Just had a phone call supposedly from Hammersmith police station saying there’d been fraudulent activity on one of my cards. The funny thing is they couldn’t say what card(which thinking about it now should have rung alarm bells) . They asked me to check If I had my cards -yes and whether I had made a withdrawal that day -no…
I said what cards I had without giving the numbers. One of the funny things is they told me that one of the transactions was a direct debit but told me to phone the fraud department of the one I had said was a credit not debit card. All the time they kept insisting I should phone the fraud people up.
Phoned credit card people up and told them and they checked but their fraud department has flagged nothing up and there were no transactions of the kind I mentioned. I felt a bit stupid not thinking a direct debit couldn’t be done via a credit card(brain not working today).
My debit card provider has not phoned up to say there has been suspicious activity on that card.
I am beginning to think it was a clever fraudster who was good at making the call seem genuine and when I didn’t give card details which he wanted carried on as though he was a genuine caller.
For transactions I only use the cards online and both are registered with visa secure.
My dad always used to tell me; never give out your Social Security Number or your credit card numbers over the phone. Maybe you should call up Hammesmith police station and ask them about this. Ask them if anybody from their station would call you like that. Ask them if they do stuff like that. Tell them you think someone tried to scam you.
They MIGHT just tell you that they don’t do things like that. Then you would know that caller was a fraud.
Working with IT I run across a lot of people working up schemes. Just last week an Egyptian guy wanted a copy of the amazon login page that forwarded through his server then to Amazon. I was like “Hi there! I’m reporting you!”. It’s really amazing the work they put into fooling people.
Found what I thought was their number but it just told me to phone 101 which just determines my local area and connects me to that station. I don’t live in the Hammersmith/London area.
It’s good to be cautious during these types of situations. It does sound like it may be fraudulent as I can’t see the police calling you with this as they would not have access to your credit card statement.
There are times where I get these types of calls from my credit card company. I still refuse to give out information over the phone and instead call the credit card company myself with the number on the back of the card, not the number they are giving me to call. If my account has been flagged then I deal with than.
Don’t feel stupid. They take advantage of putting people on the spot like that. Your first reaction is help fix it.
Well MAYBE call your local station and ask them if ANY police station would make a call like you got.
Also you might consider that there’s a chance that there was simply a mistake made and not fraud.
I got a call one time where this guy said I had won some kind of vacation trip. I’m pretty sure he just wanted my personal information. I said I wasn’t interested. Those fraudsters can be tricky. You have to keep your guard up.
if you have any wierd apps or have jailbroken your phone it could be a tapped call
Phone fraud is getting pretty common. I only maintain a land line for business purposes and we don’t answer if the number is outside of our area, ever.
10-96
**If there is fraudulantactivity on any of your accounts, usually the company or bank that holds your cards calls you, and most of the time they don`t! i would call your customer service number on your cards and they can tell you if there has been any activity… **
You are smart by not giving the card number. Your brain is definitely working!
No apps as it was on my landline.
That is odd… here in the U.S. it would be the bank that would call… not the police department. I’m glad you were cautious.
Hammersmith is in London… your near the south end of the country right?
Yeah… there is a lot of fishy going on with what this “Hammersmith” officer was casting out for.
Hope all is well…
Southend is regarded as being in the east of the country. My brother and sister live in London but not in the Hammersmith area.
Was told about the ‘no hang up’ scam.
Still not sure I did the right thing especially with talk of staying on the line and someone pretending to be a credit card worker.
I am very paranoid. I guess I will have to see if the credit card company phones up in the near future , presuming it’s them and their model for detecting unusual usage is working.
The people who do this kind of thing are evil scum and should be punished accordingly.
Panic over, I hope, unless they bide their time before using your card. Found my credit card log in details that I’d misplaced in the flat and checked payments- nothing untoward.
A good way to tell if anything is fraud (be it on the phone, in person, on the computer) is to always ask yourself this:
Did I contact them? …or did they contact me?
If you initiated the contact, chances are, you know who you are talking to, and less likely to be fraud.
If they contacted you, it’s more likely a scam, looking to make you a victim.
Scammers seek out victims. rarely do they wait for you to come to them.
Never be afraid to be rude and give NO info out if you didn’t initiate the contact.
A legit business will wait for your contact.