A number of elderly people are being targeted by phone scammers,and being conned in handing over bank details/money. My mother in law was phoned last week by a man supposedly from Scotland Yard.This put her in a panic straight away as she knew we were due to be in London that day,and she thought something had happened to us.He wanted to know about her bank,how much money she had in her account and details about her bank card.She is partially sighted so luckily couldn't give him any details. He then changed tack and asked if she could help the police catch a bank employee at her bank.Could she go to her bank right away and draw out £5000 pounds and meet a plain clothes policeman outside the bank!He would check if her money was counterfeit.She baulked at doing this,so guesswhat?He told her to put the phone down and then dial 999 and confirm his story with the local police.She did this and was instantly answered,by the same guy,who said 'Horsham Police'. His big mistake as she knows you would go through to a control centre first.I don't know what she told him to do,she is a very genteel little old lady of 86. There was an article in the Times this weekend on this type of scamming,specifically targeting the elderly/frail.A lot of poor souls have lost a lot of money Please make people away about these despicable sh@tes who are causing so much misery.
WTF is wrong with people!!??? I've had two emails in the last seven days,supposedly from Paypal,saying that they've held payments as they think my account has been hacked into.Each time I've logged in to my paypal account and there's no such stuff at all.....but it could be so easy for someone to go to the scammers link and put their details in,utter bastards!! :Rage:unch:
I had one of what the OP refers to.............I told him I was a CO19 officer....... ...."Click"......
The 'trick' is that the caller never hangs up. There is a short time period in which, when the elderly person picks up the phone to call 999, it simply reconnects to the person who didn't hang up. That window of time is actually in the minutes. Phone companies are aware of this and are quickly working to shorten the time to <1 second.
Some old people are pretty stupid. They are the same ones who were already stupid when they were young.
What an extraordinary thing to say. Some are confused or suffering from varying degrees of dementia. Some are recent widows who have little experience of managing their own finances. Some are just lonely, bewildered by the modern world and too trusting of friendly strangers. They are not necessarily stupid, just old and vulnerable to the predations of evil people.
I usually reply to scammers by inserting the words f@@k off you single cell organism, into the boxes marked account details.
That puts you on a list of valid email addresses and an even smaller list of people who respond. That list then gets sold to more scammers. You will get more scam and spam if you respond.
