Have you ever fallen for a scam?

Scams are so ubiquitous and plausible now I've actually had the reverse problem quite a few times in the past year: ignoring texts and e-mails that look like scams but turned out to be real. I have this problem with delivery companies in particular.
 
Scams are so ubiquitous and plausible now I've actually had the reverse problem quite a few times in the past year: ignoring texts and e-mails that look like scams but turned out to be real. I have this problem with delivery companies in particular.
very much so now i dont answer calls to my mobile if i dont know the number. Hospital phone calls can be a pain because they never have a number and come up withheld
 
Did work refund you?
I've been told not to worry about it, I won't be out of pocket. But thats all I've been told. I can't really work out what that means. Of course as I said its been a very busy week at work so I've not really had an opportunity to sit down with management and properly discuss it.
 
I've been told not to worry about it, I won't be out of pocket. But thats all I've been told. I can't really work out what that means. Of course as I said its been a very busy week at work so I've not really had an opportunity to sit down with management and properly discuss it.
I would assume that as it’s come through to your work details and purporting to be the MD, that they feel responsible - it will most likely have highlighted that they need to provide some kind of Phishing/Scam training company wide!

Easy for me to say, as I wasn’t on the receiving end - but don’t beat yourself up! You weren’t the first and sadly you won’t be the last. Hope you’re doing okay now :)
 
I've been told not to worry about it, I won't be out of pocket. But thats all I've been told. I can't really work out what that means. Of course as I said its been a very busy week at work so I've not really had an opportunity to sit down with management and properly discuss it.
I sense someone in the company is up to something dodgy as they had to know your relationship and you had enough cash to pay for it as I'd of said I'll do the fetching but I'll need your card and pin just leave them with your secretary.
 
In the hope that others may benefit from my case...

I renewed my passport on-line in 2014, probably Googled 'Passport Renewal' or similar, and the site looked like the real thing so I completed the application gave my card details etc. It was the correct fee - about £73.00 IIRC.

After a couple of weeks not hearing anything I rang the Passport Office and queried when would they be sending it.

They said that it was all ready for posting but that I hadn't enclosed the fee, so they'd put it on one side, awaiting payment.

I said I'd paid on-line with the application.

"Oh!", said the Passport guy, and from the tone of his voice I immediately realised that I'd been had.

The application I'd filled in was genuine, and the PO had processed it, but the £73.00 I'd paid went straight into the scammer's pocket. I suppose they would call it a processing/forwarding fee :mad:.

So I had to send another £73.00 to the PO to get my passport.

The PO were obviously aware of the scam, they recognised it immediately, but they'd received a genuine application form, correctly completed, so they had no reason not to process it. People do forget to put their card details in, or a cheque, and they carry on producing the passport so as not to cause undue delay.

Grrr :facepalm:.
 
Scams are so ubiquitous and plausible now I've actually had the reverse problem quite a few times in the past year: ignoring texts and e-mails that look like scams but turned out to be real. I have this problem with delivery companies in particular.

I had that this very weekend - I got a second letter from my bank, Santander, asking me to go to some web address (which did at least end in santander.co.uk), enter a reference number, then enter an absolute metric ton of sensitive information - name, address, DOB, employer, salary, photos of payslips, photo of passport, photo of drivers licence etc. - part of their 'regulatory duty' to do KYC (Know Your Customer) data gathering.

Some things were red flags, like strong-arming (if you don't respond within 60 days we will lock access to your accounts) and weird questions (put how much savings interest you received last year, and the date you received it on - ??). Also when I received the first letter I went to the website several times and it was down.

Felt very weird - phoned them up (NOT using the number on the letter) and they confirmed they had sent the letter.

Why this can't be done through my online account I don't know - that would give me a lot more confidence than some new address.
 
I had that this very weekend - I got a second letter from my bank, Santander, asking me to go to some web address (which did at least end in santander.co.uk), enter a reference number, then enter an absolute metric ton of sensitive information - name, address, DOB, employer, salary, photos of payslips, photo of passport, photo of drivers licence etc. - part of their 'regulatory duty' to do KYC (Know Your Customer) data gathering.

Some things were red flags, like strong-arming (if you don't respond within 60 days we will lock access to your accounts) and weird questions (put how much savings interest you received last year, and the date you received it on - ??). Also when I received the first letter I went to the website several times and it was down.

Felt very weird - phoned them up (NOT using the number on the letter) and they confirmed they had sent the letter.


Why this can't be done through my online account I don't know - that would give me a lot more confidence than some new address.
Even if it was a legitimate letter from them I'd be reluctant to give them the information. Did they say why they want the information?
Threatening to lock access to my account, I would be tempted to close it and go elsewhere.
 
As a teenager the woman living opposite us was a shameless, unscrupulous person who took advantage of people all the time. Her duaghter knocked on our door once and said they were having a problem with their phone and would I mind ringing their number to test the line. I rang the number and The Mother answered asking to speak to my sister, who worked for an insurance broker. I handed the reciever to my sister and told her who it was. My sister, without saying a word, promptly hung up. I asked her why she did that and my sister said we were paying for the call and The Neighbour wanted to talk to her about car insurance.
 
In the hope that others may benefit from my case...

I renewed my passport on-line in 2014, probably Googled 'Passport Renewal' or similar, and the site looked like the real thing so I completed the application gave my card details etc. It was the correct fee - about £73.00 IIRC.


The PO were obviously aware of the scam, they recognised it immediately, but they'd received a genuine application form, correctly completed, so they had no reason not to process it. People do forget to put their card details in, or a cheque, and they carry on producing the passport so as not to cause undue delay.

Grrr :facepalm:.
A friend was almost caught out by this for an ESTA application and only realised it was a scam site when it asked for payment and he knew there was no cost for it at the time. It was ridiculous these weren't technically scams since they were just charging a fee to help with the application even though people were clearly being tricked into it which allowed these companies to get top positions in search results.

My sister received a genuine credit card refund relating to payments from some time ago and separately she received an automated phone call to confirm a transfer both of which she thought was fraudulent but was genuine. I think she's still right to always be suspicious from the start and to check.

A few years ago I received an obvious fraud e-mail that I'd supposedly won an Amazon voucher, the domain wasn't from Adobe as it claimed, the English was poor and there was a link to click for the voucher. I usually checked these types of mails to see how they're doing it but I was puzzled about this one because the link to Amazon appeared to be genuine and I couldn't see how they were spoofing it. As I looked into it further I found the e-mail sender's domain belonged to a company that did handle marketing for Adobe and on checking the Amazon URL the voucher code was within the link text. So I went to Amazon direct not through the link and entered the code which worked giving me £100 to spend which was a surprise.

Vodafone contacted me via phone regarding an issue with my account which was genuine but they called me and started asking me the security questions before they could proceed. I refused because I had no way to verify who was calling and I certainly wasn't going to give them the information needed to access my account, the operator was puzzled and kept telling me they were Vodafone and could verify my account once I gave them the security information.
 
Thanks for sharing your story OP and sorry you have been scammed by the one if the few scumbags who roam this earth.
I got scammed out a large amount of money early last year, it ended up turning out OK in the end as the money was refunded by my bank last month.
It's a horrible sickening feeling and I'm not ashamed to admit I also cried.
 
Thanks for sharing your story OP and sorry you have been scammed by the one if the few scumbags who roam this earth.
I got scammed out a large amount of money early last year, it ended up turning out OK in the end as the money was refunded by my bank last month.
It's a horrible sickening feeling and I'm not ashamed to admit I also cried.
What happened if you don’t mind me asking? Always worth sharing so others are aware! Sorry that it took you over a year to get your money back but glad you did :)
 
What happened if you don’t mind me asking? Always worth sharing so others are aware! Sorry that it took you over a year to get your money back but glad you did :)

I still can't believe I got the money back, I'd written it off completely.

 
Not saying its a scam but trying to cancel an account with talk talk has become something of a nightmare. Problems encountered or to over come include a poor quality phone line to S.Africa, and trying to understand a clipped accent. You will next need to give the exact answer to their security question in which you will be asked the correct postal address of the 'Village' you were born in . Being a digit out can result in no further progress. All intermingled with lengthy quotations, various rules and regulations, long pauses between each question and answer and holding the line for several minutes. and so on. After about 3 phone calls of the above duration it seems they will need about 5 weeks to finalise the cancellation. Further costs involved of course.
 
Police do have resources, they just choose to police easier targets which enable box ticking exercises .

Sorry but you are completely wrong. I’m surprised to see such a poor post from an AVForums mod, and not sure what these box ticking exercises you are referring to. But the fact is that even if every police officer in the UK did nothing else but investigate these they wouldn’t put a dent it, as the scale, and complexity, of it is so great now. But most police officers can’t investigate these kinds of crimes, because they require specialist investigators with very high levels of IT, coding and networking skills etc, which most forces only have a handful of. There are literally hundreds (if not thousands world wide) of scam ‘call centres’ in places like India, running 24/7. The biggest issue is that the vast majority of scams originate in countries where the UK police have no jurisdiction, and whose authorities turn a blind and will not cooperate, even if you manage you eventually jump through the many legal and technical loopholes and manage to establish a suspect. One way to disrupt these criminals would be if the telecommunications industry, whose systems they use, were more willing to do more, yet for some reason they are reluctant.
 
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