[Finance] ******** The Scam Thread *********

[Horses Arse]

Suspicious national insurance number activity (whatever that means) on the northern border of Wales apparently. Legal action taken against me if I don't press 1.

Me yelling "were they f@cking fishing you c#nt" at the recoded message probably is not much of a deterent but it did wake the house up.

Good job these scammers are thick I guess

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[Dancin Ninja BHA]

Had a very good email from 'The Post Office' asking for me to pay Customs duty on a recent parcel.

I WISH it was an email!! Mine was a text, sent before 6am! Ditto the message above

 

[happypig]

Suspicious national insurance number activity (whatever that means) on the northern border of Wales apparently. Legal action taken against me if I don't press 1.

Me yelling "were they f@cking fishing you c#nt" at the recoded message probably is not much of a deterent but it did wake the house up.

Good job these scammers are thick I guess

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

The scammers aren't thick, they are hoping you are (clearly you aren't as you spotted it).

 

[vegster]

The best one I ever had was a letter from Barclays to my late mother, acknowledging her claim to compensation for something missold. I looked after my mother's finances for the last ten years of her life, she never had a Credit Card, a loan or a private pension. She never actually had ANY dealings with Barclays at all?

 

[Uh_huh_him]

My boy (19) has just been scammed out of all his savings.

Some email about a tax refund.
Which was followed up by a call telling him to transfer some money.
Then a second call purporting to be HSBC saying the first call was a scam and to transfer all his money to a different account.

He's autistic and quite vulnerable to this sort of thing.
Hopefully he will learn from it.

Hopefully he will get some of it back from HSBC.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

My boy (19) has just been scammed out of all his savings.

Some email about a tax refund.
Which was followed up by a call telling him to transfer some money.
Then a second call purporting to be HSBC saying the first call was a scam and to transfer all his money to a different account.

He's autistic and quite vulnerable to this sort of thing.
Hopefully he will learn from it.

Hopefully he will get some of it back from HSBC.

That is truly awful. I wish you and your son well in your endeavour to retrieve the money.

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

Might be useful to someone on here

https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAs...ce/fraud/met/the-little-book-of-big-scams.pdf


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[Weststander]

My boy (19) has just been scammed out of all his savings.

Some email about a tax refund.
Which was followed up by a call telling him to transfer some money.
Then a second call purporting to be HSBC saying the first call was a scam and to transfer all his money to a different account.

He's autistic and quite vulnerable to this sort of thing.
Hopefully he will learn from it.

Hopefully he will get some of it back from HSBC.

So sorry to hear that. I hope HSBC show goodwill and pay back every penny.

I’m an accountant and no technophobe, but a couple of times I’ve been a couple of clicks away from making a similar ‘mistake’.

 

[AmexRuislip]

There's one scam going around Sussex at the moment, where a 'roofing expert' calls phishing about loft insulation and purporting about condensation.
My mother law had this call the other evening, which did catch her at first, but quickly realised what it was.

 

[Wrong-Direction]

A mobile called me the other day with an automated message saying we've detected fraud and press 1 to go through to an advisor or we'll send someone to get you!

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[Weststander]

For anyone here running a business or involved in the paying of suppliers:

I recently emailed out sales invoices for a client, all to legit, tried and trusted email addresses.

One was to a charity. Someone electronically, it’s felt at their end, intercepted our invoice. A week later resending it the Head of Finance at the charity, with a doctored payments section with a new bank account, with letters supposedly from my client and their purported new bank of Lloyds ..... explaining my client’s change of bank’s and account.

All false, nothing had changed.

The charity fell for it and were about to pay a 5-figure sum.

They/we got lucky because the Head of Finance emailed me, thanking me for letting her know about our change of bank.

 

[rigton70]

I do not understand anyone that gets scammed over the internet or phone.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

My land line has call screening. Now not even my so called friends call me..

Seriously...it works very nicely.

 

[Weststander]

I do not understand anyone that gets scammed over the internet or phone.

The elderly, the vulnerable, anyone who struggles with technology.

Countless potential targets.

Easy to be taken in by email from the TV Licence body about a failed DD, or from a well rehearsed faux call from BT Openreach or a bank.

 

[Hugo Rune]

In March 2019 I purchased insurance from A famous British breakdown cover A* brand. They bolted on breakdown cover to the insurance with my agreement to.

A day or so later and my existing car insurance provider beat their price by about £70 so I renewed with them and cancelled the insurance with the famous A* breakdown cover brand.

I’ve just received a letter from them telling me that my breakdown cover will automatically be renewed this coming March for £110. I look at my bank statement from last March (country going into lockdown, my mind and work all over the place) and realise they stung me for £110 last year too. The cretins had cancelled my car insurance but not the bolt-on breakdown cover the absolute sh*ts. This was never explained to me. I even spent about £200 having my car repaired roadside in 2019!

However, they have now cancelled the renewal and refunded me the original payments. I do wonder how many other people who cancel insurance quotes are left with whatever bolt-ons they’ve been sold as well?

 

[Uh_huh_him]

I do not understand anyone that gets scammed over the internet or phone.

They're looking for vulnerable people.
My son is autistic and was taken in.
He said he felt it wasn't quite legit, but is easily duped because he doesn't trust his feelings, due to being autistic.

1/100 people are autistic and there are many other reasosn why people might be vulnerable.

The scammers only have to be successful from a tiny percentage of email texts they send out to make huge sums of money.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

In March 2019 I purchased insurance from A famous British breakdown cover A* brand. They bolted on breakdown cover to the insurance with my agreement to.

A day or so later and my existing car insurance provider beat their price by about £70 so I renewed with them and cancelled the insurance with the famous A* breakdown cover brand.

I’ve just received a letter from them telling me that my breakdown cover will automatically be renewed this coming March for £110. I look at my bank statement from last March (country going into lockdown, my mind and work all over the place) and realise they stung me for £110 last year too. The cretins had cancelled my car insurance but not the bolt-on breakdown cover the absolute sh*ts. This was never explained to me. I even spent about £200 having my car repaired roadside in 2019!

However, they have now cancelled the renewal and refunded me the original payments. I do wonder how many other people who cancel insurance quotes are left with whatever bolt-ons they’ve been sold as well?

The AA are shits.

I was chatting about a home insurance renewal with an AA broker (when renewing my car insurance with them) and mentioned a crack in a wall (my house was built in 1880). They said I could get a 'free' check by a surveyor. Great. The surveyor said it was just a crack in and old house and there is no subsidance. The following year my home insurance premium quote from the AA more than doubled. I looked at the quote and the tiny print said I had subsidence. I phoned the AA and was told that when you are checked for subsidence this is recorded as subsidence 'by some insurers'. After a bit of a row they promised to amend my records and the quote halved. But the following year the same happened. At that point I stopped dealing with them.

 

[rippleman]

There is no rhyme or reason why some individuals fall for scams. Some scams are far more sophisticated than others. I admit that sometimes it's difficult to sympathise with someone paying a scammer to obtain their lottery winnings - for a lottery they never bought a ticket for in the first place. Or paying to receive an inheritance from a "family member" that was obviously never a member of your family. But unfortunately people do fall for them; if there wasn't some element of success the scammers wouldn't carry on with them.

As others have pointed out there are many reasons why people do get caught and they tend to be the more vulnerable members of society. I was watching a TV programme earlier this week where this lady had paid over £80K (everything she had - and some) to a "romance scammer". They are really cruel scams as the victims are usually lonely, sad and vulnerable. And once you start paying, you are hooked and you just have to keep on paying.

"Believe nothing. Trust nobody". And you won't go far wrong. If you find yourself thinking "I wonder if this is real or a scam". You can betcha it will be a scam.

 

[Weststander]

A novel attempted scam.

I just received a call on my mobile from a 07 mobile number, just a few digits different from my own number!

A sturn sounding recorded message kicked in, claiming that:

"Warning. Your National Insurance Number has been comprised. You will be liable for any consequential losses. Press 1 to speak to the lead investigating officer handling the case". 's.

In error, I terminated the call.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

All those Equity Release Calculator ads that pop up on your timeline? Every damn one makes you fill in your contact details before they even PRETEND to calculate anything at all. Pure scamming ****s