[Finance] ******** The Scam Thread *********

[bhafc99]

It must be because of the time of year, but I’ve had the HMRC tax fraud call a couple of times this week. The first time I just hung up, the second time I thought I’d hear him out and try to waste a bit of his time. The crux of his story was that I owed £1900 to HMRC, and that I could either pay it now to settle the case or else contest it in court whereby if I was found guilty, the fine would jump to £20,000. I told him that I wasn’t particularly fussed if I ended up having to pay the higher fine, as I earn that sort of money in a morning (I wish). He was lost for words for a second and then began quizzing me on what I did for a living and whether I needed any more staff

"What do I do for a living to make that much money? Ha, that would be telling...!"

"Oh, please, sir, I am most interested. If you are getting £20,000 a morning you must have very good business. I would make a good employee for you sir."

"Well, hmm, ok. My company's based in India, would that be any good for you?"

"Yes, yes. I am already working in Bangalore."

"OK, well, what we do is phone up random people in the UK and pretend to be like their bank, mail service, tax authority etc, in order to persuade them to hand over life savings."

"…"

"I mean, it's totally illegal, and disgustingly immoral, mate, but yes it's damn good money. So, are you still interested?"

"…"

"Hello? Hello? Are you still there?"

click

"Oh, he's hung up. How odd."

 

[Weststander]

It must be because of the time of year, but I’ve had the HMRC tax fraud call a couple of times this week. The first time I just hung up, the second time I thought I’d hear him out and try to waste a bit of his time. The crux of his story was that I owed £1900 to HMRC, and that I could either pay it now to settle the case or else contest it in court whereby if I was found guilty, the fine would jump to £20,000. I told him that I wasn’t particularly fussed if I ended up having to pay the higher fine, as I earn that sort of money in a morning (I wish). He was lost for words for a second and then began quizzing me on what I did for a living and whether I needed any more staff

Love that story.

I enjoyed one where the caller (I was at a client’s, on my own at lunch and took the call) wanted to “lend” my client a maximum £10m or some other big figure. I said make it £20m then we’re talking. Pinocchio went ‘to check with a director’ and came back with a yes. I then wasted their time with a series of follow up calls on speaker phone, whilst we just got on with other stuff, randomly replying to keep it going.

It probably didn’t dent their overall proceeds of crime, but I was got churlish amusement out of taking the p.

 

[Norman Potting]

One a couple weeks ago - heavy American accented recorded stating "this is your banks fraud department calling. Message rambled on for a bit then offered various options including speaking to their attorney. Didn't fall for it.

 

[Lethargic]

Had a couple in the last week first one was telling us they are a neighbour and we're informing us that our PC was connected to their router and we were stealing their WiFi bandwidth, none of our PCs use WiFi so the wife told him to do one. Second one said they had found our iPhone and wanted £100 to return it, we don't own an iPhone again the wife told him to do one.


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[giveusfalmerplease]

.. Second one said they had found our iPhone and wanted £100 to return it, we don't own an iPhone again the wife told him to do one.

Interesting..tell them that "Stealing by finding" is a criminal offence and they could themselves get arrested.

 

[Official Old Man]

As you've all been very good to me plus I'm never going to be able to spend all of this money alone, I'm going to share my luck with all of you.
Hello, I am Manuel Franco, you have a donation of $2.800.000,00. I won the $768 million Powerball lottery on March 30, 2018, I am donating part of it to five lucky people and Ten Charity organisations. You email came out victorious. Contact me urgently for claims via:manuel@manuelfranco.net.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

As you've all been very good to me plus I'm never going to be able to spend all of this money alone, I'm going to share my luck with all of you.
Hello, I am Manuel Franco, you have a donation of $2.800.000,00. I won the $768 million Powerball lottery on March 30, 2018, I am donating part of it to five lucky people and Ten Charity organisations. You email came out victorious. Contact me urgently for claims via:manuel@manuelfranco.net.

I've just emailed him mother's maiden name, my date of birth, and email address.

Nailed on certainty. What can go wrong?

Waiting with baited breath.

 

[Sirnormangall]

As you've all been very good to me plus I'm never going to be able to spend all of this money alone, I'm going to share my luck with all of you.
Hello, I am Manuel Franco, you have a donation of $2.800.000,00. I won the $768 million Powerball lottery on March 30, 2018, I am donating part of it to five lucky people and Ten Charity organisations. You email came out victorious. Contact me urgently for claims via:manuel@manuelfranco.net.

Thanks for sharing that and please thank Manuel for going the extra mile by working over Easter.

 

[Pinkie Brown]

One text doing the rounds at the moment is claiming to be from Royal Mail, claiming there is a fee to pay for an undelivered parcel with a link in the text to pay. I received this one yesterday.

Being in Germany I don't get the calls from India as not too many Indians scammers are fluent in German. France apparently gets targeted with the usual Indian style scams from call centres based in Tunisia and Algeria.

The work of Jim Browning, Kitboga and others are worth following on YouTube and other platforms. Some of the scam baiters are hilarious. The funniest was the baiter who downloaded a version of Windows RG (Windows Really Good) which was akin to a naff school project, then strung a confused scammer along after hooking up with Teamview or similar. The aftermath of the scammer exploding with rage and the baiter winding him up after all his files were deleted was comedy gold.

 

[Driver8]

If you get contacted by someone purporting to be from Vanguard or C Hoare & Co offering what appear to be very attractive fixed term deposit rates it’s a scam. It has just cost a friend of one of my clients £20k+.

 

[Bodian]

Was called on a number one digit out on my mobile number, what are the chances?


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Went out with a girl whose landline number was one digit less than mine - but then there are fewer landline numbers in one area I suppose. About half-a-mile away.

 

[NooBHA]

There is a new scam started going round in email offering the opportunity to purchase Block Hospitality Tickets for all Euros tickets. The packages are not cheap which helps make the offer look more authentic. So be careful folks

 

[Justice]

Lot of payment advice email scams doing the rounds, I’m quite certain I would be aware if someone owed me £42k

 

[Coxovi]

I received an email claiming to have hacked my computer while I visited porn sites, stealing camera footage, files and browsing history. Its a blackmail attempt basically, which I had already read about somewhere. It was on my work PC so I reported it to IT security for tracing, will update if they find out anything interesting.

 

[Wrong-Direction]

I received an email claiming to have hacked my computer while I visited porn sites, stealing camera footage, files and browsing history. Its a blackmail attempt basically, which I had already read about somewhere. It was on my work PC so I reported it to IT security for tracing, will update if they find out anything interesting.

That'll teach you for looking at porn at work

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[Cheshire Cat]

If you get contacted by someone purporting to be from Vanguard or C Hoare & Co offering what appear to be very attractive fixed term deposit rates it’s a scam. It has just cost a friend of one of my clients £20k+.

What is a "very attractive rate" these days.

Anything above 0.5%?

The retail rates are abysmal, even for longer term fixes.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

I received an email claiming to have hacked my computer while I visited porn sites, stealing camera footage, files and browsing history. Its a blackmail attempt basically, which I had already read about somewhere. It was on my work PC so I reported it to IT security for tracing, will update if they find out anything interesting.

It will be even more interesting if you suddenly find yourself on a disciplinary hearing. Are you certain you have never accessed anything a bit "dodgy""on your works account.

Be careful what you wish for.

 

[Driver8]

What is a "very attractive rate" these days.

Anything above 0.5%?

The retail rates are abysmal, even for longer term fixes.

The Vanguard scam was offering 6% fixed, the C Hoare 3% fixed. Both clearly far above what is currently available but people still fall for it.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

The Vanguard scam was offering 6% fixed, the C Hoare 3% fixed. Both clearly far above what is currently available but people still fall for it.

I've got to the stage I might as well bury any cash in the garden and hope I remember exactly where.

I blame quantitative easing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frome_Hoard

 

[Jim in the West]

Just received a pretty convincing email purporting to be from Apple, telling me I had malware on my machine, and (inevitably) asking me to click on a link WITHIN FOUR MINUTES to avoid permanent damage!!