HMRC Scams
Email from a Bulletin reader: "Every week I receive emails claiming to be from HMRC. HMRC have confirmed these are scam emails. A recent one stated:
"Here`s
a confirmation from HMRC
You have received this email to be notified that HMRC has recalculate your
last fiscal activity.
from
last year and HMRC has decided that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of
448.98 GBP.
If
you want to claim your tax refund now, you
have to complete a required form with your personal information (link).
Please
allow HMRC up to 5 business days in order to verify and process your
request.If you already submitted the refund form once , please ignore this
email as HMRC will not take in consideration multiple refund requests. If
you will refuse to complete the refund form now, you will not be able to claim
your refund online anymore."
Attempted romance scams via Facebook and Twitter
Email from a Bulletin reader: "I
have recently been contacted on both Facebook and Twitter each time by a good looking
guy, usually from the US, via the message system on each website. I am aware of these people and believe it's an attempted romance scam. It's always interesting for me to copy their image
and search for it on Google image - it's always someone by a totally different name. Not
everyone is as knowledgeable as me about the system and these people are very
plausible. And I think that this would be a very useful thing to warn people about."
Mail credit card scam
Email from a Derbyshire County Council social worker: "one of my clients is an older gentleman who lives with his son. They have a letterbox which is
not attached to the house.
The older
gentleman had received a credit card application form through the
letterbox. Somebody has retrieved that application form from the letterbox and
filled it in, in the older person’s name with another phone number.
Luckily, the son had
noticed before any harm was done and informed the bank where a fraud
investigation was initiated. Somebody had been watching the letterbox.
The son has asked me to warn others (especially elderly people or people with limited
mobility) about the risk of being a victim of fraud if they have a detached
letterbox."
Medication phone scams
Email from a Derbyshire County Council social worker: "One of my
client’s has received a bogus phone call from somebody claiming to be from UK Health
Department based in Birmingham.
The home care worker
was present at the time and answered the phone. They were
trying to sell medication for back pain to the client (who has dementia).
They gave a
phone number as 1072285509 (which is clearly either a foreign number or fake) and said his name was Peter."
Telephone privacy services scams
Example 1: A Council social worker sent the following email: "Two years ago,
my client paid a privacy protection company, £89 to stop nuisance calls. (NB.
This is exactly the same thing the Telephone Preference Service does for free.) The company recently rang her demanding another £50 and threatening
court action and debt collectors if she refused to pay. Fortunately, she told
her family about this and they have contacted the Citizens Advice Bureau.
Citizens Advice have now contacted Trading Standards who have agreed to
investigate this. Her family also rang the company to demand they stop
ringing and threatening their mum. The person at the company hung up
the phone when he realised they were not going to get any more money."
Example 2: email from a member of the public: "I received a phone call to my home phone today from a person calling himself "Robert" but with a strong S.E.
Asian (i.e. Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi) accent.
He stated he was calling from the "Telephone Preference
Service and knew my name, address and also that I
paid my phone bill by direct debit (probably a good guess).
He claimed he needed certain information from my debit card
in order to confirm that I paid my phone bill by direct debit in order to be a
able to register me with the Telephone Preference Service. He wanted the expiry date on my debit card and I refused to
give this information - told him it was not relevant.
He then insisted that he wanted the number from my debit
card which is below the name on the left hand side. (This is actually the
bank's sort code.) I refused to give him this.
I refused to give him any further information relating to my
debit card. He tried to insist, saying that he did not want the main card
number (the 16 digit one) or the security code on the back but that he needed
the "other" number below my name on the card.
I told him that I knew this was a scam call and that I had
no intention of giving him any information. He continued to try to worm
information out of me, being extremely persistent, and I continued to tell him
I would not give him any of the information from my card or my bank account.
Eventually. after a couple of minutes of his trying to obtain
information, I put the phone down.
Note that I AM registered with TPS and have been for years."
Fake energy compliance checks
Email from a nursing home ownwer: "I am the owner of Ashford Lodge
Nursing Home, Ilkeston.
We recently had a man come to our door claiming to be from UtilityWise.
He said he is working on an initiative with Care Quality Commission and Derbyshire County Council to
check that we are Energy Compliant and have smart meters and Energy
Certificate.
I have never heard of this and do not believe it to be true. He said he wasn’t here to alter our suppliers just to make
us Regulatory Compliant.
When I said I had a certificate etc, he said he couldn’t
help then and walked away. I contacted Trading
Standards, who recorded it.
I then called UtilityWise who didn’t have knowledge of it
and said they would pass it to the field office to investigate."
Fake leaflet scoping scam
Email from a Bulletin reader: "I was waiting for a parcel to be delivered when there was a loud
knocking on my front door. When I opened it a man in his 20s handed me a leaflet for tree care company. My initial reaction was to ask him why he had banged on the door when
we have an obvious doorbell? I then pointed to the
notices that we have that we don’t accept
“Doorstep callers” which he again said he had not seen. I therefore told
him to be on his way, and he demanded his leaflet back which I refused to give
him, saying I would report him. He walked off across my garden & through my perimeter hedge to
a waiting old transit style van. Unfortunately I was not able to get sight of
its registration number. I later in the day asked several of my neighbours if they had received a similar leaflet or knock
on their door but none had been similarly bothered.
On the leaflet there are 2
alternative contact phone numbers. I tried to call the numbers and one went to answerphone but the other was answered by a gentleman of about 60
who coincidentally is a tree surgeon but who assured me he never used leaflets
and did not trade as the company named in the leaflet. He did say that this was not the
first occasion he had heard that someone had used his telephone number etc.
I called the police on their 101 number to report
this incident and the police man asked me if I have a caravan or motor home? I
do in-fact have a caravan stored behind our fence and well protected by locks
etc which I confirmed to the police. The inference I took from the Police query
was that the leaflet was a ruse to check out if my caravan was secure or could
be stolen.
Since then I am thankful to say nothing untoward has
occurred but I have asked my neighbours to be vigilant on my behalf, as I know
caravans have been taken brazenly from people’s driveways."
Have you heard about a phone, postal, email or
doorstep scam that's been happening locally? Or maybe you've come across an
online scam or a copycat website?
Let us know so we can share the scam in the next Scam Bulletin
to warn others.
Email adultcare.info@derbyshire.gov.uk
This bulletin will be sent out periodically based on demand. We
can't guarantee to publish all the information you send in, but we'll try and
make sure to get the message across.
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