Are we too susceptible to scammers’ psychological tricks?

That’s disgusting doing that to ur child . Why dont they get a job like normal people do . I can’t believe they would do that to a child . The police don’t seem to want to do a lot of anything do they . I sometimes wonder what we’re paying their wages for . Is it to do a job or to ignore us ??

In my experience of numerous personal banking, credit card and BT telephone frauds over the last 12-18 months, Action Fraud are pointless – really all they do is log the fraud and give you information about what to do. Utterly pointless. The police themselves are overrun with this type of fraud, so they too don’t or cannot or won’t really do anything substantive to help and finally the financial institutions themselves are culpable too. Whilst they themselves will lose money – in the frauds perpetrated on me and my partner they lost about £50,000, their systems to protect their customers and then to investigate scams are risible. Finally, the fraudsters also know how to get around the credit check system, so although my partner and I are registered for CIFAS now, the fraudsters are inventing ever more clever scams to get around the protection systems that are in place. In the end I have come to the conclusion that the fraudsters wouldn’t bother if they knew they wouldn’t get anywhere or it would be difficult. I fully support this Which campaign and cannot think of another consumer issue that is more important to deal with RIGHT NOW than banking and other financial fraud.

I had a scam email from Natwest. They told me to ring Action Fraud and Action Fraud told me to ring Natwest. Waste of time.

I agree. Instead of sending them an email, particularly forwarding a phishing email, you have to complete on online form. This takes time and does not give the police the information they need to stop the fraudsters.
If I can look up an IP address from the header information and find who the criminal’s service provider, why can’t the police and service providers to at least put an immediate stop to the criminal’s service and hopefully pay them a visit!

Graham because this is Britain not America .American citizens =#1– British citizens=#3. And yes they do that in the States.

I agree …why does the UK Govcernment keep referring victims to it…It never acknowledges your communicatioh & never replies.Operation Archway is the same.
How does recpognizea scammer….I ws having problems with my Hotmail when a draft email crashed. Please phone Hotmail on O800…. for help. Got through to someone in India whosaid that my PC had been hacked . I year protection would cost $199, 2 year……etc…yet he said that there was no protection against hackers….I suspect that I was not talking to Hotpoint support.
What’s there to stop an anti virus company s******g up your PC then suggesting that what you need is its more expensive antivirus software

I definitely agree with this – plus ALL police and court costs.

Banks should ensure their staff are giving correct info to customers. They should also investigate more thoroughly instead of leaving it up to customer when fraud is reported and I had to investigate myself . I eventually got company taking money from account to admit it had not been instigated from my account but was fraudulent. Bank ended up having to repay as the amount of time that had passed had gone past their 40 day period. How much money are banks willing to lose through fraud and negligence of care with our money?

Yes Stu, I agree with you over this point. I believe that all thieves should repay their victims for the victims financial loss plus a no limit 20% fine as well. Would you please contact the centre for social justice website and ask them to pursue this matter. If enough people do this then I am sure that all the current penalties for theft can be altered. The thieves in this country are driving us all into bankruptcy!!

Can’t agree with that, £1,000 fraud should attract a £10,000 fine and a spell at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.

If I might put in a plea of mitigation for John’s error – there is a prominent box alongside this Conversation containing a poll with a bold heading that says: “Do you think the Government should rethink the childhood obesity strategy?“. No wonder people get confused. John’s comment was both apposite and pertinent, and thankfully brief.

It should be much easier to block unwanted calls. I am now getting daily “International” calls which are annoying as well as time wasting. I let them go to voicemail at which time they hang up.
The only way that I can see to avoid this is to get a “Call Blocker” but that is going to cost me about £100. Why should I have to pay that much to get rid of these idiots?

I expect there are cheaper call-blockers but I think they all rely on the caller-identification service from your telecom service provider. This could typically cost £3 a month on a landline. Call-blocker phones are selling fast and furiously with two consequences: (1) the scammers and cold-callers are increasing their activity in their desperation to out-pace subscribers, and (2) the authorities have taken their foot off the pedal while they wait for the problem to sort itself out with everyone possessing a call-blocker.

Exactly right John in both -# 1 + # 2 and right again mine cost half of the one Which sponsors (no disrespect to Which ) and is America,s top seller .If its any consolation America,s version of the UK,s official nuisance call stopping service is just as bad -ie-doesnt work /ignored.

Robert Woolley quite agree more Robert I’m old and not at all savvy with computers about a month ago all my email addresses got sent an email supposedly from me – but wasn’t – saying I was in Thailand – Ukrain – Africa and elsewhere asking for money for me to get home – now my computer is playing up – in coming emails are going straight into trash so I have to read them in there – my screen freezes all the time now find my emails I write and send do not get to who I sent it to – I now cannot forward any emails cause the forward has disappeared – scanned it for viruses – nothing found – still waiting for bt to help me said after 6 to ring – but no they ring in the afternoon when I’m out – it is just getting so bad now – £40-00 odd pounds for an hour for someone to look at my computer – but I’m old and these days everything is so expensive – so who has 40 pounds to spare in this day and age

Alexandra – your email service has been taken over and your virus protection isnt good enough . Your computer has been hacked and taken over you need some deep removal programmes . But before you begin change your email password . As you say yourself you are not entirely proficient in computer programming I will not waste your time telling you technical things to do except dont pay £40.hr –re-install your system from scratch otherwise modern viruses can stay on your computer even if you keep your data it will be infested as well. Your computer is being used to extort money from your friends and more viruses will be implanted . You must re-install as your ISP and email service will blame YOU ! as they will know what is going on and ban you from using the email service and your ISP will blame you as well. If there is any way I can help or talk you through anything please let ,me know .

the BT 8500 ‘phone has a very effective call-blocker facility and cost me around £40 from John Lewis at the beginning of the year.
Alistair

I’ve bit the bullet and bought one of these phones, a £100 well spent. It’s brilliant, can’t praise it enough. The phone keeps a record of who’s phoned and although we’ve had the phone now for about 4 months, they still keep ringing but they never get through. Absolutely worth every penny as they were driving me nuts.

Although I have a call-blocker not of BT origin , I should add for those buying the BT call-blocking phones as the above two posters the BT 8500 has been superseded by the BT 8600 . I would not like Which Convo watchers to buy the old model. as a BT customer I got offered one at reduced rate. At this very moment a quad version of them is for sale at a reduced price of £90

I have heard good reports of the BT 4600 ‘Big Button’ DECT [digital electronic cordless telephone] with advanced call-blocking and answering machine. It appears to have virtually the same functionality as the BT 8600 but because of the big buttons [which might actually be an advantage] the design is not so ‘cool’. The current John Lewis price for a single instrument is £34.00.

I agree with Robert, I have had loads of scam telephone calls from India pertaining to be from my phone provider. I have trie4d reporting these to Action Fraud but because I haven’t been tricked by them I don’t think any notice was taken.

You are in good company James the former head of one biggest banking system in the world agrees with you and is transferring funds from $$$$ to gold . Former Federal Reserve Chairman -Alan Greenspan , in a betrayal of his private banking /free market policies is warning against an inevitable Crisis resulting from the very policies he helped implement. and he is against Brexit as Central Bankers ,commercial bankers governments and International corporations who have vested interests were pushing for integration . As global markets protested ,gold markets surged to new 2016 highs post Brexit . I have a lot more on this if anybody is interested .

Good trick: First, put your money in a safe place. Next, create a crisis. Then, come out of it smelling of roses. I just hope we don’t have to watch it happen all over again.

As I understand it, GH was not even party to the transaction concerned. Someone just walked into a branch miles away from where she loved and claimed to be her. Banks should put personal callers through the same identity checks that they do over the phone.

I think it depends on the branch and the staff. Long time ago my local bank, that knew me well, had a new member of staff who wanted to see my ID. Naturally that was the day I had no ID on me. However one of the cashiers saw me, greeted me, and assured the new staff member that I was who I claimed and that I was known.

Not with all banks. My own supplies 50% of the info and I the other.

I think you have provided an interesting account of the relationship we have with our banks these days, S. Professional conduct comes with training and experience. I cannot comment on the training provided, but experience is the product of age and length of service with the bank. It is obvious to most of us who go into banks that this aspect is being compromised and people with little regard for the professional conventions are being employed in front-line positions.

I also have been dissatisfied by the conduct of bank clerks when they have your account open in front of them and their tendency to raise flippant questions distracting you from the business in hand. I once wrote to the manager to complain about it but was dissatisfied with his telephone response and his misjudged attempt at justification. I once had hopes that fewer banks would lead to a quality improvement in professional standards at branch level but that has not occurred; I suspect that salaries are not high enough to attract competent personnel and turnover is higher than it ought to be.

In contrast my local, small, branch of a building society seem well-equipped with helpful, knowledgeable staff who have given good advice when needed. We changed our current accounts, after discussion with them, to on-line to gain interest. Technically this also meant using the cash machine to withdraw cash and pay in for example but they said not to worry, if its raining or busy or just if we prefer, come into the counter as usual. Whilst we do use the machine, true to their word the odd visit indoors we made was no problem.

My local Nationwide branch is like that, thank goodness. I was writing above about service in a city centre branch which had become a bit slapdash. I haven’t been back there lately – it might have changed.

I don’t know why, instead of moaning about their bank, more people don’t simply move to Nationwide. It often gets complimented in Convos. Perhaps it is easier to complain than move?

I have had a connection with Nationwide [in different incarnations] through mortgages, savings, investments and a current account for over fifty years and have always been extremely satisfied overall. Nothing has ever gone wrong on the technical/administrative front and I think it is a rare example of an organisation that does reward loyalty in meaningful ways. I was so pleased they chose not to demutualise and the benefits of that policy keep on coming. Although they have grown through take-overs and mergers with smaller societies, their most impressive growth has been organically by continuing to enrol more members so they can continue to offer superior services and provide good branch coverage. T hey helped me incredibly well when I was winding up a relative’s estate last year. I had better close now before this starts to read like a promotion and incurs the moderator’s wrath.

I often do not bother to answer my phone unless I recognise the number. However it is fun speaking to such calls in a foreign language and it has my U3A German group in fits of laughter as I tell the caller what I think of them in German. I dread the day when the caller is a German speaker as my German is not that good. I have given some callers the word NO in at least 10 different languages, another bit of fun. One caller got very annoyed when I kept querying his questions and said I was wasting his time. I agreed with him and said that was my aim because his call had wasted my time, there was a phone banged down at the other end!

I have no further comment to make on the issue. Thank you for inviting me to address it further. But I have nothing more to add! I hope that someone comes up with something to stop these despicable people!

Where as some time ago I had a concerned call from Barclays because I had withdrawn £300 which was not normal and they thought my debit card might have been stolen. I had actually done the withdrawing and had a reason for it. It was good that their machinery could alert them to a change in pattern of expenditure.

Ivor for the big time crooks the money goes digitally through various countries and banks .It can be traced but requires the resources of the FBI/ NSA/GCHQ as its sophisticated digital tracing. There are government organisations that can do it but would they do it for Joe Bloggs ??

ivor, perhaps Which? could ask the banks (BBA).

Almost certainly it was a rogue employee of a business at which you used your debit card. Most businesses know your name, address, bank card number and security number on the back. And that’s all they need.

Linda , why dont you ask Commander Chris Greany for help ? he is in charge of it . If you have been three times a victim , then can I ask ? Is it during an online transaction or is it via an email ? As I know people who have had nervous breakdowns I wouldnt wish that on anyone but as a simple member of the public could you give me details ( not your personal ones ) of the transactions that took place ? . I ask this so that others may be helped by your story.

As a matter of interest, did Dorset Police’s Economic Crime Unit report any success in apprehending perpetrators or recovering people’s money, or even any strengthening of resources for tackling these crimes?

As a matter of fact they did report some success but I never took note of the details John , I should have .

The Bournemouth Echo website was not much help [plastered with ads, pop-ups and videos making it virtually inaccessible!] but I found the main story on the Dorset Police website. Unfortunately it didn’t say what action the police were actually taking to deal with these despicable crimes. Coastal counties attract retired people [and Dorset’s are richer than most] and scammers must perceive them to be easy pickings, but it seems to be a nationwide problem for which the authorities have little in the way of a defence.

John I got rid of 90 % of popups/ads/etc by installing many plug-ins , whether your browser will allow it is another thing. I have blank spaces to each side in most websites . It does have some pitfalls, some American websites block you from accessing them and some videos dont work , some websites just give basic script but you can change that on a per site basis . I cant access BT unless I allow tracking , for example, I dont have Flash Player of any type as its open house to hackers. Dorset Police , as you say, didnt go into detail about how they caught them and whether they were all charged .

Thanks Duncan. I shan’t be investing in any blockers since I rarely stray outside a few reputable websites. I usually avoid newspaper sites because they pepper them with pop-ups to get some advertising income to compensate for the loss of hard-copy sales caused by the internet. I don’t usually complain as how else would I be able to read something in a Dorset newspaper?

So far as I could work out, Dorset Police have not yet caught anybody for scamming and all they can do is pass on warnings to their elderly and vulnerable residents.

Life is funny John , one of my plug-ins is Ghostery , I have had my suspicions about it as it is run by a company connected to advertising much like our own official public “help ” organisation to report problems with advertising etc . Just hours after your post it was automatically updated to a new version . This new version seemed limited in what it could do but after several hours use it didnt seem to function showing zero trackers after my other blockers showed many . Try as I might I could not get it to function removing -re-installing etc and then a tab appeared from a much better sophisticated multi-blocker app , I clicked on it and surprise-surprise !! it was blocking Ghostery because the new version now had a major tracker installed Ghostery,s OWN tracker /server . I removed it from my PC . It just shows you ,as I say to many posters , more and more BB finds ways of tracking you but thats really tricky , an app to stop trackers installing its own big tracker and I clicked on I didnt want to give any data back to Ghostery , didnt make a blind bit of difference . So for those with Ghostery (a US company ) if you have been “upgraded” to version 7 then un-install it.

Apple scams are common, but what you have there is a receipt. The usual tactic with those is to feature a link on them, and if you follow that you’re taken to a malicious site so – as always – don’t ever follow an email link. The only safe way is to use iTunes and go to ‘your account’ which connects directly with Apple and then you can verify if someone has sneaked an order through or not .

The emails were more likely to be attempts to download virus’s onto your system via the attachments. Over the last two weeks, I have received emails which claim to be from Barclays and Natwest asking me to download the latest interest rates from their attachment. (I’m not a customer of either).

I must admit we don’t here about any fake website crimes in the UK. Is that because they are very few and far between, or because the perpetrators have evaded detection or are in a different jurisdiction, or because any crimes are not getting the investigative resources required? I don’t know what the UK penalties are on conviction but I doubt they would be as severe as in the USA. With a falling crime rate here and plenty of other attractive opportunities for scamming people by deception without actually needing to create a fake website perhaps this is just not such a major issue here.

John while this convo is mainly about phone scamming other Which convo,s have been full of posters being scammed by clicking on a link and being taken in every case to a fake website where they again click on links to give out their monetary details . Very large sums of money have been lost , the advice given is- DONT click on links in emails but where is the UK Authorities ability to catch those thieves ? I would be grateful if our security forces who deal in cyber crime would turn their attention from helping BB and started helping Joe Public and provide actual data of the number of websites not just closed down but where THEY caught and fined the culprits who stole from the general public. Every day in the UK 100,s are scammed by that means – fake websites .

Oooops!! Awful blunder in Line 1 of my preceding post. Please change “here” to “hear” to make sense of it.

You could be right Duncan but it doesn’t seem to get much reporting. I thought most of the related comments received in Which? Conversation were about genuine websites that misled people by deception [for example, passport applications]. Some still exist but they have had to make their warnings more prominent; so long as they do that they are not illegal it would seem.

Duncan makes a good point. Perhaps companies need to change the ways in which they communicate with their customers, and leave all links out of their emails. HSBC, for instance, still include links and argue that the links only connect to their website front end. But I think they’re missing the point completely. So long as emails from companies contain any links at all people will drop their guard over links in emails generally.

I totally agree, Ian. Companies insert links in e-mails to propel people into their websites and stop them wandering away into the next item in their inbox, but they are potentially the most harmful feature of the system. It only takes a few seconds longer to go the long way round but it’s so much safer. So long as the navigation instructions are clear in the e-mail there should be no problem.

I think these links are a throwback to the early days of home compting when the internet was a much safer place and when people appreciated the convenience of a link rather than typing long URL’s into browsers. You can just start typing a name in now, a choice quickly appears, and in two or three clicks you are there safely.

Dave I know the ones you are talking about they tried it with me for years but I never answer them and only get a very occasional one from some young bedroom scammer . I get a laugh when they mention banks I dont belong to , you shouldnt get emails from your bank ,I have never had one from mine ,but I dont have online banking so that sinks them all.