A New Variation on an Old Scam

[Chris CrewParticipant @chriscrew66644]

The majority of us must have had by now the, “Amazon Prime has just charged £*** to your credit card, press 1 if this is not you” (or words to that effect) scam by now.

I have just had a variation on that scam, as usual a recorded message received via the land-line, but this time it was, “Thankyou for booking tickets with EMR from St. Pancras to Edinburgh, £*** has been charged to your credit card…blah…blah etc.”.

Now as we all know here that EMR doesn’t even run from St. Pancras to Edinburgh and the new wording of an old scam is risible but I wonder how many people actually do still fall for this garbage?

Actually, it has just occurred to me that I renewed my Senior Railcard online earlier today, so I am now wondering if this is just a coincidence or if the Railcard site has been hacked?

[Chris Crew]

On 2 August 2024 at 12:54 Chris Crew Said:

 

… I wonder how many people actually do still fall for this garbage?

Actually, it has just occurred to me that I renewed my Senior Railcard online earlier today, so I am now wondering if this is just a coincidence or if the Railcard site has been hacked?

Coincidence, but it’s one of the ways these scams work.   If it had immediately struck you that your railcard had just been renewed, you might have jumped to the wrong conclusion.  Easy not to fall for garbage that doesn’t fit reality, but people tend to knee-jerk when the information seems to make sense.

If it seems real check your bank-account for untoward transactions, and report to the bank if anything is amiss.  Don’t engage with the caller.

Dave

[JAParticipant @ja]

Easily ignored, I use two different banks.

However I get one every two or so days on my landline. I have twice done a trace back of the calling number only to find it is a very local number.

JA

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