " in full" to quote Martin Lewis.

John, it's entirely possible, but it seems to be a location trigger which trips the Banks security measures, I'd hazard an entirely uneducated guess, that people who know what they're doing have a means of tricking the measures put in place to determine location, and bypass the account owner being notified.

The following message about scammers came from our Neighbourhood Watch yesterday:-

Online Shoppers Beware Emails from Scammers – They are trying to get access to your Cards and Accounts

More and more of us are shopping on line and ordering goods to be delivered direct to our homes.
Criminals know this and are sending scam emails or texts appearing to be from Royal Mail or a courier company, stating that they tried to deliver a parcel but no one was at home and there wasn’t a safe place to leave it, and ask you to click a link to reschedule the delivery.
The link directs you to an authentic looking website, which asks for your full name, address, date of birth and mobile number.
Anyone completing the form will then be prompted to enter their bank or credit card details, which the scammers will then use to drain your bank account.
PROTECT YOURSELF - DON’T CLICK ON ANY LINK WITHIN SUCH EMAILS.

The fraudsters may have obtained your email or mobile number, but they are unlikely to know who you are or where live. The fraudster who sent me an email earlier this week claiming to be from dPd Courier company presumably doesn’t know of my previous fraud investigation experience. The fraudster sent the message from his own personal email account .
Any genuine email from Royal Mail or a Courier company will never be sent from an individual’s personal email account.
If you receive an email which you’re not quite sure about, forward it to the Suspicious Email Reporting Service (SERS): [email protected]
Feel free to share this information and advice with family friends and neighbours and on social media.


Neighbours looking out for each other, and been prepared to report suspicious activity also helps deter offenders and reduce crime. If you want to find out if there is already a Neighbourhood Watch Scheme in your area, or you’d like to find out more, check out their site www.ourwatch.org.uk

Edited By V8Eng on 05/12/2020 07:43:40

I just ask them what they are doing with the other hand???????

pete

I have had a lot of the BT scam emails, and usually forward these to report phishing who are in my contacts folder.

The other day I had another scam email, and attempted to forward it, but the computer said no. I tried several times and could not forward it. As a test I forwarded a couple of other emails with no problem, and went back to the rogue email, and again i could not forward it, so just deleted it. This is the second time I have had this experience. Has anyone else had the problem? Any one know if the scammers are responsible somehow? I did ask action fraud who did not seem to know or want to answer my question.

Chris Gunn

Chris Gunn - I had similar in that something could not be forwarded. I copied and pasted it to a word document then sent that to the fraud people.

R Johns, thanks for that, nice to know I am not the only one, I bet there are more out there, i will try and get a more sensible answer about this from the fraud folk, they ought to be aware, as if all the scammers do the same thing, the majority of recipients will not copy and paste, they will not bother if it is not easy to report the scams, and the scammers will win.

Chris Gunn

I've had various 'phishing mails' this past week, Bit coin a/c, BT a/c etc, yesterday I got one from the FBI in the USA; stating that I was owed 10.5 million dollars ! so along with Bitcoin saying I have £14,700 in my a/c ( no account by the way ) I'm filthy rich... NOT! .. It's that time of the year I'm afraid, just be vigilant.

George.

Today's mail was from Linked-in. Said my company had sent a group mail which would be very unusual plus I haven't used Linked-in for years. It had a nice helpful link to said mail but the link was sort of plausibly like the company name but with an extra full stop sneeked in. Probably designed to try to catch those who do check the destination but not carefully enough. Our corporate version of email reader has a one click reporting system that then blocks all equivalent mails as they are obviously working through the company address book.

For weeding out unwanted emails, I've been using Mailwasher for many years now, in conjunction with Thunderbird as my email programme. The preview function easily allows you to see the real URL used in any links.

Not so useful if you prefer to use web-based email services though.

Rob

Some years ago I went into a local branch of a large home electrical supplier. I bought a small tv, at the check out desk, which at that time was a multi occupancy booth, the chap said the network was down and they would have to do my card manually, ok. Next day had a email check from the fraud department of my bank. Some one had done a £1 transaction then tried to do a larger sum, that s when they contacted me to find them. When I rang they explained what had happened and happily blocked the transactions and sent me a new card. So I could absolutely pinpoint the point of fraud, it hasn’t happened again.

Too frequently, I get E mails, from folk that I know suggesting that I click on a link!

The last one, last week, was from a model engineering friend who died a couple of years ago.

His ghost seemed to have moved to an address ending in "jp"

Another acquaintance seems to have moved to Brazil!

I think not.

All such messages go to Trash and then complete deletion.

Any message tends to get a check of the sender's E mail address. Anything remotely strange is permanently deleted.

I wonder what would happen if I replied offering a job involving sex and travel? Am afraid of the consequences.

Howard

Just had a call from Jennifer at the Virgin Media tech support about my internet problems, I asked her what my name was & she replied 'f*****g idiot' & slammed the phone down, it did make me chuckle as it shows they must have feelings, no bonus for her today.

Tony

Hi Guys,

I just do a "Ctrl V" to see the full textual contents of any Email ! I don't know if that works on non Linux machines.

Its surprising what information you can glean about the sender of this junk. A lot actually comes from universities and other educational establishments.