Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Scams targetting the elderly and vulnerable
My elderly neighbour was phoned by someone claiming to be the police. They informed him that they had just arrested someone who had withdrawn £826 from his account using a clone of his bank card. He should therefore phone his bank and ask what he should do with the card. The caller however did not put his receiver down so that when my neighbour tried to call the bank, he spoke to the same person again.
This person then pretended to be from the fraud section of the bank and having got all the information about his card (PIN no., card no., security number etc.) advised him that they needed to collect his card and that they would send a courier immediately to collect it. My neighbour was uneasy about this and came to see me, but the courier had already come to collect it. They told him that unless he gave his card to the courier, he would lose the money that had already come out of his account and £826 is a large amount of money, especially for someone on a pension.
I phoned 999 at my neighbour's house but the person calling still had not put down the phone and I ended up speaking to him again, and the same when I tried to talk to the bank. My neighbour then tried to phone a friend and realised that there was no dial tone. The scammers had still not put down the phone, so each time we were just speaking to them. Fortunately my neighbour refused to give his card to them, but it would be good to warn any elderly or vulnerable people as they are clearly being targeted here.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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It seems this is a not uncommon scam.
I wonder, has anyone dialled 999 on a second phone line or mobile; told the Police and requested they come to the potential victim's house before the scammer arrives to collect the card? And arresting them.
If this happens would it stand-up in court?
It's helpful Grazyna, to pass on this information. But I disagree with your view that this should be seen as a danger for elderly and vulnerable people.
Of course it is. But it's also a danger for everyone else as well!
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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They use couriers who are not part of the set-up.
This is meant to be being fixed by the dial tone thing being disabled by the phone companies. At present if you don't hang up a call you make, it stays live indefinitely (?), anyway for a long time. The plan is to cut that down to a few seconds, which would stop this at a stroke. Why hasn't it happened already? Can any phone-tech-savvy people tell us what the advantage of keeping the line open may be, once the person called has disconnected? Sometimes if I get shouty with the bloody scammers selling new kitchens and PPI, they deliberately leave the line connected to piss me off.
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Permalink Reply by Grazyna Bonati on
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Hi Alan. Thanks for your reply. In fact, when my neighbour noticed that there was no dial tone, I went back to my own flat and phoned the police from there. They told me that this scam had been around for about two years and that it was particularly targeted at old and vulnerable people, though how the scammers identify them, I don't know. Anyway, the police sent two officers around to talk to my neighbour so they were very helpful but did not feel that it would be easy to trap the scammers. I like your solution. I hope it can be spread about too.
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The more organised of the thieves play a recording of a dial tone, this lot must have been beginners.
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Permalink Reply by Madeline on
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When it happened to me, I used my mobile to check with the bank and then to call the police. Unfortunately by the time they arrived the courier had been and gone. He was just a local minicab driver so they were able to locate him, (we'd asked him who was paying him, he didn't know, only that he'd be paid at the other end). The police got the drop-off address from him but it led know where.
We were told that what they would do was to keep an eye out for the cab then pretend they'd just come out of the drop-off address to collect the card and pay the cab.
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