I fell for a scam too!

[LuluJakey1]

Like another poster I fell for a scam.
I had an email from TV licensing telling me they had been unable to collect on our direct debit for our monthly tv license payment. Had our card number changed? Could I set up a new direct debit on the attached form and they would collect double next time.

I went on the tv licensing website and it looked exactly the same, exactly. We did have a new debit card. So I checked our bank account and saw a DD was due. filled in the form online and had a bit of a hmm feeling but did it anyway. It asked for bank details and debit card details.

A week later the bank contacted us to say there was some unusual activity on our account and they had stopped some payments. I went down to our branch and spoke to someone who checked the account. Almost £100 in Deliveroo - which were the payments they had stopped but also £ 390 in Next online over three days - which they had let through.

The bank were lovely and refunded it all, cancelled the card, and put in some new security questions on the account but I felt so stupid. It was reported as fraud by the bank and Next and they had an address for them- where the food and clothes were delivered in Liverpool.

Bank staff said it is phishing and so common. Beware!

God how do these people sleep at night.
I absolutely hate these types of people and it’s just so unbelievably common now.
I must get at least one dodgy email per day.

My very elderly father unfortunately fell for a scam and it was so sad. I wished I could have hunted those people down and caused them great pain and torture I was that angry.

I had an instinct it was dodgy but checking the website out and seeing the link was exactly the same as the web one reassured me. Should have trusted my instinct.

It was so easy for them to do. The bank said the scammers send out thousands of those emails and it only takes a few people to respond and they make money. I basically handed them my debit card and bank details they needed to spend money!

Thank goodness the bank were so good. £500 was a lot of money to lose.

When you say card details, did you give the three CVP numbers from the back of the card?
My sister was scammed horribly last year. Caller claiming to be from the banks fraud team and she transferred money. Really upsetting.

I got one of those emails OP! And they do look authentic! By coincidence I'd had the DD come out the day before so knew something was off, a quick google told me about the scam.

So pleased you got your money back

I've had that email a few times but when I expanded the address of the sender it was obvious that it wasn't from TV licensing. They also didn't address me by my name.

These people are really clever. I tend to presume all emails requesting bank details (or offering refunds) are fake. If the police turned up to arrest me for non payment of TV licence I'd just tell them I thought it was a phishing scam!

Althea I do the same and refuse to act on any email that asks for details or cash out of the blue. In 20 years, only one of them was a genuine request (& that had been initiated by DW but she forgot to tell me).

They do look genuine a lot of the time. It takes constant second guessing

I hardly ever click on a link on the email because then if it is a scam and I haven't realised I won't get caught.

If I am swivelling over if it is real I will go to the website of whatever company but completely separately and if can't find out,that way I'll call.

Although it was worrying for you @LuluJakey1, it’s good to start a thread about it, as it will warn others to be on the lookout for fake messages.
The more people who know about it, and talk about it the better.

Definitely useful to have a thread. So many people say "how can anyone fall for it?" but it's really easy.

I think of myself as pretty savvy but I ordered something from a fake website once - cheap North Face stuff. I really should have known. After I'd confirmed my order it told me there had been an error but when I checked my bank account the payment had been requested. I cancelled my card so that they couldn't access any more funds and put it down to a lesson learned.

The TV licence scam has been pretty widely published and I know there have been threads here about it. The safest thing to do is simply assume all emails are scams, never click on a link and never enter bank details if you have the tiniest doubt.

Out of interest did the email address you correctly by name? Anything that says dear customer, dear client, dear [email protected] is never going to be genuine

Other signs to look out for are poor written English, spelling mistakes and use of GBP when they mean £

So sorry to hear this 🤬🤬

Heard of a bank jn Ireland refusing to give customers back their money after being scammed

Just awful

And so so easy to fall for these scams

We had the same email last year, fortunately just after the DD payment went through. It was probably the most realistic scam email I have ever received, I actually did think it was from TV Licensing.
It's good to make as many people aware as possible, I think it would be easy to be fooled by that one.

Had one, so checked the email it was from; checked the bank account and the DD had gone out, and, checked the original email that had my TV licence number on...it was different from the one on the phishing email. I then forwarded the email to the TV licencing phishing email account.

I've had similar and they do look legitimate so no need to feel stupid!! I checked the senders email address and it didn't look right so I called tv licensing and they confirmed it wasn't them. I've had it more than once but I just ignore it now.

I had a bank one where someone called me it was done in such a clever way, I'm really on the ball though so didnt fall for it. Eventually I said "I'm sorry but this all sounds really fishy and I'm going to hang up", he even said "no problem, I fully understand why you might be suspicious, if you want to pop into the (local) branch, the manager (correct name) will discuss this with you further'

I called the bank after who told me it was scam but I honestly think it was done in such a good way loads of people will fall for it

I got that email too! It was very convincing. I checked my bank account and saw my DD was still going out, so knew it was a scam -
albeit a good one.

I got one from O2 saying they’d had trouble processing my recent direct debit. As I’d had a new card and it was the right time of the month to pay the bill, I didn’t question it and gave loads of personal details on the website which was identical to O2. Luckily I realised and contacted all the necessary people who immediately blocked my accounts. I thought I was pretty good at recognising scams but the guy from LLoyds said that it can happen when you’re multitasking or stressed and that your brain completes the narrative in your head so that it makes sense e.g in my case the fact that I’d not updated my new card details and that it was the right time of the month for the DD.

@LuluJakey1 Can I just say thank you for posting this - I too have just received the same email, and it did look very convincing. The only reason I was so alert to it was because I remember that I had read your post.

I checked my bank account and all is good, but I can see how loads could be fooled by it very easily.

There was a massive spelling mistake though - hom instead of home at one point.

I got one from BT saying my bill was ready, like the always do. I thought "what already??" like I always do. But instead of clicking the link like I normally do I went to the website under my own steam. It wasn't ready! For once it really was too soon. Phew! The cheeky bastards have continued to email almost daily. It was very convincing.

I also had an email from HMRC to say I had a £300 rebate I but needed to log in. It's always a rage-enducing faff to log in to HMRC so I left it for the time being. Then a statement arrived in the post with nothing about a rebate on it. Double phew! Mind you I had slipped student DC1 a few quid as I had just had a windfall, but I don't really mind that.

Iv just fallen for a huge one.... and the consequences for my stupidity is my 2 childrens savings accounts have today been cleared out by these nasty greedy bastards!!!

Had a text 2 days ago from Halifax saying a new payee had been set up on my online banking, if this wasnt me press this link ....
Can I add I work full time, have 2 young children, am busy, stressed, tired, multitasking etc..... I know about these things but it was like I was on auto pilot dealing with yet another shitty problem so I pressed the link.
It genuinely was Halifax, the exact double.... asked me for online banking user name nd password, then an automated call with a 4 digit number, typed this in, it then said fraud on my account, my online banking is now frozen and fraud team will contact me within 24 hours.
Fucking clever!

Today I called Halifax, was on the phone for 5 hours on hold to the top fraud team.
Turns out it was fake, the fraudsters did all that, locked me out of my own online banking so I coukdnt see their activity.
They have cleared my 2 and 5 year olds savings of over £5000. Their accounts are attached to my online banking so they had to transfer their money into my account quickly before taking several chunks of approx £600 transactions at a time, all within this apparent 24 hours I was waiting to hear back from the fraud team....
GENIUS.

I hope these cunts die in a fucking car crash