The piece we ran on scams last month most definitely hit the mark! One of our regular readers sent a hand written piece on her own experience and wishes to share with others:
“Last month, shortly after returning from shopping, I answered the door to a man who explained that he had been working down the road and had noticed a problem with my roof. So he had brought his ladder and had fixed it for me, probably saving me £1000 with all the rain we had been having and with winter coming. I had to smile to myself because I am ashamed to admit that I fell for just this sort of scam last year. So despite my years (I am 81) I sent him packing! I will admit to being a bit shaky and wondering whether I might get up next day to find my windows smeared or my front garden damaged.
“There are various unpleasant aspects to this sort of scam. They know you are old. That you live alone. That you live in a nice area and may even have watched when you come and go. I dealt with it and will be able to again, should it occur. But there are many who can’t or who have already been tricked and who are too embarrassed to talk about it.”
The reader then went on to say that she fre-quently received queries from ‘Mastercard’ over a £600 transaction “always £600. no imagination!” she said in her doughty way.
Meanwhile Bill Cunningham, who has been awarded by Trading Standards for his work on spreading information about scans, has been in touch and would like to share his thoughts:
Thought for the day, every day.
Another tedious day, but a phone call out of the blue and the first human contact that week. A very pleasant man from customer care department of my “internet provider” said abnormal activities had been noticed in my account, prompting his call. He suggested his colleague in tech support would put all right for me. My computer would be made secure and speeded up. So a win win win real-ly, as no cost to me. I agreed to be transferred and helped. Soon after another very pleasant person, Peter, spoke to me. He suspected a virus may be in my PC and a quick investiga-tion would find out. I had to open a web browser and type in an address. With my agreement remote login software was installed on my computer to give Peter direct control. Immediately he said he had spotted a gap in my firewall and lack of anti-spyware. So even an inexperienced hacker could find his way in to steal my details. Best right there and then to change my bank password and lodge it in a secure folder on my PC. He’d set that up, de-lete malevolent software and thus also speed up my PC. I entered my new bank password information into the secure folder, whilst he deleted bad software. He said to log off and not use the computer for at least an hour to let things settle. Then visit the web sites he sug-gested, to buy the security software to keep me safe.
So – would we really invite a stranger into the house, share banking information with them, agree to change passwords and where to store them securely, so that anoth-er stranger could not find them? Well; would we???
If you get any strange phone calls or letters asking you to call a number and you are concerned at all, then please call Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111.