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A scam phone calls and emails discussion.

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Mcr Warrior

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Surely they would have left a voicemail? I checked and there are currently no messages pending.
Be your internet provider then telling you that your service is about to be disconnected, or some similar other implausible tosh! :rolleyes:
 

dgl

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Why can't I get a scam call saying its from Nationwide Bank, you would instantly know it's not them as they are not a bank!
Luckily I seem to be safe from scam callers as I have yet to have one, scam emails, yes, but they usually come through or claim to be from an email address on my domain that doesn't exist!
 

pdeaves

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In the last couple of months I have had a spate of calls that are silent and then hang up, all 'from' fake numbers. Never, ever used to have them. Bizarre; if someone wants to trick me into giving bank details (or whatever), they need to say something!
 

Whistler40145

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I have just had the monotony of being adhering to the lockdown at home as usual broken by the call from the "female American" recorded voice message to inform me that my non-existent Amazon Prime account has been debited by the sum of £79.99, which was responded to in my usual manner of saying nothing and doing nothing. After the customary ten seconds, the line went dead.
I had two similar phone calls from Amazon saying I owed over £1000 for unpaid orders, which is complete fantasy.
 

najaB

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Not likely
In the UK, I don't think so. In some countries you can order, then pay in a store. But even then, you have to pay before shipment.

The only way you could end up owing Amazon money is if you pay by PayPal and they pay Amazon before debiting your account (which doesn't have sufficient funds), though I suppose you would owe PayPal, not Amazon.
 

Whistler40145

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In the UK, I don't think so. In some countries you can order, then pay in a store. But even then, you have to pay before shipment.

The only way you could end up owing Amazon money is if you pay by PayPal and they pay Amazon before debiting your account (which doesn't have sufficient funds), though I suppose you would owe PayPal, not Amazon.
Amazon UK doesn’t offer PayPal as method of payment as it’s part of the EBay system
 

Bevan Price

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In the last couple of months I have had a spate of calls that are silent and then hang up, all 'from' fake numbers. Never, ever used to have them. Bizarre; if someone wants to trick me into giving bank details (or whatever), they need to say something!
That used to be a tactic used by burglars trying to identify possible targets where nobody was at home.

I have just had the monotony of being adhering to the lockdown at home as usual broken by the call from the "female American" recorded voice message to inform me that my non-existent Amazon Prime account has been debited by the sum of £79.99, which was responded to in my usual manner of saying nothing and doing nothing. After the customary ten seconds, the line went dead.
I have had several such calls, including one this morning. As usual, I ignored it.
 
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Trackman

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I've had a bitcoin one today on my mobile, sounded like it was from the UK. Dunno what the 'scam' involves, no doubt directed to some dodgy website.
Anyone else had this?
edit of sorts: Just before I was going to post I think it was 'Eurocoin'
 

Jamesrob637

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I've had a bitcoin one today on my mobile, sounded like it was from the UK. Dunno what the 'scam' involves, no doubt directed to some dodgy website.
Anyone else had this?
edit of sorts: Just before I was going to post I think it was 'Eurocoin'

What was the number? I always Google the number.
 

Trackman

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What was the number? I always Google the number.
07985 180276.
Just googled the number myself, didn't bother before- just told them goodbye and blocked it. Plenty of people complaining like 'Crypto currency scam' - rated as 'Dangerous'
edit: they did know my full name.
 
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Xenophon PCDGS

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I spoke on the telephone to a neighbour as we both had "strange calls" recently and he said if it was any BT department ringing, the incoming telephone number would always be an "0800" prefix number, as BT do not use any other methodology. There must be quite a number of people who now can see the telephone number of the organisation who are making calls to them.
 

STEVIEBOY1

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I just had a call on my landline from a recorded female saying that there is something suspicious on my Amazon account for just over £ 1,000.00, then a few minutes later I received a text supposedly from Amazon, with a link to click on. I have not ordered anything from them for over 3 months, there does not seem to be anything dodgy on my account, I also checked my bank / card accounts and they look ok with nothing pending. I hung up and deleted the texts and I presume that they were scams / phishing, it is very disconcerting though.
 
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My local surgery certainly doesn't leave voicemail messages.
My wife has had a lot of issues over the last year (not Covid) and had dealt with several hospitals, consultants and the local surgery. I asked my wife whether she had received voicemail messages. She said she hadn't but generally surgeries will not leave a voicemail because they don't know who may be able to access the voicemail and there may be patient confidentiality issues. She has been asked if she consents to voicemail communication, which she did, but she hasn't received any.

After a quiet period over Christmas, they are at it again.

So I've had the £600 foreign cash transaction from my 'bank (unspecified) Visa/Mastercard Department', at least 2 from 'Amazon', the latest one over a non-existent £370 order. Apart from it being the same old computerised voice, do you think that Amazon would call from an 07 mobile number? We have also had the old 'your washing machine warranty is running out' call with a repeat within a few minutes. Our machine is at least 12 years old and on its last legs and has never had a warranty. In fact it would have been replaced in the summer if my wife hadn't been ill and it being difficult to obtain one (very limited online availability due to high lockdown demand).

Going a bit off-topic, how many of you would pay for an extended warranty. I work on the assumption that the saving on premiums would more than pay for early replacement of anything which fails early. The only exception to this is the warranty on my car. Although it is ~£250 per annum, that has more than paid for itself over the years.
 
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DelW

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I just had a call on my landline from a recorded female saying that there is something suspicious on my Amazon account for just over £ 1,000.00, then a few minutes later I received a text supposedly from Amazon, with a link to click on. I have not ordered anything from them for over 3 months, there does not seem to be anything dodgy on my account, I also checked my bank / card accounts and they look ok with nothing pending. I hung up and deleted the texts and I presume that they were scams / phishing, it is very disconcerting though.
I think it's very unlikely that there's anything to worry about - scammers send out loads of these calls, including to people who have never had an Amazon account. The only one that once caused me concern happened to come in a few minutes after I'd done an Amazon transaction with a foreign vendor. In the end I ignored it and nothing untoward followed.

I get these calls quite regularly despite the fact that as far as I can tell, Amazon don't have my landline number (it's certainly not included in the "communication options" on my Amazon account).
 

Peter Mugridge

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I spoke on the telephone to a neighbour as we both had "strange calls" recently and he said if it was any BT department ringing, the incoming telephone number would always be an "0800" prefix number, as BT do not use any other methodology. There must be quite a number of people who now can see the telephone number of the organisation who are making calls to them.
But the incoming number on the display can be spoofed to be different from the actual number the call is coming from...
 

najaB

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I hung up and deleted the texts and I presume that they were scams / phishing, it is very disconcerting though.
Where possible, you should forward any emails/texts to the organisation concerned as it helps them figure out where the scams are originating.
 

Jamesrob637

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07985 180276.
Just googled the number myself, didn't bother before- just told them goodbye and blocked it. Plenty of people complaining like 'Crypto currency scam' - rated as 'Dangerous'
edit: they did know my full name.

If there is even so much as one negative review, block. If there are no reviews it's either because the number is a recent one (so nobody or very few has been called yet) or it might be genuinely somebody trying to call a mobile and got you because of inserting one digit wrong.
 

STEVIEBOY1

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On a similar theme, sometimes when I try to go into my Amazon account, it won't let me in, then in a few moments I get a text with sign in attempt and a link to click on, does that sound ok? I wondered if it was an extra security check that they are doing now, like some of the banks do?
 

RomeoCharlie71

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On a similar theme, sometimes when I try to go into my Amazon account, it won't let me in, then in a few moments I get a text with sign in attempt and a link to click on, does that sound ok? I wondered if it was an extra security check that they are doing now, like some of the banks do?
Yeah, that sounds like multi factor authentication (sometimes known as 2 factor authentication, or 2FA). There's some information about it here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=G9MX9LXNWXFKMJYU
 

A Challenge

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On a similar theme, sometimes when I try to go into my Amazon account, it won't let me in, then in a few moments I get a text with sign in attempt and a link to click on, does that sound ok? I wondered if it was an extra security check that they are doing now, like some of the banks do?
That could well be genuine, though I'd have expected it to tell you on your screen that it was going to ask you, see the above from @RomeoCharlie71 for more on that.

If the domain is amazon.co.uk (or whatever your local Amazon URL is) then it should be OK, but if it is a short form link on a different domain then I'd be suspicious of it (though it may still be genuine).
 

STEVIEBOY1

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That's great, thank you both for this info, there was a notice that came up on the PC screen. I had not experienced this before from Amazon.

Cheers, Steve.
 

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