Being sent a shiny new phone in the post that you were not expecting may sound great, but it could well be a sign you have just been scammed. Criminals might have got into your account, added a new handset to your bill, before asking you to "return" it - to their address. Nearly 30,000 cases like this were recorded last year of what a telecommunications boss described as "at scale, organised crime".
Organised, yes, but like any good scam, reliant on the naivety and/or greed of the mark. As Longrider has frequently pointed out...
So, what sort of greedy naive idiot has fallen for this one?
The Reverend Jenny Seggar, rector of the Two Rivers Benefice near Ipswich, fell victim to this type of fraud last year and told the BBC's Scam Secrets podcast how the "very plausible" technique unfolded.
There follows a story few people wouldn’t have smelled a rat with!
When Seggar contacted Tesco Mobile, staff told her the QR code led to a private address - meaning the fraudsters had bagged themselves a brand new iPhone and Apple Watch. "I got back into the car and I thought, 'Oh, I think I've just been really stupid. I don't like how this feels'," Seggaar added.
Yes, you have.
Seggar's experience is part of a pattern of increasingly sophisticated scam activity across the telecommunications industry.
Not really that sophisticated at all
2 comments:
www.smtcl-eu.com
Some scammer tried that crap on me a few years ago.Their "courier" turned up to "collect" said phones, two of them, and I refused to hand them over.
The merely used my details from the electoral register, not my account details.
The worst part was taking them to the Carphone Warehouse locally to return them and get any account attached to my address cancelled.
Eventually in this packed shop full of customers I made a very loud and public fuss and threatened to call the police.
The account was cancelled, the "alternative address" turned out to be some old dear where the scammer would pick up the "mistaken" packages.
As of then, I wouldn't touch what's left of Carphone Warehouse with a bargepole and certainly never ever get a contract phone. SIM only.
The "courier" to came to collect was most pissd off, but decided to leave when I started to call the police. Probably just some hapless minicab driver, but not my problem.
Anyone who thinks this is going to improve is living in lalaland especially when our "money" becomes remotely cancelled and restrictable virtual "digital" money, naturally "for the state's errrrr, I meant, for our convenience".
Make Serfdom Digital...
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