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Two clicks from being scammed out of £2,000 yesterday


Robtaylor200

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Wow, so easily done. I’ve almost fallen for things several times. Like when you’re expecting a parcel and you get a text or email with a link saying there’s and issue and you need to click it. I’ve almost done things like that several times before realising it’s not legit.

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Thank you for posting.  I've read about this scam a few times so I'm always wary when anyone sends me a message saying this is my new number.  I've actually sent messages back asking their date of birth or about specific events and had some really funny messages back.  Better to be safe though.

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Close call. I advise everyone to just assume any text or call from an unknown number should always be treated with suspicion and anything involving money should involve speaking on the phone or in person. Any links sent in any text are 100% scams. All these legitimate companies have official apps with which they can communicate. Especially banks.

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1 hour ago, dubbs said:

Thank you for posting.  I've read about this scam a few times so I'm always wary when anyone sends me a message saying this is my new number.  I've actually sent messages back asking their date of birth or about specific events and had some really funny messages back.  Better to be safe though.

Asking for DOB is good. If you're feeling fruity, try "ASL?"

Seriously though, there's loads of this stuff about. Close shave @Robtaylor200!

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5 hours ago, Robtaylor200 said:

WARNING FOR ALL PLEASE READ THIS IN DETAIL

OMG we were almost scammed out of a lot of money yesterday. When we watch and hear how people get scammed, we always think they should have more sense and it wouldn’t happen to us but it was so close.

My wife had a whatsapp saying

Hi mom had to change my phone again this is my new number

This not unusual her lad is often changing his phone, so my wife spent around 10 mins changing it in her contacts. Some time later she had text saying he was getting stressed out as the bank had frozen his app for three days due to change of number and he could not pay one of his bills was there any chance we could pay it for him, and he would pay us back. He is pretty well off and to us this wouldn’t be a problem. He sent the payment details, I put them into my bank app. He then said sorry it’s a rather a large amount £2,900. That would have meant me moving money from other places and we said we only had £2,000 available at this time, he texted back that would be ok. I  had set up the payment  and was about to confirm when something made us freeze WHY WOULD THIS AMOUNT BE OK WHEN HE HAD asked for more. We tried to ring him but the line was busy. My wife texted  “who is this payment for”, he said he was desperate and would have to borrow from somewhere else if we didn’t help and said it was urgent. I still had sons old number  and rang him. He had no idea what we were talking about. Thank the Lord  I pressed cancel. My wife texted asking more questions and the replies got nasty, If we didn’t help he would be forced to go to a loan shark etc. We blocked and reported the number, We were two clicks away from loosing £2,000

Its as easy as that, knocked us sick. I googlesd and read that it is a big scam. Pretending to be grown up child  

Ringing your sons old number is the key ( confirmation )We had a real convincng e-mail from our bank a few years ago.I forget the details but it was so convincing that after 3 e-mails,I printed out the e-mail and took it to the bank...... Where they "confirmed" that it was not sent from them.

So,as I say.If in doubt,get confirmation from the person/bank/buisness involved first.

 

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Yep, it's as well to assume anything you get asking you for money is a scam as the starting point. 

We still have a fixed phone line. Working from home has amazed me just how many scam calls you get. Hardly any at night, all in the day obviously aiming for the pensioners. 

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Just now, Xela said:

My parents wouldn't pay a ransom for me if I had genuinely been kidnapped by Somali pirates. 

I’d be sending them an Arsenal shirt for him to wear and telling them to keep him of it were my lad. :) 

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I had one just like Rob, that was claiming to be my son, on a Friday evening. It just didn't ring true, given the story sent by text and the way the request for money was made, the wording of the texts just didn't sound like my son. I telephoned him in a North London boozer and found out that I was right.

I sent the number, bank account details provided by the caller and copied the text messages from my mobile to Action Fraud (link below), but a month later The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (to whom my report had been sent) got back to me and told me:

"Experts at the NFIB examine the information you provide. Where possible, the information is also matched against other available data in order to enrich and corroborate the details of the fraud. The NFIB assess whether there are viable lines of enquiry that would enable a law enforcement body, such as the police service, to investigate. On this occasion, based on the information currently available, it has not been possible to identify a line of enquiry which a law enforcement organisation in the United Kingdom could pursue." They added, "The information you have provided may be used to disrupt criminal activity and inform prevention advice and campaigns."

That was a disappointing response (it read like a template to me) and I get the feeling that not enough manpower is being put into tracking these sort of crooks down. As sidcow has said, they are aiming at pensioners and not all of them would think of a potential fraud, when they are being asked for help by someone, they might initially think is their child. It had me thinking for a while, until I took a moment to think. I don't know what more information I could have given, perhaps their focus is more on the people who have become victims, than on prevention, which I accept may be difficult if the calls are from outside the UK. Seems they are free to do what they want and there is not that much being done to stop or to apprehend them.  

https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/report-phishing

Edited by John
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15 hours ago, leemond2008 said:

If my parents got a text from me saying "this is my new number, can you bust me 2 G's" whoever it was that sent the message would get a response saying "**** OFF 🤣🤣🤣🤣"

I'd get the same response if I asked for £2000 in person

LOL. it wasn't with in two sentences, there was chat about how you are etc to build it up. But next time I will ask them if they want my bank details so they can help themselves, I will ask if they want our address and we can leave the key under the mat so they can take all our stuff too, Robbing Baar stewards

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Someone tried this on my wife over whatasapp too. She rang my daughter and asked if talking would be better than text, and my daughter was like "what now?". My wife is illiterate on her phone so that probably saved her. Also why would our daughter not just borrow the phone off her husband?

Some tips;

a) Don't transfer money based on a text - speak to the person before you do anything like this.

b) Don't click links, accept random people adding you to social media\whatsapp etc. It's never really the way our sons and daughters would ask for that much money if we really think about it.

c) Be a mean bastard and never give away money..

Edited by magnkarl
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Just read a piece in The Sunday Times about this. It is known as the "Mum and Dad" scam and is mostly a WhatsApp thing. Lloyds report twice as many of these cases in the first half of this year, than there had been in 2021 and victims lost on average £1,610. UK Finance say that impersonation fraud cost victims £77.5m last year, which was up 39% on 2020. 

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My mom and dad nearly fell for this a few months ago. Luckily my dad text my actual number asking if I was alright, and I saw it after I'd finished playing football (my phone is often dead by that time of the evening if I've gone elsewhere after work).

Neither would normally be at any risk from this type of thing, but they were really close to parting with serious money over this one. Glad that you managed to avoid being scammed in the end

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