I just fell for an AA breakdown phishing scam

[FellforPhish]

I'm amazed at how clever it was and at the same time feel so stupid that I fell for it.

I've had a letter through the post and emails all looking genuine. They had my name, address, email address, membership number, length of membership and renewal date. Long story short I've now given them my telephone number and linked it to all the details they already had via WhatsApp (again, a verified AA.com account).

I just feel so stupid, like one of those women you hear on the radio saying how they feel so stupid for falling for it(!).

Any advice or similar stories welcome.

You were probably online chatting with a bot, hence the slight oddness.

Sounds like all is well. Thinking you’ve fallen for something really shakes you up but I don’t think you have here.

You arent crazy. Its good to have your wits about you as there are so many scams around now. If they got to the point they were sending letters it would seem concerning. It does sound innocent in this situation however.

Your phone will only download/update your banking App as provided by the bank, so it's very hard for anyone else to interfere with it. The bank has control over every part of the software - banks take security very, very seriously, and are good at it - and phones are designed to keep an App separate from everything else. Apps can also hook into the phone's biometric capabilities, which makes logging in more secure.

When you go to your banking website, the software you're running is the browser. That's a very generic piece of software, which is actually designed to be very flexible - since it needs to deal with all sorts of badly-written websites, written by anyone to do anything! The browser loads the website written by your bank - which the bank will have made very secure once you get to it - but there are lots of ways for an attacker to get in the way before you get to the banking website.

I've been reading this thinking that on the basis of the AA being a bit rubbish at returning phone calls you've imagined a host of determined sophisticated scammers bombarding you with different forms of contact and wondering if you're prone to overthinking only to get to the end and find it was all a fuss about nothing 😂

Im confused, have you been scammed or not?

OP you sound really sensible to me. Look at how you've handled it all. Are you always this hard on yourself?

I don’t think I’m able to offer a trustworthy response on anything this morning 😂

Thank you. I can be tough on myself yes, but life is a bit rough at the moment and on reflection I’m not in the strongest place right now.

Haha. It's good though, right? I still don't quite know why you thought it wasn't genuine. Never mind! X

I have used whatsapp to speak to AA to reduce my renewal quote. It was 100% legit as I’m now paying cheaper.

OP dont feel silly. Loads of people get scammed. These people sound very clever. The one bit of advice that stuck with me is if you feel rushed walk away. It really isn't the end of the world. Do report it though as it stops others falling for it. Chin up.

What should she report, the AA going about their normal business ? 😂

No it’s genuine they’re just panicking. The AA website confirms the phone numbers and that they use WhatsApp and they’ve got cover with the AA

What made me suspicious:

• I used a renewal number from the letter that didn’t appear on any AA website.
• The number gets about 50:50 mixed reviews on Who Called Me as genuine AA or genuine Utility Warehouse(??) vs scam.
• When I used the number there was no option to speak to a human, just a WhatsApp message.
• WhatsApp asked for personal details (but not membership number) and said a person would contact me shortly.
• They didn’t.
• When I tried a genuine number they confirmed they never use WhatsApp.
• My bank said it sounded suspicious and better safe than sorry.
• When I tried a genuine membership number in AA’s office hours it played a short message to call back in office hours and cut me off.

Sorry but isn't that obvious?

Sorry but isn't that obvious?

What? That the AA don't use WhatsApp? It seemed believable at the time because they WhatsApp-ed me just after (I thought) I'd rung them.

Lots of businesses use WhatsApp now. That’s the point of the verified business accounts.

I would just get on with your day, OP. No one has been scammed, it’s good to be vigilant but nothing happened here so don’t spend any more time on it.

Why would it be obvious? It’s turned out that they do use WhatsApp, like loads of other companies do

I fell for a scam from Rituals like this. I went into the store to get my free gift (which I’d paid £2 for) and they said they never WhatsApp customers. I felt really stupid.

I almost got caught. I checked my emails and saw an email from Apple iTunes confirming I’d signed up to an app with a monthly £25 subscription fee.

It looked completely legitimate and further credibility was given due to the circumstances, as I had just got a new phone, and given my eldest son my old one. I thought he had somehow signed up to something and it looked like the sort of app he’d download.

Luckily for me I said what I’d seen out loud and I was with my friend who told me to be careful as there were iTunes scams going around, so I didn’t click anything in the email, and logged into my iTunes separately and sure enough, there were no subscriptions there. If it wasn’t for her I’d have clicked the link and the scammers would have had access to my account!

Wasn't the fact that you had to pay for a free gift just the teensyist but of an indication it was a scam 😁

If the scammers had all that information about you the AA have a big problem as they have had a major data breach. I think you need to email the AA and the fraud reporting line.

Sounds like you probably weren’t scammed (/phished) but either way if you - or anyone else reading this - were and feel stupid, please don’t. One of the leading “scam baiters” - who do lots of work in shutting down scammers etc actually got scammed.

Exactly. They are really clever
Especially with AI coming

Is that the chap from the scam podcast who bought something without reading all the small print? If not I'd be interested if you know the name so I can find out how to avoid that one