Do you report a scam or keep it close to your chest?

I have not been victim of what is usually termed a scam, but it is about time to broaden the term to include banks and building societies that offer enticing rates of interest for cash ISAs and other savings account and then change the interest rate a year later. If you invest in shares then it is essential to keep track on their value, but banks and building societies are normally regarded as safe investments.

I think this article unhelpfully reinforces the belief that there has to be some identifiable loss or victim, before a reportable “scam” takes place. As you say: “Tackling scams is a struggle for companies and authorities, who often don’t realise that there’s a problem until the scammers have moved on.”

When two or more persons are involved in planning a “scam” operation, the common law offence of conspiracy to defraud has already been committed, even before you receive that enticing email, phone call, or letter. No money needs to change hands, so whether it’s £73bn more or less, should be irrelevant to how many of these crimes are being reported.

If more people took the trouble to investigate something that looks dodgy and report it, there would be fewer victims. The problem that we as the public have, is where to report these mass attempts at fraud. I’m sure the police don’t want individuals reporting every phishing email, letter or international phone call. Maybe we need a National scam database where these incidents can be logged and monitored.

Oh and they could also employ a convict to sit on facebook all day looking at the “sponsored” links. There’s one for Own a Peice of Scotland with legal rights to Laird Lord, Lady title. Looks like a scam to me. And whats with the dodgey looking solar panel ads too.

I have reported three Internet scams that I thought were particularly plausible – I didn’t fall for them as I never answer cold calls – But never received any acknowledgement.

As for letter “scams” I’ve always regarded them as similar to the “SALE” signs outside shops – designed to catch your attention. I sometimes read the catalogues enclosed as sometimes the items for sale are useful and hard to find locally. But never send the “You’ve won £1000!” bit back.

If I ever got a “I’m a Nigerian Business man wanting to deposit $10,000″ letter I would report it to GPO or somewhere – but never had one.

I do not believe ” enticing rates of interest for cash ISAs and other savings account and then change the interest rate a year later” is a scam at all – but a normal business operation to attract new customers.

I run a rural area citizens’ information exchange service on specific, current suspicious activity. In following up on the cricumtsances of many crimes, and related suspicious activity it is alarming to see the high proportion of the public who place themselves unnecessarily at risk from various scamsters and crooks. Sometimes out of naivety and sometimes because people think that it has become the modern ‘norm’, people undertake ‘dealings’ with anonymous parties. People will deal with a person offering no name, address or land line telephone number – just a mobile phone number. Village shopekeepers and newsletters accept advertsiements with only a mobile phone number. Deposits are paid or access given to private premises with no identification as to who the ‘legal person’ on the other side is: no proprietor name(s) behind a trading name or no registered company details. Trading websites frequently fail to provide proprietor or company names (Companies Act 2006): the legitimate ones thereby give credence to the notion that it doesn’t matter – and so undermine their own credibility. Perhaps a short article by Which? could help members with the minimum information that a consumer can expect from a legitimate supplier and how to do a free check at Companies House. One way to identify many scamsters is to ask for the names and address of the proprietor(s) or of the company/charity name and registered number: legitimate businesse are unphased by the enquiry. Some scamsters will bluster at such requests: others will give false infromation which can be easily checked.

I have received several phone calls at various times warning that ‘internet threats’ have been detected on my computer. Some claim to be working for my ISP, but cannot tell me who the ISP is, and one even claimed to work for Microsoft. As ‘proof’ of the claim they ask me to run the Event Viewer which shows all the erros and warnings encountered by Windows including large numbers of apparently serious ones (but which of course are perfectly normal). They usually want me to give them control of my PC by installing something like teamviewer (a legitimate piece of software), and then pay for their technician to install their software. Who knows what sort of malware you could end up with?

I have been working on computers for many years and can treat these calls with the contempt they deserve, but I am worried that naive users may get caught out. As for reporting it, I am not sure where I should report it and unless I can record the phone call there is very little concrete to report.

Scammers rely on those who are deceived not reporting the crime. I once worked with very vulnerable people who repeatedly fell for various scams but who were too embarressed to report the crime. It’s difficult to understand why so many fall for the scams until you sit and listen to their stores of how they felt. Often the timing of the scam occurs at a personal low point. One individual fell for the ‘Microsoft’ scam having just lost her husband. She was learning how to work with her husbands files on the computer when the scammers struck. In her grief and panic she fell for it.

I agree very strongly with developing a scheme where people can report scams whenever they occur and not just when they are successful. I, like many, received numerous ‘Microsoft’ scam calls and wanted to report them, but could not find anywhere that accepted complaints. Surely, it is not beyond us as a society to find a way of combatting these criminals? I’d gladly give details of calls and other scams if I thought the effort was going to produce effective action to stop the scammers, or at least deter them.

Anyone getting the microsoft/windows phone scam should see …

https://conversation.which.co.uk/technology/technical-support-scam-phone-company-computer-fraud/

to see you’re sadly not alone. One call I had laughed when I told him he was a scammer, his reply, “you white people are so stupid, its not our fault we can easily take your money”. Sorry if the language causes offence, but I’m just repeating what I was told. Oh and and I’m not going to relate the story were one swore at me.

Hence my suggestion further up this chain of simply being able to ring a FREE number immediately after getting a call to help the authorities build up evidence against these types of people.

You’d think if the authorities really wanted to tackle any scam, they go out of their way to make it easy to report attempts, but alas they don’t

I have been a victim of a scam and also unknown to me was my 80 year old mum. Both of us got a phone call from a company telling us that they would sort out out finance and would reduce our monthly payments to a much lower amount. I didn’t know that they had made contact with my mum and later me. They took out money from my mums bank account which left her in more dept than before making her direct debits unpaid. She then got bank charges. I saw what was going on and stopped my bank from them taking cash from my account. I feel we should be more protected this didn’t happen in the past so why have nothing been done. Government should be involved moor and banks. Only one way to stop this is us to inform banks free of change to get your money back from oversea. If its payed into a acccount a easy then should it be easy to get it back. All banks should get this sorted. How much money from al over the world must be enormous. It needs to be sorted out know before it gets worse.

@oldmarty
I do not know why most organisations opt to withhold their numbers….

This happens when outgoing calls are routed through a switchboard. However, that switchboard has a number – it’s the one people use to call in, so why outgoing calls don’t display that number is a mystery possibly only BT can answer.

I am usually on the lookout for a good deal on Audi cars on Autotrader website.
There are myriads of scammers advertising Audi cars with 50% less than the average market value, Autotrader usually takes the ads down quickly but there is definitely a chance that some people get in touch with the scammers and get ripped off consequently. I am not aware of any actions taken to deter scammers from advertising there; I’d’ve thought there are dozens of ways to track them down to at least warn them for their actions to prevent others from doing so.

I’ve just reported 2 scam letters to the Action Fraud Hotline. One letter was addressed to my dad the other one of his neighbours. Both were about a deceased person in china who the same last name of the person that was sent the letter. And apart from the names the letters were identical.

Well, I must say Action Fraud don’t make it easy. After agruing with the the chap for a couple of minutes he finally agreed to take details of these letters. His problem? Neither were addressed to me. Sigh.

I was amazed at the lack of information they needed to record these letters. They didn’t even want me to forward them on. No wonder these scammers get away with it for so long. I had to volunteer the codes on the Royal Mail pay and print stamps on both these letters.

And after a quick check online I can see this scam has been running since at least Aug 2011. Back then they used 2nd class stamps.

So Three are putting their prices up and have said they’ll notify customers between 21st May and 1st June. Am I the only expecting to hear about scam Three emails in that time frame?

Dear Sir/Madam, We’re putting our prices up but CLICK HERE to lock in at your current rate.

Then once you’re there, For security please enter the same credit/debit card details you use to pay your monthly subscription.

Either that of phone virus get loaded onto your mobile.

Companies certainly make it easy for the scammers 🙁

Like everyone else, I get tons of spam emails that are automatically filtered into a SPAM folder. Now and then I look in there to check that a genuine email hasn’t been misdirected. Usually I just shrug it off, but today I found a scam email that actually had me worried. It’s obvious that it’s a scam, but the way it was addressed suggests that the people who sent it know that I am not a UK citizen and even where I grew up. It may just be coincidence, but this is information that I never divulge on-line. Has anyone else had any scam emails that appear to know rather more about you than they ought to?

There is a new scam where you receive a text from ‘Claim-Royalmail’ informing you that you have a parcel and that you must visit a website, when you do you will be asked for a copy of your passport, this is nothing whatsoever to do with the Royal Mail it is a site purchased from ‘Godaddy’ by a Private individual. Do not send any documents as there is no parcel.