Telephone & Internet Scams
T
elephone scams are so common that most
people are aware of them, but that doesn’t
seem to stop the perpetrators from coming up
with new ones on a regular basis.
Here are two new ones that are doing the rounds.
The phone rings and when you answer it you hear a
recorded message telling you that your Amazon
Prime account will be automatically renewed within
the next 24 hours at a cost of £9.99 per month. The
message goes on to say that if you want to cancel
this, you should press 1 to speak to an operator.
This is a particularly clever scam, because like many
people, I regularly shop on Amazon, and thought that
perhaps I had inadvertently signed up for Amazon
Prime during one of my purchases. So, I pressed 1 to
speak to an operator.
I then got through to what sounded like an Indian
call centre. Still thinking I was talking to someone
about Amazon Prime, I told the operator I wanted to
cancel the account. She said she would send me a
cancellation form, but in order to do that she would
need to connect me to their (computer) server. She
asked me to simultaneously press the letter R and
the Windows key on my keyboard (between the Ctrl
and Alt keys).
This brought up the Run box into which she asked me
to type the URL www.teamviewer.com. Fortunately,
I am familiar with Teamviewer, and know that it is a
facility that allows a third party on an external
computer to take control of a computer remotely.
Had I done as she asked, this would have given her
complete control and access to my computer both
then, and at any time in the future. When I asked
her why she wanted control of my computer, she
promptly hung up. I then dialled 1471 to get the
phone number, which I tried to call and which of
course was a fake one.
The second scam happened to one of our readers,
who called me to tell me about it.
Mr Smith (not his real name!) received a phone call a
few days ago. When he answered the phone, the
caller asked if he was speaking to Mr Smith, who
confirmed that he was. The caller then identified
himself as Police Constable Dobson from Charing
Cross and said he had just arrested a man called
Dave Neesom who was trying to use Mr Smith’s card
(he didn’t specify ‘debit’ or ‘credit’).
‘PC Dobson’ then asked if Mr Smith knew Dave
Neesom, which Mr Smith denied. The caller then
started asking Mr Smith a number of questions
which were clearly aimed at getting details of Mr
Smith’s debit or credit card. At this point, Mr Smith
asked for the caller’s phone number so he could call
him back . . . and the caller promptly hung up!
Whilst the majority of people are wise to these scams,
but there are still a lot of people, such as the very
elderly, who are vulnerable, so if you know of anyone
who is likely to be taken in by this sort of call, please
warn them to be very careful.
Editor
CRAIG MERCHANT ELECTRICAL SERVICES
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