How to avoid scams
Mon, 7 Dec 2009
Tony Levene, author of "How to avoid scams", published by Age Concern, talks about common financial scams:
The call sounds innocent enough. A well spoken person telling you that “this is a service call from BT” to warn you are in arrears with your bill due to a “billing error”. Unless you pay up at once by credit card, your line will be cut immediately. And if you put the phone down because you are suspicious, you’ll find you are “terminated”. You won’t be able to call out – you’ll just hear the noise of a dead line.
A few moments later, the same person calls again, offering to “reinstate” the line if you pay £100 or more by credit card.
Of course, it’s a scam - and a scary one. You are not in arrears, and even if you were, phone companies contact you in writing several times before considering pulling the plug.
The point of this call is both to steal your £100 - and then to steal your identity. Once you give the card details, the fraudsters will ask for the three figure code on the signature strip as well; in fact, you might as well post them your plastic – they will spend like crazy on it.
Delving for extra information
They will also try to find out other things about you such as where you bank, your full address, and the names of other household members - all useful information in future rip-offs and money laundering scams.
How do they get your phone number? Easy. It’s by chance using an autodialler. How do they know you’re with BT? They don’t, but the odds are that you are with Britain’s biggest phone company. And how do they manage to cut your line? They don’t – they just keep it open and play a dead phone tone.
If this happens to you, immediately call your phone company from another line and report the problem.
This is just the latest way of stealing your personal details and ripping into your credit card. But there are plenty of others.
You’ve won!
Another phone scam is the “you’ve won a valuable prize” routine. Here the fraudster tells you that you’ve been selected to win an expensive camera or a holiday but that you have to authorise a £9.99 payment on your card. If you agree, the thief has your identity and can spend her or his way through your credit.
Again, they don’t know who you are but are trained to ask innocent-sounding questions to find out. As Consumer Direct never tires of saying: “If it sounds too good to be true, then it almost certainly is.”
You can’t win a competition that you have never entered. Put the phone down fast on this one.
A variation of this is the prize email. If you respond, perhaps saying “no thanks”, or sometimes even open the email, fraudsters may be able to get into your computer with a “trojan” – computer “malware” which can read every key you hit – including passwords. Check your firewall and anti-virus software are up to date. And always delete emails which you are not certain about.
Going Phishing…
This involves sending emails that purport to be a “security update” from banks or a “rebate” from the taxman. Neither ever communicates in this way. They are after your identity details. This one has been around for a few years now but it still produces victims – otherwise the fraudsters would not bother.
Work is hard to get at the moment. So when you find a website offering well paid jobs with an immediate start, you send in your CV. The site operators now have all your personal details including your phone number. To complete the identity theft, they need banking and credit card numbers. To get those, they call you, congratulate you on your chances, but say you need a better presented CV. To get that, they ask for £99 on your card.
But there are no jobs; the agency is phoney, and your details will be sold on. Some fraudsters clone sites from major, legitimate employment agencies such as Reed. Real agencies are not allowed to ask for money – they earn from employers, not prospective employees.
Stealing the post
An easy identity rip-off involves entering a block of flats and taking any post lying around. Thieves rely on a high turnover of tenants which may mean uncollected mail including credit card bills and bank statements from previous occupants. The identity thief now has enough information to raid your cash or set up new accounts for money laundering – your details could be sold on several times within a few hours.
Help prevent this by ensuring mail is forwarded – ask a trusted person at your old address or get the post office to do this for you. Landlords should be asked to invest in a lockable post box – it’s not 100% guaranteed but identity thieves tend not to go around with crowbars.
Always remember that if you are worried about an identity attack that could compromise your details, tell your bank, building society or credit card company immediately.
