Got caught by scam today and really upset.

Last night we had a talk at NWR by a police officer about scams. Apparently all the scammers need is 10 seconds of your voice to make full sentences using AI.
I found this worrying as my bank uses voice recognition.

She recommended we use a call blocker like Truecall and not answer any calls we do not recognise.

If it's a number I don't recognise, and they ask 'is that Mrs xxxxxx' I simply say 'who's calling?' And then block it and hang up. Sorted.

Thank you all so much. There is so much information that I will use. I am on super alert now.

I have a friend who was scammed by a caller pretending to be a police detective and she was going to be arrested for fraud involving Amazon. She followed his directions to withdraw $20,000 from her bank and then go to a certain location where she was to put the cash into a bitcoin machine. He told her not to tell anyone and she was terrified. She put $2,000 into the machine and then wondered if it was a scam. She called her adult children and they told her it was a scam, but they understood, didn't scold her, and went with her to the bank. She never got the $2,000 back. She had been fairly recently widowed when that happened and was an easy target. She felt foolish but that caller was very convincing. I think it could happen to almost anyone.

Definitely not stupid. That's the answer I would have given. Never heard anything about this scam. Now how do I answer the phone without saying yes? Will leave it for the answerphone.

It is very distressing even if you stop before you get scammed, you feel stressed that you nearly got caught. I have an answerphone on my landline. Friends and family know I have mobility problems so they stay on until the end of the message so if I am there I have time to get to the phone. Most unwanted calls just put the phone down as soon as the answerphone starts. Occasionally I answer and dont think much to the caller so I say quite calmly and quietly "for your information all my calls are recorded " Very often the phone goes down straigth away. It does record the calls and in one instance I rang the local police as it sounded too like a genuine call from a charity and the police followed it up and warned people about it etc.
Then another area I would like to bring to your attention. My son drives a lot, uses his up to date phone for many things. so if I got an email saying that he had dropped his phone etc etc it could be the truth. So what we have done in our family is to agree a specific word. Now if the scammers have gathered enough information where you could possible believe it is your son, you need something quite unknown to anyone. In our case, he has another name, which is not on his passport , nor is it known by anyone on official documents. So we have agreed that if something seems plausible but suspicious , I will ask "what is your name" and if they reply with his names that everyone knows they are scammers as my son will only used the unknown name. If you tet together with your family and work out an appropriate word, NOT a known name or dogs name or anything like that but say you went to the arctic 20 years ago before you even had any computors you might have Midnight Sun or Chilly04, which will be easy to remember for you but has no specific common word that they might have worked out from something of yours. Or again you could say where was great granny born. That sort of thing , so then your family know this and it is an easy way to check up on calls without raising suspicions . I also do the dozy old biddy routine. When they ask for something I say just a minute and I will get my hearing aid, or just going to put the kettle off. Then just leave the phone without putting it back into the holder . If you think it is very dodgy and you have another phone ring the police or bank or whatever on that line and they can sometimes catch them.
Also when you are out and about, many people can be heard ringing their friend or family and stating oh I will meet you at Cafe Nero or I going up to Newcastle now wont be back until late. Well you are giving information to people walking by. My husband and I used to do shopping in a town and then would meet up for coffee . But it was quite simple . Whoever rang the other person would say, Shall we meet at the usual place,? Or we might say Lets go to the other place today. So we of course know exactly where we are going but no one walking by is given even a little knowledge of where or what we are doing. These days it should say like in the war time Remember walls have ears . or was it be like dad and keep mum (rather sexist but makes the point) I worked in communications and my husband used to be in the left hand golfball at fylingdales so we were used to being careful!!

So it is a good idea to look at some plans and pass on good ideas to each other, but try not to feel you are being stupid. I have a good friend who became a senior manager in accounts in a large company and was seen as very competent etc. she had £3000 stollen from her account by them using what looked like her banks informtion. The money was bad enough to lose but it has absolutely devasted her, She always saw herself as on the ball and would be the person giving out financial advice. So to feel that she has allowed this to happen has really upset and shaken her, and now sadly but understandably she is totally mistrusting of just about everything and is much more anxious and stressed about every day living. It is good that we tell each other of thiese things happening as we can then see that we are not stupid or ignorant, These wretched scammers , learn new ways to cause misery every day and we cannot keep up with them all what we do here - keeping people updated is the best thing we can do.

Never answer the phone but let the answer machine take over. Genuine callers will leave a message and you can pick up, interrupt, and answer. Cold callers can be avoided this way.

I usually just answer with “who wants to know”

Yes I did , nothing happened .

Lovetopaint037 Try to put it out of your head. No harm done. You did everything right and it all probably seems worse because you are worried about your medical procedure. Hope all goes well.

I've not heard of the YES scam. I would only add that I was scammed by a website which clearly stated Trusted Traitor etc . Whatever you do , don't both to report to Action Fraud as nothing happens. The crime is just recorded but not stopped nor will you get your money back.

You did not get scammed. You didn't give them details of your bank account or password. They attempted to scam you but you were alert to them. Hope your operation goes well.

I have signed up for WHICH SCAM ALERTS.
It is totally free and Which send e.mails with all the latest details of scams.
It is a real help to make us more aware of what is going on.
I'd advise everyone to sign up fot it.

I had that one too Bonnybanko

As further information the bank said that even they do not know the security number, so probably someone must have hacked into a company where I had made an online purchase

I got tricked by a scam a couple of months ago as the person who rang me knew all my details - phone number, credit card number and the security code on the back and my email. To cut a long story short the money was refunded for the purchased which had been made with the scam and the bank arranged to send a replacement card. However, before it arrived it was used because the scammer had set up an Apple Pay account using my details. Apparently the reason this could happen is that if a new card is issued Apple Pay are straight away told the number by the bank. Refunds came for that as well but it was somewhat worrying that this could happen.

Lovetopaint037 I can sympathise I have had 2 calls lately, then a text yesterday about my energy tarriff thankfully I am of a mind not to trust anyone. Googled the numbers which showed I was just right so now have blocked these.

This happened to me the same day that I was with my parents telling them to never say YES.
I rang the bank who reassured me that as i don’t have voice recognition set up on my account they can’t do anything and they didn’t have my account details.
Unfortunately now I just hang up as soon as a person starts talking if i don’t recognise the voice straight away.

I pride myself on being up on scams, but was just about to complete a purchase on a scam website. At the very last minute, just before I paid, I checked reviews and came up on Trustpilot.com and other review websites as a scam/very poorly reviewed website.
Also whenever I get a suspect email supposedly from and established company, I search for the phishing /scam email address for that company and send it through to them for investigation.

I've known about the 'yes' scam for a while and yet I still said it the other day. It's so easy to get caught out. They wouldn't have come up with this otherwise. You aren't an idiot at all as you did all the right things afterwards. Contact your bank again if you still feel unsure of how safe your account is, to put your mind at rest.

I was told the "yes" scam was along the lines of they could record your voice and then insert it into a recording where you are agreeing to buy something, although as others have said I have never heard of anyone actually losing money in this way.

You have to be very careful with phone calls and emails these days - yesterday I received an email thanking me for entering a competition and to click on the link to see what I had won - I never enter online competitions so I deleted the email

Lovetopaint037 You are not an idiot, I very nearly fell for the message scam where they send a message to your mobile to say that it is one of your children in trouble and they have had to get a new phone as theirs was stolen. My son is in Canada and I couldn’t verify he was ok for about an hour, I thought he had been mugged! I got in a real state and panicked. Even though I had texted them back, I hadn’t given them any details so it was all ok but very very distressing! Like you I rang my bank for reassurance.
I hope you are ok now, it’s a horrible thing to happen 💐

My spam folder has been inundated this week with at least thirty mails a day; all are for my OH, but they have the wrong first name . They ask him to ' Confirm the account he has opened', 'Click to see the prize he has won' etc. We have used the credit card a lot online over the last few months for Christmas, so our email address must have been sold on. I delete them all without opening, but what a can of worms they could be.

OMG I am certain I'd have said yes !! But your generosity in sharing your story will make sure I don't - thank you 😊
Zero need for any embarrassment on your part; I'm sure you are/were very good at your job, and so are these darned scammers !
Good luck & warmest wishes for tomorrow. xx

My mobile, a Google Pixel, allows me to screen suspect calls by sending a message asking the caller to state the purpose of their call. 99% of the time they caller rings off before the screening message has finished.