Scam emails, phone calls, etc.

[mikealdren]

I think it highly unlikely VISA or anyone would telephone an individual person to query a payment , any more than Microsoft would telephone someone to say they had detected error messages from their computer. The nearest I came to that was when I gave someone a cheque and his bank telephoned me, asking me to confirm that I knew about it. I thought that very considerate of them .

VISA would not have your contact details, these are held by the card issuer, typically your bank or a 3rd party processing for them. VISA only deal with the card issuer and the transaction acquirer (the merchant's agent)

[french frank]

I made this point: you would be contacted by the bank that issued the VISA/Mastercard. They give your name and the last 4 digits of your card. I've been texted but never phoned.

[Old Grumpy]

The nearest I came to that was when I gave someone a cheque and his bank telephoned me, asking me to confirm that I knew about it. I thought that very considerate of them .

Cheques are such a rarity these days - they probably telephone about every cheque presented for payment

[mikealdren]

I've noted elsewhere, the easy way to spot a scammer is to tell them you have more than one card and ask which card has the problem.

[smittims]

Indeed, Mike, that's good advice with many 'cold calls'.

'I'm phoning about your computer.'

'Oh yes? Which one; tell me about it.'

They usually ring off. In fact, I've noticed recently that cold-call staff are not as well-trained as they used to be to keep you talking. It's getting quite easy to 'throw' them'.

[Nick Armstrong]

Yes, this has been a feature every pre-Christmas for some years. It's difficult enough keeping track of all the online deliveries at this time of year so it pays to be ultra vigilant in checking your emails.

The slew of scam emails came to an abrupt and complete stop at the start of this week…. I’ve hardly had a thing in my junk mailbox. Either Apple has found a way of blocking them, or the scammers have en masse given up for Christmas

I rather miss the sweeping ‘delete all’ daily clearouts of a dozen or two unread pieces of gibberish

[Petrushka]

The slew of scam emails came to an abrupt and complete stop at the start of this week…. I’ve hardly had a thing in my junk mailbox. Either Apple has found a way of blocking them, or the scammers have en masse given up for Christmas

I rather miss the sweeping ‘delete all’ daily clearouts of a dozen or two unread pieces of gibberish

Overall, i would say that I've had much less than I would have expected at this time of year. Ditto scam phone calls. One slight concern is that of the few I've had, too many have ended up in my normal inbox rather than my junk mail. I'm with Norton so don't know whether they are successfully filtering them out or if scammers have lost interest in me.

I'm sure they'll be back at some stage.

[eighthobstruction]

....just had one (scam email)...posing as my brother....

[french frank]

....just had one (scam email)...posing as my brother....

There are TWO of you ???

[eighthobstruction]

....Oh aye....and we both live under a bridge.....bloomin trip trap all day everyday....

[french frank]

....Oh aye....and we both live under a bridge.....bloomin trip trap all day everyday....

[alywin]

[COLOR=#3300ff]The slew of scam emails came to an abrupt and complete stop at the start of this week…. I’ve hardly had a thing in my junk mailbox. Either Apple has found a way of blocking them, or the scammers have en masse given up for Christmas

Nope, they just gave up for Christmas - they're back now. Beats me why the email providers can't simply come up with some way of flagging emails purporting to be about Lume Deodorant and Klaudena and the like ...

[Sir Velo]

Beats me why the email providers can't simply come up with some way of flagging emails purporting to be about Lume Deodorant and Klaudena and the like ...

As someone who works in a heavily regulated sector where we have to go through hoops as part of the anti money laundering regulations, chasing clients half way round the world in some instances in order to prove that they are genuine, doing more checks to ensure the source of their wealth is free of any taint than any of our so-called law enforcement agencies ever do, it absolutely annoys the hell out of me the way the ISPs have persuaded OFCOM to let them get away with doing sod all in this area. Presumably there's more than one cabinet minister with a boat load of shares in them.

[smittims]

I agree and sympathise. If I started to think of the corruption and back-handers going on it would drive me beserk.

[Pulcinella]

As someone who works in a heavily regulated sector where we have to go through hoops as part of the anti money laundering regulations, chasing clients half way round the world in some instances in order to prove that they are genuine, doing more checks to ensure the source of their wealth is free of any taint than any of our so-called law enforecement agencies ever do, it absolutely annoys the hell out of me the way the ISPs have persuaded our elected officials to let them get away with doing sod all in this area. Presumably there's more than one cabinet minister with a boat load of shares in them.

But it's even worse than that: given the effort required to set up a bank account, how is it that these fraudsters are able to operate? Surely not all the accounts they try to persuade you to send funds to are outside the UK?