Amazon scam..almost got caught

[Dowser]

House phone rang and a woman says your amazon prime subscription is due to end, true
She speaks very fast and not a native English speaker and the line is very noisy so I can barely make out what she says
So she says I will help you cancel it.
I ask a question..and she says if you cooperate with me , I will help you cancel it

Now I didn’t like that word...so I’m on red alert .
She wants to know if i have a mobile, tablet or computer ..so I said tablet

So she’s asking me to go into an App Store and download an app

So, I find it..and then in small print, thank god I had my glasses on, I saw , screen sharer

I said, hang on, I’ll have a word with my husband.
He said, that’s not right, it’s a scam, so he took over the call..and I went on amazon website and cancelled the subscription in seconds and screen shotted it.

Anyway he got annoyed with her and put the phone down.
Talk about aggressive, she rang back 5 times
We unplugged the phone in the end

The number was 016 something and looks like it. Could be related to a Vietnamese company vienettel or something . It was a Buxton area code

We put the phone back in again..and another call came through
This time it was 01421 which isn’t assigned to any area.

Anyway, just spoken to my son in law and they had one today too and he was in a shop and heard a guy on the phone getting stroppy with amazon.

I can’t believe how plausible she was..I’d have been more on my guard, if my blooming subscription wasn’t due to end in August.

They are getting too clever these people.

"screen sharer"

What does that mean, OP? I don't get the reference.

@Timekeeper1

"screen sharer"

What does that mean, OP? I don't get the reference.

It's an app that would give access to OP's devices, so they can see what's there, I think.

I’ve had the Amazon scam call. Bloody irritating.

The key for me is to remember that these big companies are highly unlikely to call you. Emails sometimes, but the only ones I have ever had from Amazon are the ones confirming my orders/cancellations or something else that I have done to my account.

The one that many people get caught out by is the one purporting to be from BT Technical Department trying to tell you that your internet has been compromised and will be cut off at a certain time unless you allow them access to your computer so that they can “fix” it. Or there is a fault on your line that they can fix if you give them access etc. etc.

BT does not have a Technical Department. Nor does it report faults to it’s customers. It relies on customers themselves reporting faults.

Well done for clocking this before too late, OP. However, I am a little bemused about why you suddenly cancelled your Amazon Prime account unless you were planning to anyway. It hadn’t been compromised. This woman did not have your details, she was trying to get you to reveal them, or to get you to install software (the app) that would reveal them to her.

They’re not “getting too clever”; it was quite obviously a scam from the start.

While I and many others wouldn’t have fallen for it, fact is that some people do, and you only need say, one in ten to fall for it and they’ve made money.

If people didn’t fall for these scams, then they wouldn’t exist.

Interestingly, I made a post a couple months back about a fake call I received from my bank and wanted to give people on here the heads up, the amount of abuse I recieved from pretty much everyone on the post, mocking me and calling me stupid and naive was unreal. Just like the responses you have had too OP, although you have had more reasonable and nice responses.

I had had a call from a chap claiming he was Aaron from the fraud detection department from Barclays and that someone had made two massive payments, using my card to john Lewis, close to a grand and then also hundreds of pounds to a teeth whitening company. The number actually came up as Barclays can you believe. These people will pay hundreds to imitate or hack a number to make people fall for the scam and so on. Anyway after talking to him for a couple minutes, I realised this is a total scam and my husband walked into the room and I put the phone on speaker. The man was saying all sorts of nonsense and when I had posted this originally to give the heads up, I used the term my hunk of a man, a term I use for my husband. Oh my goodness, i wish i didn't post that as then i was called alsorts and people laughing and saying how dumb i was but thank God the hunk of the man was there. Anyway I actually asked mumsnet to remove which they did .
Anyway, my husband took the phone off me just as they were saying they are going to freeze my account so the money cant leave the account and they would need the last 3 digits on the back of the card. Can you believe it! A bank would never ask for that! Anyway, as soon as my husband said hello, they immediately shut up and hung up the phone. I instantly called Barclays, whom had said they hadn't called me and my account was ok.
I had made a post to give people on here the heads up and was just given a really nasty response. Like I was some stupid fool that fell for the scam, and gave all my information to this scammer willingly. Which I hadn't. But the amount of abuse was actually quite upsetting. It was 7 pages and maybe 2 comments at most were either sympathetic or thanks for letting us know. I can never understand people like that. So am sorry for people being rude to you on here.

Glad you didn't go any further with it.

@Dowser I can recommend a phone by BT called BT Call Minder which filters out all nuisance scam calls.

It works by having a directory where you store your contacts then any calls that come through not recognised it asks the caller to say their name and wait to be put through. It cut out 100% of our scam and marketing calls immediately because they never stay on the line and announce themselves. We were hounded by scammers before that.

It's a game changer!

@PopsicleHustler that's disgraceful behaviour but it has become par for the course and Covid19 has made things even worst. The nastiness on here is horrendous

‘ They are getting too clever these people’ they’re not, at all.

Never give any information to someone on the phone unless you’ve call them yourself for something.

@LIZS

We get automated calls at least twice a week. Tell us Amazon Prime is about to renew at 79.99 unless we press to cancel. Always a scam.

We get the same. I'm guessing the automated is to make it sound more legitimate

For those getting frequent calls, I can recommend BT call guardian phone. We don’t get any since. Unless people are in your phone book, they have to announce their name first before the phone rings in your house. So anyone who is automated or working in a scam call centre doesn’t get though. People in your phone book come through as normal. Haven’t had a single scam call or sales call in 5 years.

I had a call at work that I had won money in the lottery That seemed weird but assumed it was a competition. Brain was not engaged but when the Indian man asked for my bank details it suddenly clicked! Duh!

I do sometimes play the lottery but no way would they know to phone the hospital number where I worked! They wouldn't know my mobile number either!

@Timekeeper1

"screen sharer"

What does that mean, OP? I don't get the reference.

It’s an app, which would allow them to see what people are accessing by screen sharing. They’re looking for credit card purchases or people logging in to banks accounts.

I’ve had this scam call a few times but never got far enough to know what exactly they were after.

@DrDreReturns

I've had several of these calls and it's pretty obvious it's a scam. Amazon will never phone you, it'll be via email if they need to contact you.

Same here. I hung up almost straight away.

Why on earth would amazon randomly call you to help you cancel something which is making them money?!

I’m sorry OP, I just am always flabbergasted some people do fall or nearly fall for such obvious scams. It really does boggle the mind.

Thanks for the warning, OP.
It’s not just dopes or the hopelessly naive who get caught, though admittedly it’s easy to think so.
I read not long ago of someone who’s a writer or researcher (forget which) for the financial pages of a quality newspaper, who was scammed. If it can happen to someone like that....

I get an Amazon scam call from time to time but not in this format. I had one 2 days ago - I recognise it immediately.

I'm with BT and often get fake BT calls saying there's a problem with my conputer. I ask which one and try to ask technical questions, it usually puts them off.

This week I've had more texts from Paypal, HMRC and driving licence.

I expect lots of older people are scammed and it gives me the rage to think of elderly people being manipulated especially.

I recently went to renew my driving license in a rush. Did a search and the first link on Google takes you to an advert. In my rush the link took me to the site that looks like the DVLA site. I followed the instructions to renew, thinking that sounds a lot to renew a licence.

Afterwards when I noted this was not DVLA, but www.licenseplus I went on to Trust Pilot. I researched the company and lots of people had signed up too to this third party company that handles the licence application. Some people had been lucky and received a licence renewal (for £50 instead of the usual £20 direct from dvla) some had never received it, others had a refund, some were waiting. Lots of reviews from those scammed

I applied for a refund (as it stated you could, within 24 hrs) and was amazed to receive it.
Then took the time to apply with DVLA directly.

I usually just put the phone down for scam calls.

The last time I had one, I said to the caller that I knew it was a scam call and that he was going to try and defraud me and I asked how he was going to try and get money out of me. I've never had a caller hang up so quickly.

That was months ago and I haven't had a scam call since.

Still get plenty of scam emails though.

This thread is yet another example of the just world fallacy in action - bad things don't happen to good people, therefore if something bad happens to you, you must be to blame.

We are hard-wired to see the best in others and scammers rely on that. OP, please don't feel stupid that you were almost taken in.

The PP on this thread being unkind to the OP are contributing to the shame victims of scams feel. That in turn also helps scammers. Shame on you.

If anyone wants to get angry, have you ever thought about directing it towards the thieving bastards on the other end of the phone?

This in spades. I can't bear the "scammers are scammers and it's your fault if you get caught" attitude that I am seeing from some posters on here. It's very straightforward. Scamming is criminal fraud. It's disgusting. The people who run these schemes are vermin. Don't boost them by blaming the victim.

I agree That however alert and switched on you are, if caught offguard you can fall for a scam. A couple of months ago I was rung by someone who said he was from the RSC and needed my bank account details to refund the cost of tickets for cancelled shows. I was expecting contact so I was halfway through giving my bank account details when I suddenly paused and wondered if it was a scam. Actually the details he was able To give me proved to my satisfaction that he was genuine. But It could easily have gone the other way.

Actually the only person “scammed” was DH because although I am the recorded contact with the RSC he had paid for the tickets so I ended up with the refund in my bank account and he was out of pocket!

These scammers are ringing several lines at once so when you answer there is a delay before they speak. I give a caller a second to speak before hanging up. A genuine caller ie. family will ring again.

Sorry OP don't mean to be rude but given the wide media coverage these scams get, and a person's own common sense, am amazed that anyone would even continue listening past the first few words.

These days I just say I cannot give you information as I don’t know who you are.

That’s to the reasonable sounding most likely Vodafone caller on my mobile.

Anything on landline no chance and your caller did sound highly suspect.