FFS scammers everywhere

[Coatscoatscoast]

In the last three weeks I’ve had a number of calls from ‘Tesco mobile’ offering me a reduction on bills but then asking for my security details. Persistently calling back saying ‘we’ve been cut off’ and me saying ‘no, I hung up on you’.

A call from ‘Amazon’ telling me there has been a suspicious transaction on my account and sending me a ‘blocking’ code that they then asked me to read down the phone - it was actually the one time passcode to log into my account. I strung that one along for a while and she ended up shouting at me down the phone that my account had been compromised - ‘I responded yes, probably by you!’

And just now had someone trying to pull a fast one on Vinted.

Lucky for me I am pretty savvy and they don’t get anywhere with me. The only reason I give them the time of day is because while they’re bothering me they’re not bothering someone else but FFS. AIBU in wanting to go off grid sometime?? I appreciate the irony of posting on the internet about this btw. My phone number is obviously ‘out there’ now. Bastards

I'm safe I never answer my phone unless it's a number in my contacts and even then I may not and wait for them to text me like a normal human being 😂

Yes, could do with some scam warnings instead of the endless funeral plans and mobility scooters in the afternoons!

I do wonder whether they’d have prevented our neighbour being scammed, though - some ‘so nice!’ woman phoned, pretending she worked for NatWest Bank, telling her she’d won £1m in a lottery!

A lottery she hadn’t even entered.
£100k later…..

It was down to sheer naïveté and trustingness.

I've been getting daily calls from 'sky' encouraging me to get a new phone. I asked six times for them to stop phoning me and take me off their list.

Last Tuesday I told them again to stop phoning me and then loudly said Fuck Off.

They've not been back since. Wonder if they really were Sky as scammers would help phoning surely......!

Honestly? Sky can be a bit relentless when they have you on their list. They only stopped ringing me after I said that I didn’t want to be unkind but this was the sixth call from them this week and they need to stop.

Exactly what i do as well.

One benefit of Britain becoming relatively poorer and China relatively richer is that Chinese targets are now becoming more attractive for scammers.

As a result my last several scam calls have been about visa expiry, with the message being repeated in Chinese.

All have involved robot voices though. I assume that, pretty soon, no real people will be needed for these scam calls, as a computer will be able to handle the whole scam. At that stage the volume of calls will increase such that telephones will become unusable.

Crikey. No spam texts for ages, and then two within minutes of one another: both versions of the old 'PCN pay up now or it'll cost you loads' one.
I'm not the registered keeper of any vehicle, so dodgy wording aside, that one was easy to spot.

Years ago, when we still had a landline, we got a lot of cold calls and scammers; one individual got extremely nasty and called me a w*e. We didn't have mobiles then, but we got a new phone with a more readable screen and our phone service put call screening on the line, so that put a stop to him. Once we had mobiles, we used the landline less and less over time, especially once monthly plans became cheaper, so eventually the landline went.

I miss it for one thing; we had the sort of number that's easily confused with the local hospital, the council, a school and a nearby Chinese takeaway and I don't mind calls like that. My husband picked up a call from a chap who wanted stir-fry beef with a portion of noodles ASAP please. I had one from Jessica's Mum, telling me Jessica was poorly and wouldn't be in school that day. The call went to the answering service, so as soon as I realised what had happened (and knowing the trouble parents can get into for unauthorised absences) I rang her back. Then there were the two old ladies, one who'd tried to ring the local hospital for an update on her husband, the other who wanted to talk to the council, "oh dear! I really need a plumber!" Them I was able to help; we aren't a takeaway or a school, but my important numbers are always within reach.

You sell something
They send you a link for payment
You click on the link and enter your bank details
They empty your bank account
Happened to a friend of mine
Shes not an idiot either but perhaps selling crap on vinted for a few quid might prove otherwise

I had a good one yesterday, a new one for me though I can see it's been around for a while.

When logging on to Facebook the screen was suddenly filled with loads of pop-ups, the screen froze, and a woman's voice, very loud, came out of the laptop. She said my laptop was frozen by Microsoft because it had been involved in identity theft. I was warned not to re-start the laptop (yeah, right) and phone a number for Microsoft. The voice repeated the message on a loop, and yes, the screen was frozen.

I immediately Googled the scam on my phone which said re-start the laptop and delete the browser history for that time. Voila, back to normal.

It was startling I can tell you to have that voice booming out at me.

Yes, this is what they tried with me. She (they?) asked me to email pics directly as there ‘are a lot of fakes on vinted’. I was already suspicious but did it, my email isn’t a secret and it was only pictures of a piece of clothing so I thought I’d string them along a bit. Then the reply was this is a great item, I’d like to buy, you’ll receive an email. I said I’m so pleased you like it but you will of course have to buy on Vinted before I can send it.

There just seems to have been a sudden increase in scams in recent months, in my experience anyway. You have to be constantly on your guard which is exhausting. I suppose it’s the same as anything with social media. More intrusive these days as it’s in your home etc.

Have you downloaded any apps recently? There is a lot of malware going round- you seen to be being targeted here!

Quite possibly. It’s almost certainly my own fault that my number has made it out into the world!

The malware on apps can take over your phone and they can even track your GPs, monitor emails, accounts,.passwords, other apps, photos, use your sms etc without you knowing - they can even tell when your phone is lying on a flat surface so they know you are not using it.

It’s genius really. I think I’ll have an app cull on my phone

Apparently factory reset is needed - once removing the apps - can you get a malware scanners as well.

In fact just googled it and the play store can scan

what will you do if there’s an unexpected knock on the door today?! 😬

I’ve had a little flurry of “this is my new number mum” texts this week after a short hiatus.

One that may have been mentioned already..Yesterday encountered a lady at the wee car park by the river, she had just lost £1500 after scanning a QR code that was on the pay machine and paying with a credit card. She had scribbled over it as a warning and we managed to tear most of it off but something else to consider.

I never use QR codes out if it involves paying for something, there was fake ones in a carpark near me. Carparks are most likely places to have fake ones as people can easily change them.

So many of the scamming callers don't know who they are calling. So my first question when I get 'Hello, I'm x from y' is to ask who they want to speak to. They usually repeat who they are, so I just keeping asking who they want to speak to until they hang up.