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Legal, pensions and money

Another scam!

(14 Posts)
Jane10 Sat 28-Sep-19 10:13:09

I've just had an automated call from 'Amazon prime' telling me that £39.99 will be taken from my account. Press 1 for details etc. I hung up. I don't have an Amazon prime account for one thing.
On googling it, I found warnings of a spate of these calls. They are a definite scam. Sigh. ?

LondonGranny Sat 28-Sep-19 10:22:10

I've had a spate of those computerised voices but supposedly from BT telling me I'm going to be cut off the internet. I rang BT to check and they confirmed they were definitely dodgy.

I also had two or three phone calls from Thames Water (but with real person) that sounded so dodgy I just hung up. Turned out they were genuine and they sent a letter instead!
Moral of the story is if it's genuine they will send a letter.

LondonGranny Sat 28-Sep-19 10:26:09

A useful thing is to have your name on the electoral roll hidden (originally for Domestic Violence victims but available to anyone). It cut down junk mail considerably (took a little while though).

Jane10 Sat 28-Sep-19 11:07:55

Our banes have been hidden from the electoral roll and we receive hardly any junk mail. BT call blocker is good but will only block numbers after we dial 1572. It then stops future calls from that number. I can only suppose our tel no has been circulated by companies who have had to have them.

annsixty Sat 28-Sep-19 11:30:58

I have had the Amazon one twice this week.
It is an automated American voice.
As Amazon prime costs £79:99 a year I assume that if I press 1 they will offer it at the lower rate if I give my bank details.
I had a similar one twice from BG offering me a 40% discount all.I have to do is give my bank details.
How many people are being conned by these evil scumbags.

LondonGranny Sat 28-Sep-19 11:37:50

annsixty
Loads of people are scammed but those who have been robbed often don't report it because they are ashamed for having been hoodwinked. There is no shame, these scammers are pretty clever and often ahead oof the game, as it were. It took less than 24 hours for scammers to leap onto the collapse of Thomas Cook and offer to recover lost money.

LondonGranny Sat 28-Sep-19 11:42:04

...and they have no shame whatsoever. I know a man with a learning disability living independently with a visit from a social worker once a fortnight to help with anything he might need. His bank account was completely emptied after a plausible scam call that played on his fears and once they know someone is vulnerable they go back time and time again. Which they did.

Ginny42 Sat 28-Sep-19 11:44:26

I had just returned from taking my heart monitor back to the hospital this morning when I got a call saying, 'Thank you for your Visa payment of £500. If you did not make this payment press one.' My immediate reaction was to put the phone down, but I was a bit confused as I had made a big payment for tickets for an event, but it wasn't that figure.

I spent the next half hour calling my bank and credit card provider. No record of such a payment. They said this is a regular scam.

Good job I'd taken the heart monitor back!

whitefrog632 Tue 01-Oct-19 09:25:52

Yup it's one of those scam tricks. We need to be on extra guard. Amazon Prime trick has been around for years. I personally never get one of them, but I sometimes read people's reports and complaint at whycall.me or another similar complaint boards.

Stansgran Tue 01-Oct-19 10:33:04

Evidently I've just been spoofed. I had a spate of phone calls from people asking what I had phoned them for. My number was cloned by the scammers and used to phone others up.

fizzers Tue 01-Oct-19 10:43:16

I don't get phone calls, but I do get emails into my Hotmail account, so far I've had, HMRC, DVLA, Tv Licensing, Paypal, Ebay, Amazon, various banks that I am not with.

For payments via Paypal or Amazon etc I use a totally different email account, and I only use it for payments. Anything that goes into the hotmail account I know is a scam and I report them

jpren6 Tue 01-Oct-19 10:45:04

i also had this message from amazon saying they would deduct £39.99 for prime membership I checked my account to make sure i hadnt added prime by accident .I had not as this is quite easy to do when you are ordering something I tend to use ebay now as they are cheaper anyway

Jane10 Tue 01-Oct-19 10:48:08

Thats awful stansgran . I hadn't thought it was possible to clone someone else's number. Has your phone provider done anything to help?

Stansgran Tue 01-Oct-19 12:51:51

We are in the process of changing from EE. To another provider. EE said they wouldn't do anything as we were changing. Hoping for better with plusnet.