Online Scams and Fraud (theft)

[Humberto]

73% of UK adults, have been targeted by scams. 35% have lost money to it (on average £1730 lost) that's 19 million adults scammed.

Best part is a lot of people don't report it to their banks.

It's a very sophisticated system. As I found out recently. They'll kite your credit card in hotels.

 

[bcuster]

How did the scammer get your info?

 

[Humberto]

I didn't lose 'much'. £400, and got it back the next day by contacting the bank's fraud team. But it was basically a scam gambling site. But there are loads of ways. The numbers are staggering really.

 

[Humberto]

£400 put me into my overdraft btw. I didn't mean to be Billy big licks about it. Whatever your income, it's just how it is and you have to be wise or suffer for it.

 

[Humberto]

It could be porn sites, romance scams, phishing, ID fraud or even looking around to buy things. Once you've paid and revealed your DVT they have you. It's 30 £billion in this country alone.

 

[bcuster]

It could happen to anyone. I'm sorry it happened to you

 

[two sheds]

Another scam email I got this morning "Could you be owed money?"

Our collective action against Apple
Hello,

As you’re a Which? member, we’re letting you know that we’re taking tech giant Apple to court for breaching competition law.
Using a legal mechanism first introduced in 2015, we’re seeking compensation on behalf of around 40 million UK consumers. We believe that Apple has abused its power by failing to provide users with a choice of cloud storage providers, while steering customers towards its own iCloud service.

This led to Apple customers being ripped off with inflated iCloud subscription fees, and we plan to hold it to account. If we win, millions of UK iPhone and iPad iOS users could be entitled to their share of a £3bn claim against Apple – and you could be one of them.
Find out if you’re eligible using our tool, and register for updates on the case. Please note, you will be taken through to our case website, which is managed by EPIQ on our behalf.

Which? Eh well I'm disgusted. There's even a website address https://www.cloudclaim.co.uk/?mi_u=216536047&mi_ecmp=C_S_EM_PE___20241114

for anyone interested

 

[emanymton]

I've never been scammed, as far as I know anyway, every now and then I see a small payment and have no idea what it was for.

But I'm not nearly as security conscious as I should be. I have my banking app set to alert me to every debit or credit to my account. A bit annoying but worth it I think.

I should probably set up more 2 factor authentication, currently I just have it for the 2 email accounts I use, as that was easy to do and my logic is that as long as I keep control of the emails there isn't much that can be done without my knowledge.

 

[Humberto]

There are other ruses to try and con you into downloading malware. Thin end of the wedge like but it might be as simple as clicking on a plausible seeming 'I am not a robot' type thing.

 

[ouirdeaux]

I've had my credit card cloned twice, but I don't count that as falling for a scam. Ironically, I was very paranoid in those days, so only used the card on my computer at work, because I trusted their paywall. I suppose it could have been someone at work, though that seems unlikely. Since then I've used cards countless times with less protection on my devices, and it hasn't happened again.

 

[pogofish]

I've had my credit card cloned twice, but I don't count that as falling for a scam. Ironically, I was very paranoid in those days, so only used the card on my computer at work, because I trusted their paywall. I suppose it could have been someone at work, though that seems unlikely. Since then I've used cards countless times with less protection on my devices, and it hasn't happened again.

This happened to me several times. Interestingly in a period when money was very tight, so I was working with what I had and only using cards for online/in-extremis.

The one cloned most was actually the card I used least - I had only made payments three times in preceding years. ALL to my insurance company..!

 

[pogofish]

The latest phone scam I'm getting is - "Hi sir, I'm processing your switch to Green Energy. Thank you for saving the planet - now gimme your bank/card details"

Ok...!

 

[Humberto]

The latest phone scam I'm getting is - "Hi sir, I'm processing your switch to Green Energy. Thank you for saving the planet - now gimme your bank/card details"

Ok...!

It must get someone though.

 

[Orang Utan]

I wonder why lots of people don’t report it to their banks. You get your money back quite promptly

 

[pogofish]

I wonder why lots of people don’t report it to their banks. You get your money back quite promptly

In my case, it was the bank that reported it to me - "Hi sir, have you just spent £2500 in a casino? No. Ok, I'll just refund you and issue a new card. Sorry to have bothered you."

 

[ID47]

Had problems this week with multiple weird stuff coming at my phone from the USA thanks to a privatised part of NHS (virtual ward equipment and IT). Very strange and it ended when they agreed to take their stuff away as it never worked at all.

That an NHS trust (ESHT) is using such dodgy stuff is concerning.

 

[NoXion]

I was got earlier this year by a fake website purporting to sell a specific brand of shoes, but when the item arrived it was a piece of fake jewellery, and when I tried contacting the seller I got no response. That was my first inking that I had been scammed. It was confirmed only after I discovered that the brand I was trying to buy didn't sell their stuff outside of North America!

I contacted my bank and they were able to reimburse me, in spite of my paying by debit rather than credit card. I can't help but think most people don't even realise that reaching out to their bank is a thing that they can do, especially if like me they don't pay on credit.

 

[Serge Forward]

Text messages with anything remotely scammy get binned off immediately. If they try to call me, I never pick up unknown numbers. In the past though, when I did pick up, the conversation went something like this:

Unknown caller: Hi, I'm calling from EE/O2/Talktalk, etc. It looks as if there's a problem with... (blah blah... flim flam... gives out some scammy bullshit for a couple of minutes.)
Me: Oh!
UC: Yes, so we really need to...
Me: What are you wearing?
UC: Pardon?
Me: What are you wearing? You sound really hot.
Caller hangs up.

 

[Mr.Bishie]

Heard about Daisy?

Daisy the AI granny is here to answer calls from scammers and waste their time

Finally, the AI use case we've all been waiting for

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