What is the scam?

[PumpkinPiloter]

I woke up this morning to find two emails thanking me for taking out insurance on two vehicles with two different companies.

I also received two comparethemarket.com quotes.

They used my correct name and address but different DOB and bank details.

There is obviously some kind of scam going on but I am pretty puzzled that they used my real email address. If they had made a new one or used their own I would be none the wiser. It makes no sense to me. I have obviously contacted all the relevant parties. I would just like to know what the angle is here.

Am I being unreasonable to think that we are dealing with stupid criminals or am I missing something?

Call both the insurance companies and let them know now and get both cancelled.

Change all passwords to email addresses and anything that uses the same passwords.

Did you contact the number on the email or did you go to the website to verify the number? You didn't give your correct bank details etc did you?

Usually the email will include a link to a website that may look genuine but isn't. You then get sucked in to doing something stupid...

Someone cloned my credit card a couple of years ago, ordered loads of stuff online and user my email address! I was able to cancel all the orders, get the money back and give police the address they'd used for delivery of the items. Not every criminal is a master mind

I really don't think it was a phishing scam. I contacted the insurance companies (using numbers from google) and there are indeed two new policies under my name which I subsequently canceled.

I appreciate the concern but I am not looking for advice on what to do as I have already done all this morning.

What I do not know is why the criminals used my real email address.

That's interesting Josh.

I guess there must be some pretty rubbish fraudsters out there.

Insurance scam.
Goods away from home claims so nothing huge but 1-3k uninvestigated.
Popular because plenty to through unchallenged and because each one is a different person the only connection is the bank account paid in to.

Interesting.

I’m not sure what they’re up to but it’s certainly different. I worked in fraud for years and this isn’t something I’ve seen so would be interested to see what the end game is!

I contacted the insurance companies (using numbers from google) and there are indeed two new policies under my name which I subsequently canceled.

How were they paid for ?

I suspect that the person doing this isn't actually trying to scam you but has made a mistake (repeatedly) with their email address.

EG the tried to set up an email [email protected] and it was already taken so they tried different variations and they have forgotten what variation they used. Maybe ended up as smithjanem@... and then used smithjanemary@... or similar.

I'm saying this because I did something similar and wondered why I wasn't getting my quotes/confirmation. I was lucky in that something identified me enough for the person to let me know and forward the mail to me (luckily nothing too personal).

We had similar and I think they are trying to get cheaper insurance. In our case they were just using our address. He also didnt pay and we kept getting red letters

They have to use a real email address because the insurance company will pick up quickly if the email address is false. So, if not you, someone somewhere would be getting the quotes and emails. So coming to your email address alone can be just chance. What's interesting is that they attached your name to the email address. And that they didn't use your bank details to pay for the insurance. So it doesn't look like they're trying to get free insurance. Maybe they've got a really dodgy address or driving history which would mean expensive insurance, but that doesn't tie up either.

They set up direct debits using an account that is not linked to me. They also used a different DOB. I have a very unusual name and that is the name of my email address. It would be very unlikely to be an error as they would have had to use my unusual email address 4 times. If they wanted a real email address they could have very easily made one like [email protected] and I would have been none the wiser.

They pay the premiums by monthly instalments until the claim.
You need to create a new insurance policy for each claim (so need a new person and car) but only pay a month or two on each one.
Because car insurance is normally accident or injury claims a small simple loss, with receipts for a few high value items goes unnoticed.

My daughter recently had over £300 taken from her bank and a few of the transactions were for car insurance. The rest were food deliveries and she had apparently registered her card with a taxi app. The bank refunded the money and issued a new card but what I want to know is if they used her card details to buy car insurance why haven’t they been caught and charged with fraud?

She only uses her card in big stores and trusted online sites so had never used it anywhere dodgy but it still happened. Whenever I’ve bought car insurance I’m sure that it says the payment method must be the same name as the policy holder. Are these people really thick or are they not being prosecuted so don’t care?

There are definitely idiots out there. This particular idiot (me) left my payslip with all my personal information in my car overnight. My life was there for the taking.

My car got broken into and they took... some shortbread.

Still gutted, it was Christmas time and in a Scottie dog tin

Anyway I haven’t actually heard of any scams like this, sorry! Hope you figure it out.

It could just be a mistake - I regularly get emails for someone who clearly shares my (maiden) name and a variation of my email address I presume without the full stop I use.

I know where she likes to go for dinner. That she’s buying a house with friends. That she plays hockey for a team. Who her pension is with (this one worries me for her sake but NEST haven’t done anything about it). I always email to tell the sender (now usefully cite GDPR concerns) but some still come through again. The only time it was a hassle was when she used it for an online store and it mucked up my reward account and it took ages to get them to transfer my address back.

This is quite common, now the cars don't flag automatically as uninsured when being driven around and so don't make a big warning for the police and if involved in an accident the insurance companys will pay out the 3rd party liability but will have no comeback for the remaining premiums or proof of who the policyholder actually is if prosecution required.

a variation of my email address I presume without the full stop I use.

Full stops are meaningless in an email address.

[email protected], [email protected] and [email protected] will all go to the same email account.

Full stops are meaningless in an email address.

Is this really true for gmail? Certainly it is not for hotmail - I just did a test!

Only for gmail I think.

I have a . in my gmail address, it wouldn't allow me to have it without as that was already taken

Q what happens if you send a test email to your address without the dot?
Or is it an address through a school or other org? support.google.com/mail/answer/7436150?hl=en-GB

I watched a programme with one of these type scammers caught, I watch em all now anything with a sniff of Matt Albright in