To be appalled at this blatant scam.

Germanshepherdsmum

I had a call from’John’ from Amazon this morning. Indeterminate accent and called me ‘Ma’am’, not by my name. Someone from Reading had placed an order for £799, was that me? No. Do I know anyone in Ready? No. When did I last access my Amazon account? No idea (actually last week, wonder why ‘John’ didn’t know. Did I last access it on my phone, tablet or laptop? Can’t remember. Let me connect you to our security portal and show you the fraudulent transactions made by someone hacking into your account and then we can arrange to cancel the order. No way am I giving you access to my computer, goodbye.

Amazon always email an acknowledgment of an order very quickly so you would know if someone else had used your account to place an order. I suspect a lot of people would be panicked at the thought of someone having spent that sort of sum on their account and without thinking give ‘John’, their saviour, access to their computer - and their bank account and card details.

I had a similar one a while back. Someone had purchased an iPhone on my Amazon account and the adviser wanted to connect to my system to go through the transaction before cancelling. That’s the point at which I too, ended the conversation.

Cressida

BBC have been showing a series called Scam Interceptors which is worth watching. All 15 episodes are available on I-player at the moment.

Not sure if it was the same programme but I watched a scam interceptor listening in on a phone call between a scammer and a seemingly vulnerable lady - they seemed to have convinced her that her bank account had been hacked and a large sum of money stolen. The scammer had given her a fake bank phone number so they could arrange to credit the money back to her account. She seemed really taken in until the moment she innocently mentioned that her son was a high ranking police officer in the cyber fraud division. She said she would report the bank theft to him and make sure they investigated.

The scammer panicked and you could hear him talking in another language to someone else - obviously asking what to do. He came back on and hurriedly told her that it was fine and they didn’t need to take any further action as the money was now back in her account. The line then went dead.

The lady turned out to be a retired police officer and her son really was in cyber fraud - and she knew she was being scammed, so strung him along for a bit of fun. It was hilarious listening to him trying to backtrack and get out of the call.

Yes Pammie1 it was the same programme.

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0016ld3/scam-interceptors-series-1-episode-11

Episode 11 is well worth watching.