Current scams

Just had the unpaid parcel one...........delete!👍

I read in the Telegraph the other day that impersonation fraud doubled in 2020. Also that although according to the ONS fraud accounts for a third of reported crime in the UK, only 1% of police time is devoted to it. 

Yesterdays attempt was a text from the TSB saying our account may have been compromised. It suggested I log in through the provided link to check the full message. We don’t have an account with the TSB.😡

I've had several automated phone call recently telling me there is an issue with my amazon Prime account. I don't know what they were asking me to do as i didn't stay on the line long enough to find out, the robotic voice is terrible.

I've had two Amazon ones this morning.

We've had a number of those too, on the landline.  Also another one, again automated, about an iPad which was allegedly ordered from Amazon, and if I wanted to cancel the order, I should press 1.  

Don't think so!

Had to laugh.

We had a phone call, early last Sunday morning. Automated voice message purportedly from Credit Card company. Didn't get to the end and used B.T.s "block all future calls from this number facility".

Half an hour later had a text from said Credit Card asking me to ring them. I rang and sure enough there had been fraudulent activity on my card and the phone call was genuine. We're so inured to receiving fake calls that we automatically assume such a call is a scam attempt.

Had to work out how to unblock my block.😂

Fraud line very helpful but it meant getting new cards (again, for the third time in about a year).

I put this info on another thread but here's the report page for the National Cyber Security Centre. NCSC LINK

You can forward any suspicious emails.

I think use of text messages by banks to alert potential fraud is common practice these days as so many of us distrust phone calls. Usually it’s simply a yes/no response required to a “do you recognise this transaction” type question. 

There was a report on the local news this morning about an 80+ year old who was robbed of his £80,000 life savings, after allowing remote access to his computer. Apparently they got into his online banking and transferred the money out. The trouble with these sort of reports is that they are always very thin on detail. Either there is a significant hole in internet bank security, or if my banking is anything to go by, he must have given them a lot more than remote access.

If I want to make a payment to a third party account, after inputting user codes / password and entering the code sent to my mobile, I am into the account. To set up a third party payment a code is then required from a pin sentry device into which I have to insert my bank card and enter my card pin. Even after that only £1000 can be transferred on the first day and then a maximum of 20K a day thereafter. So it would have taken 5 days to get his savings.

I find all these security hurdles very comforting and assumed that even if someone managed to access my account by some nefarious means, it would still be impossible to transfer anything out. That this might be possible is somewhat worrying.

The message going out is not to believe the number calling alert on your landline or mobile as criminals can now utilise bank numbers etc to convince people to engage with them. It's a sad state of affairs.