Call from fake police officer in a two-pronged scam attempt

Yesterday, my husband received a phone call from a police officer telling him that he had been the victim of attempted identity fraud. The officer gave him a name, a crime reference number, a number to call and the name of the (real) police station in central London. 

The officer told him that they had arrested some people with a number of fake driving licences including my husbands. He assured him that they were handling it, alerting the DVLA and sending reports to relevant banks etc for whom the arrested people appeared to have some login details. So far so good.

The officer kept my husband talking for 20 minutes, during which time he appeared to want no information beyond what he had already got, ie a phone number and an email. My husband thanked him, assured him he would be vigilant, and rang off, slightly annoyed that this had happened again and expecting a flood of letters telling him he'd opened accounts with various phone companies (like last time).

About 90 minutes later, my husband got a second phone call following an email (being a bit vague at this point as I don't want to publish more details for any passing scammer to harvest). The email appeared legit and sure enough a call came through. The person on the other hand (well-spoken London accent apparently) then proceeded to try and get him to perform a financial transaction over the phone. At this point the alarm bells began to ring 🚨. After a fraught few minutes with my husband challenging the caller over various assertions, the caller rang off. 

Then the penny dropped. It wasn't just the financial call that had been fake but ALSO THE POLICE OFFICER! 

Thinking back, my husband realised the only bit of information he'd given up was the fact he was with a certain financial institution because the officer appeared to already know this (proper fake medium levels of extricating information without you realising it). He called the real Met police who told him that the name and badge number of the officer was fake, as was the crime number. Only the police station was real. They were sympathetic and told him to report it to Action Fraud but, of course, as no money had actually been lost there wasn't that much they could do. 

My husband, who has done countless phishing training sessions with his company, checked the email again and realised the address was slightly different from that of the real organisation.

The scammers performed an extraordinarily sophisticated two pronged attack here. First of all an apparent call from a trusted organisation (the police) which APPEARED to not want any information, but setting you up for the second part which was to try and convince you that your financial information had been hacked and that you must move it INSTANTLY.

This combination of alarm and pressure can be extremely effective and often works. The minute that anyone tries to pressure you to do any financial transaction over the phone ("I'll walk you through it" they say) that's the moment you hang up. I wouldn't recommend my husband's technique of challenging the caller until they hang up unless you're particularly skilled at it! The more I think about this scam, the more I realised how sophisticated this was, using our expectations of the police (probably based on too much tv), the psychology of building trust but also softening you up for an expectation that someone might be about to hack you and then the sting. It's only got to work a couple of times to walk away with someone's savings. 

A few years ago I used to volunteer at Citizens Advice in Research and Campaigns. One thing we worked on a lot was scams which range from the "I'm from Microsoft" to "you have a tax rebate" to these financial scams where they try and actually get you to move money to them. This is the first time that Ive heard of anyone posing as a police officer. Definitely one for my "collection" (yes I do listen to True Crime podcasts about scams and financial crime - I recommend Shadow World on the BBC)

Finally, if you think something is a scam always hang up or walk away. Don't imagine you'd be too savvy to fall for it. Anyone can be scammed. Always let people know if you're being pressured or feel unsure. You can always ring the organisations who appear to be calling you if you're not sure on a trusted number (not one the scammer gives you). 

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