MINISTRY OF PENSIONS SCAM
"One of our employees was called up last week from a man claiming
to be from the Ministry of Pensions. The number was from a mobile
phone and although it sounded suspicious, the caller knew her name
and address and told her she was due a backdated pension payout of
£5,000. To get the money released she would have to pay £200 and
at this stage she wisely hung up the phone."
Gillian Morgan, June 2012
DHL SCAM
"A company pretending to be DHL emailed me to say it had
attempted to deliver a parcel to my address but was unable to, and if I
wanted to rearrange the delivery I needed to download a reference
number.
"Attached to the email was a PDF, which I stupidly thought would be
safe to download. As soon as I did every file on my computer became
blocked and I had to take the laptop into a local centre to get it fixed."
Dave Hope, June 2012
[Related feature: How to get your money back after a scam]
SANTANDER SCAM
"An email arrived in my personal inbox this week supposedly from
Santander. It said someone had tried to send me money but as the
transaction looked suspicious it was declined and my account is now
restricted.
"Therefore I was asked to confirm some personal details to be able to
access my account again. Although it looked quite genuine there were
also a lot of spelling mistakes in the text, which hinted it might be a
scam."
Vanessa Preece, June 2012
ROMANCE SCAM
"I have been in contact with a man who is stuck in Ghana after
finishing work on an oil rig there for the Ghanaian government. He
says he hasn't been paid yet and needs money for a ticket back to the
UK and claims he is a structural engineer living in Manchester. The
money needs to be transferred online but I believe it's a scam so I
have instead alerted the British Commission in Ghana."
Joanna Farrington, June 2012
CO-OPERATIVE BANK SCAM
"Someone posing as the Co-op emailed me last week to let me know
about a potential fraud alert to my account. To avoid this, ‘the bank'
has updated its security system I was told I need to hand over my sort
code and account number by email to make sure my account is
protected."
Frederick Burns, May 2012
[Related feature: The return of a classic scam]
DATING WEBSITE SCAM
"Ever since the end of last year, I've been in touch with a woman I
met through an online dating website. Apparently she lives in
Australia but is currently on a trip in London.
She emailed me yesterday to say that while over here she's been
mugged and now no longer has her debit or credit cards or any cash.
Therefore she's asked for me to transfer money to her for a flight back
home. Instead, I'm alerting ScamWatch as I believe this is a con."
Phillip Hall, May 2012
STUDENT LOAN SCAM
"My inbox is regularly filed with scam emails and the latest claims to
be from the student loans company. It says it’s being sent out to all
students who have received grants and loans and asks for the student
to verify their personal details. Within the email was an attachment
which needed to be downloaded to complete the process."
Frederick Burns, April 2012
BT SCAM
"Although my phone account is with BT I was a little suspicious when
I received an email from the company recently. It was titled "action
required" and said my last payment wasn’t processed properly. This
was either because my personal details had been changed or there
was an error when I had paid the bill. To resolve the situation it asked
for further details, and included a link, so instead of carrying on I
marked it as spam and deleted it."
A Brooks, April 2012
LOAN SCAM
"I have been trying to get a loan so I can take my wife on holiday and
we had a phone call recently from a firm offering this. It seemed
completely genuine and we weren’t asked for personal or financial
details. We were told we should buy a voucher for £50 and then we
would have the loan deposited into our account. However, we were
never called back and there seems to be no way to get our £50 back. If
they can do this to one person I wonder how many more times have
they done it."
Stephen Gibson, April 2012
INVESTMENT SCAM
"A lady with a Scottish accent called me this week suggesting I ring
fence my assets, so that they could not be used in the event of
entering a care home. The alarming thing is she mentioned a
password I do actually use for some of my accounts but I’ve never had
any dealings with this company before. I’ve now changed all my other
passwords."
Margaret Herd, April 2012
AMAZON SCAM 2
"The public need to be aware of yet another Amazon scam in
circulation. It is a voucher that advertises a £10 voucher for Amazon.
However, once you sign up to the voucher and give your personal
details to the company £29 will be debited from your account each
month and will be described as an administration fee."
Shan Lamptey, April 2012
CHINESE INVESTMENT SCAM
"Today I received a letter from a so-called private investigator in
China to say someone with my surname had died and he was the
lawyer representing the case. The deceased man apparently had
millions of pounds in his investment portfolio and as there are no
other interested parties, the funds could be split equally between the
author of the letter and myself. Funnily enough I have taken this no
further."
David Storrar, March 2012
PARCEL DELIVERY SCAM
"I arrived home from work today to find a card behind my door telling
me a parcel had been left under my patio table. I had not ordered
anything from this catalogue company and rang it up asking why
these items of jewellery had been sent. I was put through to the fraud
department and the member of staff asked if I was a company
director to which I replied that I was. Apparently the latest scam is for
con artists to use your name and address (which they can find on a
company website) and then change the address for delivery once the
account has been accepted. Thankfully I acted straight away and a
fraud marker was put on my file and I was advised to check my credit
record."
Angela Oakley, March 2012
DISASTER NEWS SCAM
"Last week an email arrived in my inbox from a friend and
immediately alarm bells began ringing. For a start the language was
strange and it went on to say she was on holiday in London and had
been mugged and had everything stolen apart from passports. It then
went on to ask for help settling the hotel bill and getting a flight.
There were lots of things in it that didn’t match up so I contacted my
friend and she confirmed it was a scam."
Ann Street, March 2012
THE HALIFAX SCAM
"Halifax, or at least I thought it was the bank, contacted me to say it
had detected irregular activity in my Halifax online banking login. As
I was the primary contact the email asked me to verify my account as
a hold had been placed on my debit card so I couldn’t access my cash.
There was an attachment with the email, which I had to download to
verify the account. Alarm bells rang and so instead I checked my
online banking in a new window and found no problems."
Aysha Begum, February 2012
THE AMAZON SCAM
"I received an official looking email from a company pretending to be
Amazon to say the order I had placed had been cancelled. The email
included a new order number and a link to what I thought was
Amazon. I clicked on this and it directed me to the website of a
Canadian pharmaceutical company selling drugs."
Barry Arrowsmith, February 2012
THE COMPETITION SCAM
"I’ve been emailed as apparently my email address was the star pick
from an automated ballot system which means I’m entitled to receive
the grand reward of 2.5 million dollars. The suspect email said the
prize was from a reward program for the ‘patronage of internet
services’ and the promotional draw is conducted in the Netherlands.
In order to claim this prize the email says I must send personal details
out immediately."
Bob Hope, February 2012
THE DEATH CERTIFICATE SCAM
"Apparently my death certificate has been handed into a branch of
HSBC in Canada by a man who claimed to be my representative and
also to have power of attorney of my finances. There is also a fund of
12.5 million dollars in my name, which I need to claim in the next 48
hours while at the same time confirming I am still alive. This is very
clearly a scam."
Eirik Vestgard, February 2012
THE YAHOO SCAM
"A scam email arrived in my account supposedly from Yahoo. It said I
needed to update my personal details after a series of illegal attempts
on my email account from different IP addresses. It went on to say it
was for my own safety and if I wanted to keep my account open I
would need to fill in details such as, email address, password, date of
birth and country of residence."
Richard Search, February 2012
THE NPOWER SCAM
"Quite unexpectedly we received a phone call one evening at 8 o'clock
and my wife answered. She said npower, our electricity provider, was
on the phone and wanted a meter reading there and then. We had just
started to watch a favourite TV programme so I said I would send one
online the next day. The caller was persistent but settled eventually
and said they would call again – which didn't happen. I phoned
npower the next day and was told everything was fully up to date and
no reading was required. It's difficult to imagine what would have
followed had we complied and gone to the meter and provided a
reading. Doubtless the company would have tried to obtain some
sensitive personal information on some pretext or other."
Clifton Pyrke, November 2011
THE ILLNESS SCAM
"This message arrive in my inbox from a friend in my address book.
The subject of the email was 'Dearest Beloved'. The message said: 'As
you read this, I don't want you to feel sorry for me because I believe
everyone will die someday. I have been diagnosed with oesophageal
cancer, view attached mail for full details.' My friend is not ill and the
email had an attachment which I did not open."
Kunio Uematsu, November 2011
THE SKY SCAM
"I was checking through our bank statement online and discovered a
transaction marked 'Sky Subscription' which is strange as we have not
been with Sky for over six years.
We rang Sky to ask why and it told us all of its payments are labelled
'Sky Digital'. We rang the bank and stopped the debit card this
transaction had been used on. The scam appears to work by taking
random amounts from your bank account. We have spoken to others
and found this is a growing problem with one friend being debited as
much as £200. The message here is – always check your bank
statements."
Peter Balshaw, November 2011
PAYPAL SCAM
"I sold a mobile phone on eBay and a bidder offered me double the
price I had hoped for. I accepted this and he sent the authorisation
code for the payment but no money arrived in my account.
I contacted PayPal who told me this was a scam as the authorisation
code was an old one. The bidder looked genuine and had good
feedback and I contacted him again. He sent another code but still no
money arrived so in the end I sold it to someone else."
Joel Brown, October 2011
PUPPY SCAM
"I tried to buy a Chihuahua puppy on the free advert side Oodle for
£150 plus delivery from Dundee to Edinburgh. I emailed the seller
and asked a lot of questions about the puppy and delivery and he
assured me that everything would be straightforward.
I was sent the details of the delivery agency and I paid the seller
through MoneyGram. Next my husband spoke on the phone with the
agency and suddenly it wanted another £600 to cover insurance and
to deliver my puppy by plane. We didn’t want to do this so but the
seller would not listen and he even said if we pulled out of the deal the
dog would be put in quarantine and we would be in trouble with the
police.
This was not the first advert I applied to and it seemed genuine.
Looking back I shouldn’t have wired the £150 but I was so desperate
for this puppy I went ahead with it."
Mrs Elizabeth Heppell, October 2011
SAD NEWS SCAM
"An old friend who now lives in America emailed me last month
asking to borrow £2,000 as he was on holiday in Wales and had been
mugged. The email was very convincing and said his cash, cards and
mobile phones had been stolen but he still had his passport and flight
tickets.
It said he had gone to the American embassy and police but had not
had much luck and needed to settle hotel bills before getting a flight
back to America the next day. I would have sent the money to him but
the use of the headline ‘Sad News’ suggested a death in the family,
which this was not, and made me feel uneasy.
I hadn't contacted him for years, but I found the number and rang his
home in North Carolina. It turns out his emails had been hacked and
similar messages had been sent out to everyone in his address book."
Victor Courtice, October 2011
COMPUTER HEALTH CHECK SCAM
"I was contacted by a man who told me my computer was not running
at the right speed and offered me a free security health check. The
caller asked me to switch on my pc and log onto a website. At this
point the computer would be accessed remotely and cleared of any
bugs.
When I asked the name of the company I was told it was part of
Microsoft and the caller said this would be totally free. As a PC
engineer I didn’t go any further as alarm bells began ringing and I
believed the company’s intention was to get passwords and data off
my PC."
Stuart Strong, October 2011
VITAMAIL SCAM
"My poor elderly mother was sent a letter from a company called
Vitamail telling her she was in debit of her account by £5. She did not
have an account with this company and the letter looked very
convincing.
"However, I noticed the letter had her name but no initials, the
company asked her to send cash, it was not signed and also
threatened to send someone round to her house if she didn’t send her
bank details.
"I searched for the company on the internet and found there were
many people who had received the same letter who had never heard
of this company let alone had an account with them. This company
trades under many names and many addresses but is based in
France."
Mrs S A Walsh, October 2011
BBC CHEQUE SCAM
"I received an email telling me I had won a £1,000,000 lottery prize
from the BBC. I contacted a few names on their email messages and
questioned the matter to see if it was for real. No one got back to me
and after reading the email again I noticed they used a delivery
services which asked for a £250 fee to release the cheque."
Mr M Chai, October 2011
AUTOTRADER SCAM
"I placed an advert through Autotrader on my partner's behalf and
naively I put my personal email address on the advert. Within 24
hours I had emails from two different people expressing interest.
Both said they would buy the car without viewing it, pay via PayPal
and send an agent to collect vehicle.
My partner expressed immediate concern and a quick search on the
internet confirmed a well-known scam whereby someone accepts an
offer and their car is collected but the money is withdrawn from
PayPal before the transaction is complete."
Debby Curry, October 2011
THE AVIS SCAM
"A company in Seattle rang me around six times trying to persuade
me that I had 10 times as many shares in Avis Europe than I actually
have. It also said it had a buyer for these shares at 10 times their
value. In order to move forward I would have to sign a confidentiality
agreement and send it some money. This is clearly proof that if it
sounds too good to be true it probably is."
Guest - September 2011
PAYPAL SCAM
"Recently I received a message from PayPal about a transaction but I
have never had an account with the company. When I queried it I was
informed it was a type of phishing scam. Paypal says it will always
address you by name when emailing you so if you ever get an email
from Paypal addressing you as 'Dear Member' it is a scam."
Guest - September 2011
MILLIONAIRE FUND SCAM
"Today I received an email from someone supposedly representing
Arab millionaires who have had their funds frozen after the 9/11
attack. The email says these millionaires have been investigated by
the FBI and found to be clean but now the funds, for some reason,
can't be returned to their rightful owners. It then says these funds are
available to be claimed by first sending over card details. This is
clearly a scam."
Guest - September 2011
WEIGHT TRAINING SCAM
"Having decided to up my weight training I searched the internet for
items to help me out. I found a suitable website and then sent off
several emails regarding price and asking how long an order would
take. A man contacted me and was very efficient so I had no reason to
suspect anything. He requested I deposit the payment of £50 into his
bank account and sent me the sort code and account number. I was
informed my order would take around a week to arrive but after this
period had passed I emailed him to ask about my order. I had no
further replies from him after this and have lost out on this money."
John Boyd - September 2011
The HMRC SCAM
"A member of staff has just alerted me to the fact that they have
recently received a scam email which purports to be from HM
Revenue & Customs (HMRC) and appears to be advising them that
they are due a tax refund. It offers a link for them to follow where it is
likely that they would be asked to confirm their bank details. This is a
scam."
June 2011
MINISTRY OF JUSTICE SCAM
"I received a phone call from a lady claming to be from the Ministry of
Justice last week. She had a strange accent and although she gave me
a number to call back on, this was different to the number she had
called me on. I bank with Santander and the lady calling enquired
about a payment to my bank account. I've now received another call
from the same company and have tried reporting them to Consumer
Watch and the Ombudsman but as no fraud as yet been committed
neither will help me."
June 2011
The EHIC SCAM
"With the holiday season upon us, people need to watch out for scam
websites charging a £10 renewal fee for the EHIC card. Renewal
through the NHS website is free, so beware of the top picks on a
google search for 'EHIC renewal'."
May 2011
CAMPHIRENOW SCAM
"I was contacted by a company called 'Camphire Now' [supposedly a
recruitment firm] and a lady by the name of Julia Marks sent me an
e-mail asking me to enter a code and fill out an application pending
an interview in London in a few days.
"When I got to the IQ Test section of the website I discovered in order
to carry on I would be charged £4.50 per month thereafter. I have emailed Julia twice now asking for information on the company as I
cannot find it anywhere on the website. The links on the website
provide no information at all. It's a scam. I have reported it to the
OFT and trust you will warn others."
May 2011