A Persistent Scam

[Chris CrewParticipant @chriscrew66644]

Yesterday evening my wife received a text stating that she would shortly receive another text from such & such a number. When the next text arrived, purporting to be from the Nationwide Building Society, it stated that her Flex account card had been compromised and requested that she responded or called an 0800 number. I immediately suspected a scam and told her not to respond. Shortly afterwards she received a call with a recorded message, in perfectly good English, naming her and requesting her to either press a key or call the 0800 number. She ignored it. Then the ‘landline’ rang and the same message with her name was repeated. Again it was ignored. I advised her to download the Nationwide app., log into her account and freeze her Flex card until we could confirm with the local Nationwide branch the first thing this morning that it was indeed a scam. But again the same calls to her mobile and to our landline number were repeated, the one to her mobile while she was actually talking to the teller in the Nationwide branch!

So beware, the approach by the scamming scumbags and their persistence was almost convincing. If it happens to you, and it doesn’t have to purport to be from Nationwide it could seem to be from your bank, I would advise you to just ignore everything. If it makes you nervous, freeze your card and confirm with your bank as soon as possible. Once your card is frozen nobody can use it, not even yourself, until you personally take the freeze off.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Nasty !

MichaelG.

 

P.S. __ this might be a good place to mention

Fraud Protection Line is 159 … this will give a choice of Banks

[Graham MeekParticipant @grahammeek88282]

We recently had a call saying they were from the ****** Bank credit card. £500.00 had been taken from my account and was it me who authorised it.

I asked them what the “Password” was, the caller repeated the bank and details. So I asked again. The caller said he did not need to give a password, I said you do if you are who you say you are. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

This week it was Alexander, with the same spiel. He asked why he needed to give the password, I said so that I know it is the Bank and not a scammer like you. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

This is the best way to deal with them, unfortunately it does not work with texts, but this is the price you pay for having this sort of technology. The landline works for me and it is free with the broadband.

Regards

Gray,

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Very nasty!  This is a power-assisted scam, one supported by data gathering.  The baddies have somehow collected enough information to target a specific victim with nearly enough data to make it convincing.

It’s important when using the web to minimise information leakage by blocking trackers and cookies, avoiding dodgy websites, and not providing personal information of any kind unless essential.  (A friend cannot comprehend this: in his mind, no-one is interested in little him.  They are! )

Also important to remain alert just as Chris did.  Necessary because legitimate businesses get hacked, employee are bribed to copy information to criminals, and Slack-Alice disposes of old computers without destroying the discs.

No bank deals with a security alert by ringing the customer and asking them to do anything.   They freeze accounts without contacting the customer and have no need to send a barrage of texts and phone calls asking customers to call an 0800 number.

Be-aware that many in the 0800 series, such as 0870, are premium rate, not free.  That may be the scam – getting the victim to make a long-winded call that costs him a bomb, whilst they try to get the victim to transfer money to a ‘safe’ account that belongs to them.

Most banks have a 24×7 security hotline, so no need to wait for normal business hours.   The Nationwide Building Society are on 0800 0556622. “Call us straight away if you think someone might have access to your money.”

The majority of scams are too ill-informed to catch many.   What Chris and his wife got was much more dangerous – in the heat of the moment, the somewhat convincing details might have panicked them into the trap.  Well done for staying calm, and I advise anyone else on the receiving end to start by making a cup-of-tea, letting the adrenalin subside, and then contacting their bank.

Dave

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

ask neighbour if you can use their phone. ring your bank using their number. Don’t use your phone as it may already be compromised.

How do these TV programs (Scam Interceptors) break into the scammers systems and see your details etc ??

Bob

[Chris CrewParticipant @chriscrew66644]

Well, well, well! Should we disbelieve what our banks’ employees tell us? After receiving persistent texts and phone calls with recorded messages that we thought were a scam, on Friday my wife drove 15miles to the nearest Nationwide branch and spoke to a teller, showing the texts on her phone, and informing the Branch about the calls. She was assured, yes, it is a scam and everything is secure within your account, Nationwide would never send or do anything like that.

Over the weekend my wife tried to buy a National Lottery ticket online and pay for it with her Flex account only to receive a message on the lottery site to contact her bank as the payment could not be processed. This morning, rather than making another journey to the Branch she called the Nationwide phone number only to be told that her account had indeed been compromised and blocked because she had ignored the texts and phone calls Nationwide had been sending! Her current card has now been cancelled and a new one is being issued.

So you would think that if you make the effort to actually speak to someone in your bank’s branch to report a suspected scam they would at least give you accurate information and advice. Apparently not in this case and we don’t know whether to be disgusted or just flabbergasted by Nationwide’s actions in sending texts, recorded messages and giving contradictory advice. We really just can’t believe it of a reputable building society.

 

[Martin WParticipant @martinw]

A simple trawl on the web can reveal a mass of information and personal details of an individual. Currently these scammers are using every tool in their arsenal to scavenge data from the internet and they are smart. What is more worrying is when they start to use dedicated AI software to gather data and produce scam messages. These will be both written and verbal, be far more convincing, persistent, contain much more personal information and any interactive verbal communication will not be an Asian accent claiming to be John, Matthew or any other random name.

The real onslaught will arrive soon and probably sooner than thought. With AI backing any form of technical scam will have access to an enormous amount of technical data and, unlike the half literate person working from a call center, will not be confused when confronted with technical questions. An AI system will learn quickly the more effective routes to successful scamming, unlike the human who may never recognize any pattern, and will be able to communicate this to other systems immediately.

Interesting times ahead, or not.

[Trevor GaleParticipant @trevorgale]

It is extremely disconcerting to see just how much individual information is obtained by (presumably) the use of A.I. and other techniques by the scammers.

One of the recent scam mails I received could be very convincing if it were not for the obvious errors: the e-mail started off by explaining that they had evidence of my use of a Samsung Galaxy [model number] mobile ‘phone on which they had seen that I had frequently viewed a popular pornographic site with “particularly piquant” content which showed how interested I was in this kind of pornography! It went on to say that they could send all of this personal content, accompanied by a video of myself [playing with myself] that was taken by the ‘phone camera while watching the porn videos to my wife Irene, all my friends, family and other contacts, but I could avoid this if I paid a sum (in “bitcoin crypto”) to them on a bitcoin (account) number before Friday 27th June. It contained dates, times, and (surprisingly) places that they said came from the GPS location data from the ‘phone.

Now, I can imagine that a few people just might use a mobile ‘phone to view such material and be scared sh witless by the presumed threat but I am not one of them… however that isn’t the reason that I personally have no worries!

Firstly I don’t even use the ‘phone to browse the Web (I’ll use a computer), secondly I hardly ever actually take the ‘phone with me (so definitely not to the places quoted!), thirdly the e-mail was sent on Wednesday 2nd July(!), and fourthly unless my wife has secretly changed her name via deed poll then it is not “Irene” but does indeed begin with the letter “I”.

Quite apart from that, whilst I have seen a couple of pornographic websites, they were full of code that could be hacking or otherwise seriously compromising the operating system of the computer and I therefore avoid them like the plague; my point here is that there is an alarmingly increasing number of apparently very realistic and (again, apparently) personally-directed scams that can arrive via mail, texts and messages – written in far better English than used to be the case (and that also applies to good Dutch language since I reside in the Netherlands and am fluent in it).

The lesson has to be that in these times of ‘easier, faster communication’ we have to take more and more care and examine incoming mail or texts etc. and check with real people at such places as banks, stores etc. before making decisions or taking actions. What does not help is the fact that many such companies are making more use of (A.I.-based) automatic answering devices both for the telephone and for their online responses (i.e. e-mail responses and ‘chat-assistants’).

We can all blame the technology and the way it is advancing so quickly: however we could (and did) blame the telephone, the motor car, the television etc. for all kinds of ills. It is not technology that is at fault, it is human abuse of that technology.

[Author]

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