Financial Scams

[crookesey 635]

Recently my wife has been subject to a plethora of emails that are obvious scam attempts, such as.

 

‘We have a refund that we would like to send to you, but before we do we wish you to send £1,00 to our account, thus confirming the legitimacy of your account’. So if she complied the scammer would have details of her bank account.

 

Several requests from seemingly legitimate banks asking for her address details in order to send statements, bank cards etc, the only problem is that she is not an account holder with any of them.

 

I today received a phone call regarding our kitchen appliance insurance policy requesting address details in order to send us a vastly reduced premium offer. Believe it or not our appliance insurer is well aware of our address, and has used it in order to visit us to repair said appliances.

 

Do these scammers actually get folk to fall for this sort of thing? 

 

[RollingJ 2,056]

Sadly, they do.

[echo beach 594]

Some of these low life are very tech savvy and clever at impersonating people or businesses.

The naive ie usually the young and the old will always be vulnerable.

What I don’t understand is why these scammers can’t be tracked down and dealt with.

 

echo.

[Guest]

38 minutes ago, crookesey said:

... Do these scammers actually get folk to fall for this sort of thing? 

Yup.  Scammers galore send out thousands and thousands and thousands of these emails/phone calls and what not every day.  The money advice columns regularly report the aftermath of some poor sod having their bank account wiped out as a consequence of being taken in.

 

And we're not as smart as we think we are.

Edited January 6 by Guest

[crookesey 635]

12 minutes ago, echo beach said:

Some of these low life are very tech savvy and clever at impersonating people or businesses.

The naive ie usually the young and the old will always be vulnerable.

What I don’t understand is why these scammers can’t be tracked down and dealt with.

 

echo.

Because our criminal justice system is a complete joke, they would most likely receive a slapped wrist along with a ‘don’t do it again’ admonishment. 

 

[bassett one 452]

many are from foreign countrys so theres little chance of come backs ,they tend not to like my answers but they still continue

[Pyrotequila 405]

50 minutes ago, echo beach said:

What I don’t understand is why these scammers can’t be tracked down and dealt with.

Sometimes they are, in creative ways; https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2022/mark-rober-glitterbomb.html

[geared 321]

21 hours ago, crookesey said:

Because our criminal justice system is a complete joke, they would most likely receive a slapped wrist along with a ‘don’t do it again’ admonishment. 

 

Very few are stupid enough to scam people in the same country they live in.  99% of time the police can't do a thing even if they wanted to.

[Jack Grey 1,602]

23 hours ago, crookesey said:

Recently my wife has been subject to a plethora of emails that are obvious scam attempts, such as.

 

‘We have a refund that we would like to send to you, but before we do we wish you to send £1,00 to our account, thus confirming the legitimacy of your account’. So if she complied the scammer would have details of her bank account.

 

Several requests from seemingly legitimate banks asking for her address details in order to send statements, bank cards etc, the only problem is that she is not an account holder with any of them.

 

I today received a phone call regarding our kitchen appliance insurance policy requesting address details in order to send us a vastly reduced premium offer. Believe it or not our appliance insurer is well aware of our address, and has used it in order to visit us to repair said appliances.

 

Do these scammers actually get folk to fall for this sort of thing? 

 

They target the elderly and the stupid

 

I have two bank accounts....one which my salary goes into and the other I use for paying for stuff like bills, restaurants, shopping etc

 

The one with my salary I do not use to pay for anything....I never give out those details 

 

The other account that I use for everyday use never has more than a few hundred pounds in it so if someone wanted to empty my account they wouldn't get much 

 

Especially as I use my debit card while travelling 

[crookesey 635]

1 hour ago, geared said:

Very few are stupid enough to scam people in the same country they live in.  99% of time the police can't do a thing even if they wanted to.

Yes you make a good point, perhaps more information from financial institutions is in order, such as ‘We never discuss your financial affairs on the telephone, if you receive a call purporting to be from us hang up, then phone us on a number that you trust and tell us about it, modern telephones show the number of the incoming call, let us know what it is’.

[Organgrinder 1,946]

One of the most helpful things to allow scammers and rogues of all kinds to do as they like,  was when they allowed people to withhold their number.

That's like allowing motorists to have blank number plates.

 

If we knew everyone's number when they rang us,  things should be much different.

Put that together with a system that quickly and efficiently takes action and we could really make a difference.

[crookesey 635]

18 minutes ago, Organgrinder said:

One of the most helpful things to allow scammers and rogues of all kinds to do as they like,  was when they allowed people to withhold their number.

That's like allowing motorists to have blank number plates.

 

If we knew everyone's number when they rang us,  things should be much different.

Put that together with a system that quickly and efficiently takes action and we could really make a difference.

I’ve had many a possible scam call where the number wasn’t withheld, however they are impossible to contact on them.