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Original poster

Scams- more going round?

30 replies

Yamayo · 22/01/2021 19:10

Apparently there has been mention of the HMRC one- you know the one where an automated voice tells you HMRC is sending the police to arrest you if you don't pay them straight away?
If you hang up without pressing 1 rhe warrant will be issued etc

I had a rather elaborate one this afternoon from a Barclays certified number. They asked me to go home and log on online to verify fraudulent transactions on my account, which were present.
This led to having to upgrade security on my account, as 'there have been lots of fraud reported to Barclays recently' (their words).
Then the kicker is to reset the account I have to transfer money to the local branch manager's personal account (the safest one, apparently 🤔) while they verified my details and authorised the rest of the funds to go on my new (imaginary) account.

It sounds ridiculous on paper, but coming from a certified number it was almost convincing. They were very sweet and apologetic and nice about it too. 😆

OP posts:

AlCalavicci · 23/01/2021 02:47

I have had loads lately, the HMRC one you mentioned both via text and phone calls , royal mail saying they have a parcel and I need to pay to ret it delivered or it will be destroyed,
My BT broad band is about to be cut off ( dont have BT )
Amazon account has been hacked , Nope it not .

Sky has will be suspended if I dont pay the £100 pound fine right now that one really pissed me off the guy was aggressive and bullying but I enjoyed letting him go on at me for a good 5 mis before I told him I dont have sky .
I have to say your bank one really does take the biscuit though , !

MermaidDreams83 · 23/01/2021 02:57

My FIL had one yesterday, said someone had been using his card and that were going to put him through to the police, bizarrely he did comment that the policewoman sounded like a man pretending to be woman. A few hours later the real police called and asked if he'd given out any personal details, which he hadn't. Most strange!

Furries · 23/01/2021 03:07

The Amazon one has been doing my head in over the past few months! I finally pressed “1” the other day and it was answered quickly - I got as far as “just fucking fuck off with your ....” and they hung up on me. I’m really not normally that sweary, but I just kept thinking of people who are fooled by it. I haven’t had a call since, so fingers crossed!

Had an email from “my bank” a while ago. Have to say, it was one of the best looking scams I’ve seen. The email was done really well and very easy to see how people would fall for it.

They’re clever sods, makes me feel sick how anyone can do this kind of stuff.

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CentrifugalBumblePuppy · 23/01/2021 03:22

We’ve definitely had more on our landline recently. On Monday there were 10. All the classics. HMRC arrests, BT Internet (we don’t use BT), computer virus, Amazon 1) Prime £79.99 & 2) You’ve bought an iPad on your account (a new release, heading straight to number 5 on the Scammer’s Top Ten this week). And text scams for Halifax, HSBC & Santander (all with ridiculous URLs to click on).

We have the landline number logged with the Telephone Preference Service but that does bugger all.

Oddly, the only 2 organisations I have ever given our landline number to is a National charity I volunteered as a leader for, and the NHS, neither of which have ‘we will not provide or sell your personal details to’ blurb on providing personal information. So one of them is selling user numbers on (ex telecoms director here, very careful with whom we give the house phone number to).

Piddles me off as it’s my family’s emergency contact number, which rarely rings. So with every call I shit myself in case it’s Dad’s care home - especially with COVID in the home at the moment, or that my Mum has slipped & got her head jammed in an Errol dining chair (she often has comedy accidents; knocked off her bike by a Robin Reliant, broke her wrist playing trolley bumper cars with a toddler in Morrison’s, stuck a button up her nose as a child in 1950 which she sneezed out in 2010 etc.).

I do like to keep the scam callers on the phone for as long as I can though. I find it gives my full swearing vocabulary a good airing. Bastards.

youvegottenminuteslynn · 23/01/2021 03:50

I think it's mainly because the deadline for self assessment payment is looming so people are panicking and therefore respond / click through etc. HMRC content is so rubbish it's harder than most to be sure. I only use the official number to contact them even if it takes aaaaaages being on hold.

Furries · 23/01/2021 04:49

How the blooming heck do they get landline numbers if you’re ex-directory? Is it a case of them somehow being sold on through the odd sign up to other accounts - or do they just generate random number sequences and get lucky?

Disclaimer - I could probably google this, but I often prefer real life input!

recluse · 23/01/2021 05:27

I had the HMRC you will be arrested one the other day, and my daughter had a tax related “HMRC” text the other day. Her reaction (to me) was 🙄, I am 16 and don’t pay tax.

Every year I have a fake EE one and always panic until I remember, because I used to have an EE account.

It must be the economic climate that is causing so many scams at the moment, but they are vile.

FredaFox · 23/01/2021 05:45

My mum gets so many of these calls and while she is savvy with these calls and emails she does always ask me as she has doubts. She knows not to give personal details
I got her this phone on Black Friday, it’s brilliant, it blocks out the calls, it just beeps once when they ring and it auto blocks them, you can see on the handset what number has called. On her old phone I just to google the numbers to check they were scams and block them. If it’s not a known nuisance number the person has the option to say who is calling and my mum gets to say wether she will accept the call.
Really recommend this especially for older parents

FredaFox · 23/01/2021 05:48

@Furries numbers do get sold on and on
If you ever tick boxes on forms like “tick to share your details and selected 3rd party etc” this gets them out there

EmmanuelleMakro · 23/01/2021 05:59

I have had a few saying my PayPal account has been suspended - rubbish but could panic someone.
Charities are the worst for selling on numbers. I once succumbed to a tube ad charity request and was inundated by chuggrs from completely different charities.

Furries · 23/01/2021 06:47

[quote FredaFox]@Furries numbers do get sold on and on
If you ever tick boxes on forms like “tick to share your details and selected 3rd party etc” this gets them out there

Just remembered before she had the phone my mum got a call from somebody pretending to be from tps! I took the phone off her and went along with it, asked where he was based etc, googled at the same time and just said you are a scam etc tps don’t charge. He was giving their details out but his number was a known nuisance[/quote]
I always tick the equivalent of “don’t blooming bother me and I have no interest in any of your third cousins contacting me” box - so am still puzzled how they get my number (not that I’m expecting you to give me an answer!)

As many others on here, it annoys me more re my mum. She phones me often - “ive had a call, an email” etc. I’m glad she calls me, as I’ve tried to gently make her aware. She’s elderly, she shouldn’t have 5his fear. For some reason yesterday it ramped up. She had 15 flipping calls all re Amazon and all from different numbers - as fast as she blocked a number, she got another call. She is normally pragmatic, but yesterday she said she felt harassed in her own home. I hate them so much.

CigarsofthePharoahs · 23/01/2021 07:24

I've been getting a lot of scam calls recently. I've had the automated HMRC one and the Amazon one, but the worst by far have been the fake Virgin Media people.
They just keep phoning! Sometimes multiple times a day. Sometimes I'd just hang up, sometimes I'd swear and hang up, other times I'd mess with them. This just seemed to encourage them. I've stopped answering any landline calls that aren't a local area code and finally they're calling less.

SnuggyBuggy · 23/01/2021 07:27

What happens if you press 1? Do you get a real person?

Furries · 23/01/2021 07:28

@CigarsofthePharoahs

I've been getting a lot of scam calls recently. I've had the automated HMRC one and the Amazon one, but the worst by far have been the fake Virgin Media people. They just keep phoning! Sometimes multiple times a day. Sometimes I'd just hang up, sometimes I'd swear and hang up, other times I'd mess with them. This just seemed to encourage them. I've stopped answering any landline calls that aren't a local area code and finally they're calling less.

Haven’t heard of the Virgin one yet. What exactly are they saying to try and lure you in? Sorry you’ve had so many, it’s so blooming intrusive.

Furries · 23/01/2021 07:31

@SnuggyBuggy

What happens if you press 1? Do you get a real person?

I’ve only done it twice. First time the call just ended. Second time I got through to someone almost straight away - they probably got 3 words into their spiel when I launched my ranty sweary response, which they hung up on pdq!

midsomermurderess · 23/01/2021 07:34

I got the BT broadband one yesterday.

Ylvamoon · 23/01/2021 07:38

I had several emails about a speeding fine or fixed penalty back in September / October. They were all different amounts from something like £22.89 to £109.99 - obviously had to be paid within a few days or else. Problem for them, they never said where the offence occured!
(My educated guess is on my driveway 😜...)

Walkacrossthesand · 23/01/2021 08:01

I used to get 3 or 4 a day. Then I adopted a policy of not answering the landline phone, letting it go to voicemail. For quite a long while there were a lot of scammy messages left, but the number seems to have dropped recently.

StamfordFig · 23/01/2021 08:25

My brother (who has mild learning difficulties but has his own little business) had one the other day. Said they were HMRC and that his submitted accounts weren't in order.

They said he owed £7k. Gave him a case number, officer name and badge number. Said he'd been reported to the police. They were transferring him to the payments dept when he hung up just to check with me first.

I told him it was a known scam but he was so upset and rattled, he really thought the police were coming for him.

I told him to ring HMRC direct using a number on one of the old letters he had and yes, they confirmed it is a massive scam. They took details and put him in touch with Action Fraud.

Makes me sick that these people prey on the vulnerable.

chomalungma · 23/01/2021 08:34

Makes me sick that these people prey on the vulnerable

This.

I have to say the banks seem to have upped their game re scams and making people aware that people could be trying to steal your money - but scammers are very good at getting people to trust them

AlwaysLatte · 23/01/2021 08:47

We had £3000 taken out of our account once by a scammer... our broadband was genuinely slow so we rang BT. They said they'd look into it then call back - a short while later they did, and said they'd do a remote check on the line. They asked us to do a few things on the laptop so they could check our speed, and at the end of the call they were very apologetic and said they would refund us £30 I think it was. We waited for a few mins while they went off and they came back and apologised and said they'd accidentally paid us £3000 and could we please check our back account. We got suspicious at this point and said we'd check our online bank and get back to them. We did this and sure enough there was a £3000 deposit sitting there in there so we thought they were genuine. We were going to call BT back to arrange to pay it back when Nationwide rang and said there'd been suspicious activity and they'd blocked a payment of £3000 going out. It turned out that the scammers had paid the 3k to us out of one our other accounts!
We're normally pretty savvy but as it was initiated by us our guard was down.

AlwaysLatte · 23/01/2021 08:51

I forgot to say my elderly Dad had the exact same scam. We'd already told him to never pay anyone anything who just phones up, and we told him about our scam, but he forgot and they managed to get onto his laptop. Once again Nationwide stopped it. They really are brilliant and I would never use a different bank.

chomalungma · 23/01/2021 08:57

Our Internet provider blocks remote access via Team Viewer to stop such things happening.

Which is a bit annoying when I need to use Team Viewer to liase with work IT provider to solve some problems!

longwayoff · 23/01/2021 09:00

Dispensed with the landline, waste of money just sitting there inviting scammers. Only have mobile. Only answer numbers I recognise. I Google unknown numbers and call back on the odd occasion its valid but otherwise block them. Same with texts, don't open them, Google then delete and block if necessary. Never had anything amiss on WhatsApp but I expect its only a matter of time.

Onlinedilema · 23/01/2021 09:05

I've had HMRC. I've had ones telling me they owe me money and to click on the link. I've had a car tax rebate one which looked very real. I've had Amazon telling me to click the link if I haven't agreed to £37.99 coming out of my account. I've had a Santander one. An EE one too. All text messages.

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