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Mobile phone / bank scam

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 11:01 am
by Squiggle
Hi

I'm sure none of us would give bank details to someone calling our mobile.

But just to alert folks who might not have heard about it yet:

I had a couple of calls from a guy [not English accent] asking for my sort code and account number. He said he was ringing from 'my bank' and needed to 'wash my account' as there had been a serious problem. When I refused he got a aggressive saying I was being 'Very unhelpful'. I told him I'd ring the Police and cut him off. Minutes later a female phoned saying 'We need your sort code'. I told her the same and cut her off.

What I didn't know, Vodafone can trace the last call received and can reveal it to the Police.

Should put this in 'Off topic' but think the more people who report these scammers the better. Hope that's ok.

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 12:39 pm
by alex_holden
This kind of thing's been going on for a looong time. They usually do it by email these days but there are still some scammers who prefer the old-fashioned ways (eg. pyramid schemes advertising via notices pasted to traffic light poles).

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 1:09 pm
by Squiggle
alex_holden wrote:This kind of thing's been going on for a looong time. They usually do it by email these days but there are still some scammers who prefer the old-fashioned ways (eg. pyramid schemes advertising via notices pasted to traffic light poles).
Yes, email, telegraph poles etc I've been aware of for some time but seemed to have escaped the mobile phone method so far.

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 1:30 pm
by MoggyTech
Good news is a huge clampdown is on the cards. A lot of the scammers are about to be tracked and caught :wink:

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 1:37 pm
by Welung666
I had an email supposedly from hotmail the other day asking me to confirm my email address and password, I spotted it as a scam right away as it was typed in what I can only describe as pigeon english! I just forwarded it onto hotmail and got a nice email back an hour later saying they had traced the account holder in Nigeria and reported it to the local police and blocked the account holders IP address from ever opening another hotmail account! What a result eh :D

Mobile phone / bank scam

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 2:51 pm
by mal
I've had the e-mail ones in the past, just printed it out and took it to the bank :wink: These people must think we are all thick :roll: :lol:

Mal

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 7:29 pm
by rayofleamington
I had a bank one this week - it was extremely convincing, written and laid out identical to the genuine bank emails.
I didn't fall for it for a second, but I'm sure someone will.

The only point of mentioning it was that even for a sceptic like myself, these things can be very convincing - no typos, used the correct style of language and not even a grainy logo picture etc... like most email scams.

Mobile phone / bank scam

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 7:41 pm
by mal
these things can be very convincing
Agree wth you there Ray, but as my Bank Manager says, they wouldn't ask you for these details over the phone or via e-mails. but as you say, someone will fall for it :-?

Mal

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 9:43 pm
by Kevin
I had a bank one this week - it was extremely convincing, written and laid out identical to the genuine bank emails.
I didn't fall for it for a second, but I'm sure someone will.

The only point of mentioning it was that even for a sceptic like myself, these things can be very convincing - no typos, used the correct style of language and not even a grainy logo picture etc... like most email scams.
The biggest giveaway for me is that most of them come from banks that I dont even have an account with and I even get them at work :evil:

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 10:04 pm
by Chief
come from banks that I dont even have an account with
Ask 'em for the sum total of your account, then say you've decided to close your account and ask 'em to send you a cheque :lol:

Out of curiosity, how many of the people who get these messages didn't (or did) opt-out of their providers public telephone directory scheme?

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 10:19 pm
by alex_holden
The banks do stupid things too sometimes, like phoning you up and asking you for personal details to confirm who you are before they'll tell you why they're calling. Er, you called me, I don't need to identify myself.

Another one some of them do is to put their online banking service under a weird domain name like "nwolb.com" instead of their normal domain, thus making it harder to tell whether you've been sent to the real thing or a phishing site.

Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 12:22 am
by UOGMoggie
alex_holden wrote:The banks do stupid things too sometimes, like phoning you up and asking you for personal details to confirm who you are before they'll tell you why they're calling. Er, you called me, I don't need to identify myself.
HSBC do this to me all the time - if i've got nothing else to do I find this quite amusing. Their reasoning is that someone else may have picked up the phone, so I tell them to hang up and ring again....

Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 9:19 pm
by ptitterington
Yes I was quite rude to an Indian chap who called me to ask me to confirm my bank details etc. Got a letter a couple of days later saying they were actually from the credit card fraud dep. and were worried about some strange transactions which turned out to be from someone buying phone credit using my card details. :(

Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 3:18 pm
by dunketh
I'm sure none of us would give bank details to someone calling our mobile.
Tax the stupid!
If people didnt fall for it they wouldn't still be doing it.

I have minimal sympathy for anyone who falls foul of these schemes these days, theres enough media coverage that everyone should be aware of the dangers.
The banks do stupid things too sometimes, like phoning you up and asking you for personal details to confirm who you are
Oh I'd love that! "Go on, phone me up and make my day punks" 8)

Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2007 2:27 pm
by badfelafel
courtesy of fonejacker...

Hello sir, we need your account details as there is a pigeon in your account, and we need the number to open it and let it go...

Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2007 4:09 pm
by d_harris
Bank Employee says: You should never give out your account number or sort-code over the phone, if your bank does ring you for whatever reason they will normally announce themselves as being "your bank" and not a specific brand for data protection purposes and they should always ask for some kind of security information - the reason for this, as mentioned earlier is that someone else may have picked up the phone. Imagine for example I lived in a shared property and recieved the following call picked up by someone else

Bank: "Hello Mr Harris, its xxxx from xxxx bank here, are you free to talk"

Housemate "Yes I am"

Then the bank goes on to reveal lots of information to a third party which is contravention of god knows how many laws and regulations - one of my colleagues got sacked for doing that (even though it was the correct person!)

from experience
HSBC will normally ask for 2 parts of your DoB Day/Month/Year not all 3

Natwest / RBS will normally ask for DoB and the last 8 digits of your card number.

If you are ever ever unsure do not give out details. Ask the person on the phone to leave a note on your account regarding the call and ring up the telephone banking number or your branch. If they have no record, or can suggest no reason for the call then it is likely fraudulent. The other thing to consider is whether the bank may have cause to call you, eg, if you have set up a standing order, issued a change of address or anything else like that.

Always of course be aware that no bank or major financial organisation within the UK would ask you to confirm details by email, if they do contact them, and ideally forward the email on to them for further investigation.

Hope thats helpful, and helps to clear some things up for you. Any questions feel free to PM and I will answer as best I can.

Another favourite is people pretending to be mobile phone companies trying to get your information so be aware of that too!