Scam alert

[robjon44Participant @robjon44]

Unsolicited advise call about pending payment

[robjon44Participant @robjon44]

Hi all, phone rang this morning, picked up without speaking & was informed that it was a recorded message with regard to a payment soon to be taken from my Amazon Prime account & would I like to press some number keys for more information, alarm bells began to ring not least because I don't have such an account! However, knowing the sophisticated technology these a holes have at their disposal, such as making a cut & paste of anything you say to make it appear that you did verbally authorise the payment I cancelled the call followed by checking that I indeed was not the proud owner of such an account, paranoid I know, but the reason I posted it on here was that there may be those who use our forums who may not know the lengths these creeps use to steal from them.

Cheers, robjon44

[Chris GunnParticipant @chrisgunn36534]

Robjon, You are right about this scam, there was a warning about it on Moneybox or You and yours on the radio very recently. This seems to coincide with a push by Amazon to sign folks up to a free months trial of Prime.

Chris Gunn

[MM57Participant @mm57]

Yep, had that one, for the first time, earlier this week

[Graham TitmanParticipant @grahamtitman81812]

Over the last two months i have had about a dozen such calls.I block them on bt 1572 and a few hours later a call on a another number.Yesterday i was that fed up with them i got a amazon call back from their customers services and they did not seem the least bit bothered.Graham

[Ian ParkinParticipant @ianparkin39383]

I do get a lot of these both the amazon one and a visa saying £600 is being processed

you have to press 1 to speak to a customer service con person

Every time I do press 1 but generally the line goes dead only once has it connected to a person

this was an amazon one….she seemed surprised to be speaking to me but she just said that £39 was being taken to pay for amazon prime…to which I replied “Great I love amazon prime and I’m happy to renew”

then the line went dead

I have seen that the scam is you pressing 1 which charges you for a premium rate phone call.

I’ve checked my BT bills and there’s no sign of any premium rate numbers being charged for

I wasn’t aware that a call that you haven’t originated can be charged to you ?

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

I wasn’t aware that a call that you haven’t originated can be charged to you ?

The modern equivalent of a ‘reversed charge’ call?

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

I had to laugh at this morning's call… apparently it was an official one from HM customs who are taking out a lawsuit and arrest warrant against me. I didn't bother pressing 1. The thought of a nice christmas dinner, access to live TV and a warm place for winter with easy access to aromatic herbs might be a novel experience. The showers could be an issue unless I self-identify as a woman…..

pgk

[Adrian 2Participant @adrian2]

I had that one pgk. About a year ago there was a warrant out for my arrest, quite persistent too. Just ignore, do nothing.

These low lifes prey on the vulnerable.

Adrian.

[Douglas JohnstonParticipant @douglasjohnston98463]

Just noticed this thread, I have also been getting these calls saying Amazon was about to take money from my account. This just started up after I bought something from Amazon and they said they were giving me a free trial of Amazon Prime. I did not want the free trial and searched the page at checkout to stop it, but it seemed I could not opt out. I nearly cancelled the order but reluctantly went ahead. I later checked my account with Amazon and found I had not been signed up to Prime and did not need to cancel. Then the phone calls started (about 6 so far ), so it would seem that Amazon has a security problem which I do hope they are taking seriously.

Doug

[Graham TitmanParticipant @grahamtitman81812]

Hi Douglas i have had a lot of these calls about amazon prime and even with the call blocker on i phoned amazon and the operator did not seem the least bit interested.Graham

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Since the calls are originated automatically and to random numbers they don't need to know anything about your Amazon account. They are just trying to harvest payment information, make enough calls at random and they will get a few mugs that give their details.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Douglas Johnston on 19/12/2019 10:18:48:

Just noticed this thread, I have also been getting these calls saying Amazon was about to take money from my account. This just started up after I bought something from Amazon and they said they were giving me a free trial of Amazon Prime. I did not want the free trial and searched the page at checkout to stop it, but it seemed I could not opt out. I nearly cancelled the order but reluctantly went ahead. I later checked my account with Amazon and found I had not been signed up to Prime and did not need to cancel. Then the phone calls started (about 6 so far ), so it would seem that Amazon has a security problem which I do hope they are taking seriously.

Doug

It's us who have the security problem, not Amazon! In this example Amazon's name is used as the hook but very similar scams are operated using Talktalk, BT, Microsoft, the Inland Revenue, Police, Banks, Energy Providers, and others.

The scammer doesn't know if you're an Amazon customer or not. They do know that a percentage of the population will be having some sort of problem with a service provider, or the police, or their computer, or with tax. By calling people at random, the criminals hope that victims will join the dots between a real problem and the fake call. If you happen to be having bother with Amazon due to the way they push Prime, then a phone call from 'Amazon' may seem authentic, and the victim falls for it. Although scams are obvious when they don't line up at all with reality, they coincide often enough to take hundreds of millions per year off the unlucky.

Best thing is to distrust incoming phone calls, texts, and emails. Double-check, and don't forget most of the organisations mentioned never contact customers out-of-the-blue unless it's to make an appointment.

More detail about scams here.

Dave

[Les Jones 1Participant @lesjones1]

This is slightly off topic. A short time ago I was ordering an item fro Amazon and I was in no hurry to get it. I clicked on free delivery thinking it was the free about 5 day delivery but it was for Amazon prime one day delivery. I tried to get back to select the 5 day option but nothing I tried worked, I even tried cancelling the free prime trial offer.I ended up cancelling that order and creating a second Amazon account using a different email address. Instead of taking a few minutes to order the item it probably took about an hour.

Les.

[Swarf, Mostly!Participant @swarfmostly]

Hi there, all,

A neighbour who works for an engineering/fabrication company told me recently about 'the drill sharpening scam'. I guess this is probably not too much of a risk for hobbyists. However, it's been causing a lot of trouble for engineering businesses.

I won't take up the space to go into more detail here but I suggest any engineering/fabrication professionals might do well to Google 'drill sharpening scam'.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Les, I fell into the same trap with Amazon Prime this week; I tried to cancel the Prime delivery but it wouldn’t play ball so I went into my account and you can cancel the Prime free trial there, the bonus was I managed to cancel, and it is recorded in my account details, but I still received the free next day delivery. Recently received a call about my BT account and problems with my broadband service, soon sorted, I replied that I am not with BT and I don’t have broadband, I do but it’s with Sky. These scam calls are a real pain, especially the 0843 numbers that keep calling, no use blocking the numbers as they change to a different number each time but always with 0843 prefix.
Dave W

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

If some of the calls are to be believed, my internet connection with BT (which I do not have directly ) would have been terminated several times, m,over the last year..

Possibly the subject matter is irrelevant, they just want you to press 1 or 2 so that you can be transferred onto some line, charging a horrendous amount per minute or part thereof. Their prey are the naive, and the gullible.

Maybe they think that our marbles vanish when we get to three score years and ten?

If so, they are going to be very disappointed; or need to set their alarm clocks a LOT earlier in the morning.

The very means of communication with which they try to con us, is the very means whereby we warn everyone of their scam, and how to avoid it. Criminals, in the main, tend not be able to qualify for MENSA membership.

Just Timewasters.

Howard

[Graham TitmanParticipant @grahamtitman81812]

Hi Dave W the amazon calls are not 0843 i dialed 1471 every time and it was a different area code every time including Wales,Scotland and Northern Ireland none were 0843.Graham

[EmgeeParticipant @emgee]

When going through the Checkout procedure on Amazon the "continue without prime" button is feintly displayed and deliberately placed away from the detail of the order, just to catch people out as it seems to have done in this case.

Emgee

 

 

added Amazon

Edited By Emgee on 19/12/2019 18:43:39

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Hi Graham, sorry if I confused you but the 0843 calls that I receive are not connected with Amazon, I was referring to a problem not connected with my initial subject, I do tend to wander onto different subjects, comes with age I suppose.
Dave W

[Paul MParticipant @paulm98238]

I agree that scam phone calls are a major nuisance. My latest one – "this call is about your life insurance policy sir". My standard reply is to ask for their full name, phone number and address they are calling from. They always terminate the call.

Regarding Amazon Prime, I have subscribed for a few years now. I use Prime TV a lot. It has some good programmes not available on terrestrial TV channels. Next day delivery is handy although you can get items slightly cheaper without Prime. My wife, who has her account, found herself with the 30 day trail offer recently. It is a pain sifting through he links to cancel but it can be done. My advice is to Google how to cancel amazon Prime if you get lost in the maze.

[Eric CoxParticipant @ericcox50497]

I don't believe it. As I was reading these postings I had a call about my am a zon account. I pressed 1 and as soon as I asked for their name they hung up and I was so looking forward to wasting their time.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

Eric

Please tell us if that call after you pressed 1 and requested details, was costly!

Howard

[ZanParticipant @zan]

Two points

1) recent tv program where the presenter got a phone number in seconds (via a net specialist) of a journalist who specialised in anti scam information. He was sent a text supposedly from Amazon saying they would ring in 20 mins which the presenter did, then asked the usual security details but stopped this half way through when he came clean. The victim was amazed he had been trapped so easily and it could have cost him a lot if it had been a scammer

2) our phone is on permanent answer phone.. scammers usually hang up when they hear “ Sorry, we are not at home” Most after the first word. Al” our friends know this and speak, and we pick up

[DMBParticipant @dmb]

Earlier this year, had a phone call from Loveenergysaving as a result of digging around for a cheaper elec. supplier for club. Caller claimed to be a legitimate site like MoneySavingExpert and others. I checked Companies Register, not really surprised to find a listing as "they" all do that to lend an air of respectability. He was claiming to get the club a better deal than the current supplier and that was with one and the same supplier! When I queried that, he said that he could obtain a bulk discount for introducing new customers. He knew the club was with that supplier. He also gave a quote at prices which seemed to be too good to be true. Ignored my figure of annual useage and used a much larger consumption figure. Phone calls at least once a day and constant emails went on for weeks. I blocked emails and phone calls but he called from an apparently different number each time, mostly starting 0203 etc. Eventually, he used what looked like my own number, which if I blocked it without reading properly, I would have blocked myself! Anyway, the last digit had been changed, he hoping I wouldn't notice. Needs to get up a bit earlier to catch me.Finally after that, I had the landline number changed and being choosy who I reveal it to. Most organisations will only be given one or other of my old nos., so I dont get a repeat of selling on. Contract comes to an end soon and number change again.

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