A scam phone calls and emails discussion.

[PeterY]

Just received an email from Amazon claiming that they will not accept UK issued Visa credit cards from January. First thought is that it is a scam, but it does seem to be reported on some news outlets like Reuters, Bloomberg and the Daily Mail. Perhaps this is an attempt by Amazon to reduce outgoings and nothing will come of it with regard to customers. If it is true will Amazon UK accept Amazon Visa cards (assuming issued in the UK). I have several credit cards, all of which of which are presumably issued by a UK bank and are all Visa cards. I will not use a debit card as there is no insurance protection, and my card providers do not supply mastercards. So will I have to get a Mastercard or will this all blow over?

I received the same e-mail and first thoughts it was a scam.

I doubt I'll be shopping anymore with Amazon.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The relevance is in my post #1104 - where someone is apparently perpetuating a SMS scam in the of Jebus.

That particular scam would only have meaning for those involved in the learned history of the Middle East. In the books of Joshua and of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible, the Jebusites were a Caananite tribe who occupied the land that was eventually conquered by Joshua. In some biblical chronologies, the major Jebusite settlement was said to have been conquered by King David.

 

[John Webb]

In the past week I've had four e-mails purporting to be 'acknowledgment of payment received' from several firms that I've not heard of nor ever dealt with. All have asked me to click on the attachment. Not B.....y likely!! All permanently deleted in haste.

Also one from Google claiming to be a change in 'Conditions of Use' - not certain if genuine or not. Anyone know?

 

[MotCO]

Also one from Google claiming to be a change in 'Conditions of Use' - not certain if genuine or not. Anyone know?

I've also received that. I've ignored it because there is nothing I can do about Google changing their T & Cs

 

[najaB]

Also one from Google claiming to be a change in 'Conditions of Use' - not certain if genuine or not. Anyone know?

They are starting to enforce two-factor authentication. Not sure if it's related to that

 

[PeterY]

I've also received that. I've ignored it because there is nothing I can do about Google changing their T & Cs

I got it has well. I'm so wary about e-mails now, unless it's from a friend or a company I've previously ordered from.

 

[najaB]

I'm so wary about e-mails now, unless it's from a friend or a company I've previously ordered from.

There's almost zero real danger in just opening an email - most mail threats are triggered by opening an attached document or following a link. The only risk is that, if your browser/client is set to automatically download images, they may be able to use the image URL to track who has opened the mail and target only the people who have read it. The easy workaround for that is to disable automatic image loading.

 

[John Webb]

Since Christmas I've had several e-mails purporting to be from my internet provider along the lines of "We've changed our mailing system, please click on this link to reregister/reauthenticate your access.....". Examination of the e-mail header shows they've certainly not come from their purported source. They've all been forwarded to the phishing department of my supplier and immediately deleted completely from my e-mail system.

Anyone else had this 'flood' at all?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Are the majority of scams these days either by email or by a recorded voice message? Have those call centres cut down on staffing levels, as in the old days, it was always a real person on the other end of a phone who made telephonic contact.

 

[swt_passenger]

After a lull of about 3 weeks I’m getting the regular dodgy reminders again to renew my nonexistent but expired anti-virus packages, they seem to alternate Norton or McAfee depending on the weather or something…

 

[John Webb]

Are the majority of scams these days either by email or by a recorded voice message? Have those call centres cut down on staffing levels, as in the old days, it was always a real person on the other end of a phone who made telephonic contact.

Majority for me are coming by e-mail now. The scammers have realised, it seems, that they will not get past my 'Call Guardian' system easily - indeed in December there were only two attempts to call me; neither got through!

 

[3rd rail land]

After a lull of about 3 weeks I’m getting the regular dodgy reminders again to renew my nonexistent but expired anti-virus packages, they seem to alternate Norton or McAfee depending on the weather or something…

The amount of scam anti-virus emails has reduced quite considerably and any that I have received have gone directly to my spam folder.

 

[AM9]

Majority for me are coming by e-mail now. The scammers have realised, it seems, that they will not get past my 'Call Guardian' system easily - indeed in December there were only two attempts to call me; neither got through!

I don't have particularly strong protections on my landline, but with caller ID it makes it easier to stand back when there's a number that either is international or doesn't have an area code that looks important. It's surprising how many callers from these numbers decline the invitation to leave a message.
What is annoying is (presumably) legitimate UK callers who call and when asked where they got the number from claimed that I/we gave it to receive marketing calls, to which say that we have never dealt with them, they demostrate their ignorance (or arrogance) by saying that the number was sold to them. A request for their data controller's name of number to remind them that they are breaking the GDPR legislation usually gets rid of them toot sweet.

 

[swt_passenger]

The amount of scam anti-virus emails has reduced quite considerably and any that I have received have gone directly to my spam folder.

Yes but these are just a small fraction of the similar rubbish BT actually stop. The BT filters seem to be somewhat intermittent…

 

[silverfoxcc]

If anyone gets an email from Allan Sibley asking them to get a google gift card please ignore it. I have spoken to his wife and she confirms it wasnt them

This unlike most Scam warnings is genuine

 

[Pinza-C55]

On Tuesday I developed Covid symptoms. On Wednesday morning I got a Lateral Flow Test kit, was positive and uploaded the result to the NHS. On Thursday I got a scam call to tell me my National Insurance Number had been deactivated pending an investigation for fraud. The NHS and the scammers seem to be an efficient team.

 

[John Webb]

On Tuesday I developed Covid symptoms. On Wednesday morning I got a Lateral Flow Test kit, was positive and uploaded the result to the NHS. On Thursday I got a scam call to tell me my National Insurance Number had been deactivated pending an investigation for fraud. The NHS and the scammers seem to be an efficient team.

Probably just coincidence? Only I assume the Covid test results were uploaded using your NHS number, which is different to your NI number. Besides which I don't think NI numbers can be 'deactivated' - like the NHS number it sticks with you for life.
Hope you recover quickly!

 

[Mcr Warrior]

On Thursday I got a scam call to tell me my National Insurance Number had been deactivated pending an investigation for fraud.

Presumably it would just have been a randomly dialled call with the intention to panic the call recipient into pressing '1' in order to speak to an "adviser" (scammer) before being manipulated into divulging personal data (supposedly in order to be sent a new NI number) which information could be used fraudulently elsewhere later.

 

[Pinza-C55]

Probably just coincidence? Only I assume the Covid test results were uploaded using your NHS number, which is different to your NI number. Besides which I don't think NI numbers can be 'deactivated' - like the NHS number it sticks with you for life.
Hope you recover quickly!

No it was a scam call and there's no way your NI number can be deactivated. I really don't think it was a coincidence given that it's more than a year or two since I've had a scam call mentioning something like this. I've had text messages from 6 different NHS numbers and it must be really easy for these scammers to take advantage of some people.

Thanks, I'm feeling much better now and hopefully might get invited to one of Borises parties - sorry "business meetings" !

 

[John Webb]

An interesting item over in the Covid section about a scam - see https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/covid-pass-scam-text.227311/

 

[yorksrob]

I had an interesting call today from someone claiming to be from Amazon saying that someone had tried to purchase an iphone in my name.

When I said that no such purchase had been made, please cancel it, they put me through to a manager who asked whether I'd if given my details to anyone and said that they needed to show me that I was being scammed and tried to get me to do something through Google. I don't know whether they were about to try to remote access, but when I told them that I wouldn't be logging into anything through my device, they rang off pretty quickly.

The thing was, this call was from Spain. I would have expected this sort of thing from a third world country but I would have hoped that Spain might have more of a grip on things.

 

[dgl]

Amazon will call you if they think a purchase might be dodgy, I brought a £50 amazon gift card as a birthday present and I had to wait for a call from them before the transaction would go through.

 

[yorksrob]

I did for the number into google and it didn't come up as a recognised telephone number. I would have hoped that if Amazon were contacting me about fraud, they would use a searchable phone number.

Having done a search on the number, it seems to have come from a computer company called Lenovo.

 

[dgl]

I did for the number into google and it didn't come up as a recognised telephone number. I would have hoped that if Amazon were contacting me about fraud, they would use a searchable phone number.

Having done a search on the number, it seems to have come from a computer company called Lenovo.

Lenovo being a reputable computer manufacturer who acquired IBM's desktop/laptop business. I would doub't that they would be calling you about anything from Spain so it could be a spoofed number even more so as Lenovo's European operations appear to be run form the Netherlands, that's where a recent parts order is coming from.

 

[yorksrob]

Lenovo being a reputable computer manufacturer who acquired IBM's desktop/laptop business. I would doub't that they would be calling you about anything from Spain so it could be a spoofed number even more so as Lenovo's European operations appear to be run form the Netherlands, that's where a recent parts order is coming from.

Thanks for the information (I didn't have much idea about the company but the website looked professional albeit in Spanish so I couldn't read much of it)

I've heard of numbers being spoofed to look as though they come from the same country, but haven't heard of them stealing the identity of a company before !

 

[swt_passenger]

Unnamed “Bank security department” recording on the line a couple of times this morning. Must have come back to the top of the scammer‘s in tray…

 

[londonbridge]

Only just found this thread so haven’t read through it fully. I had the “we understand you’ve had an accident” type call, apparently it’s a voice bot, when it asks you a question, if you respond with anything other than yes or no it gets confused, eg:

“You’ve had an accident, is that right”?
Where did you get this number?
“Sorry, can you confirm the date of the accident”?
Where did you get this number?
“Sorry, when was the accident”?
Where did you get this number?

Phone goes dead….

 

[43096]

Only just found this thread so haven’t read through it fully. I had the “we understand you’ve had an accident” type call, apparently it’s a voice bot, when it asks you a question, if you respond with anything other than yes or no it gets confused, eg:

“You’ve had an accident, is that right”?
Where did you get this number?
“Sorry, can you confirm the date of the accident”?
Where did you get this number?
“Sorry, when was the accident”?
Where did you get this number?

Phone goes dead….

The other answer to such calls is "Well seeing as you're phoning me about it, perhaps you can tell me the details you have."

 

[Mcr Warrior]

I normally ask "What's the name of the person that you'd like to speak to?" Generally speaking, only legitimate callers ever seem to know!

 

[jon0844]

I normally ask "What's the name of the person that you'd like to speak to?" Generally speaking, only legitimate callers ever seem to know!

In the case of the TalkTalk hack (actually hacks, given Dido Harding did sod all to improve security) they got people's names and account numbers, which they always kept saying because they thought it would fool me into thinking it must be genuine - quite aside from the fact that I knew no company would immediately give your address and account number at the start of a call! (and of course I knew about the hack, even if TalkTalk never told me).