Seriously, why?
One woman had a mobile call telling her that there was an ongoing court case against her over an unpaid tax bill. The judge and jury were on the line, the scammer told her, but if she immediately transferred payment of £999, the case would go better for her.
She panicked and paid but was told it was not enough. So she went to the bank, with the scammer still on the line, and sent another £4,000.
“As soon as she had done it, she realised it was a scam,” said Louise Baxter-Scott, head of the national Trading Standards scam team.
But she didn’t before? Seriously, what is wrong with people – the judge and jury were on the line demanding money? For crying out loud how dim do you have to be to believe that claptrap? These scams are easy to spot. Even the more sophisticated ones raise red flags before you get to the money part.
I had one of those HMRC ones a few weeks back on my mobile. It flashed up on the screen as a scam call, which was interesting. Another one a few days later didn’t, so I blocked and reported the number, so that one will be flagged.
But seriously, not one of these scams should work if people use their common sense, take some time to think and recognise that none of the supposed organisations being mimicked behave in this way.
And the scams are getting more sophisticated and more threatening.
Well, yes, but sooner or later they want you to get your credit card out or give them access to your bank account. If you were fooled up until then, that’s a massive giveaway. That’s the moment – if you haven’t already done so – to hang up.
It’s worth mentioning that the calls I’ve had have all been recordings asking me to call back. That’s a red flag in itself, so simply don’t call back. The HMRC, Fraud Squad or anyone else does not phone you up with a recorded message telling you that someone is coming to arrest you so please call back. This is so obviously a scam, so again, I ask myself why do people fall for it?
Scammers are particularly targeting the elderly.
Because they are more vulnerable, so it is up to the more savvy members of the family to school them – or better still install a Truecall device on their landline. Stops scammers dead in their tracks. I’ve not had an unwanted call on my landline since January 2015. On checking the call logs online, I see there have been plenty of attempts but they get cut off. A Truecall costs about £100, so spending that for an elderly relative is a small cost.
However, all too often, it’s younger people who fall for it. And again, I ask myself, why? All the information is out there and it isn’t difficult to find, so why do people still give these bastards money? How naive and stupid do you have to be to believe that a judge and jury would call you in the middle of a court case that you know nothing about to demand money? I’d almost say that’s a tax on stupidity.
” I’d almost say that’s a tax on stupidity.”
It is. Though not necessarily a tax on intellectual stupidity, as quite often educated people fall for these scams, and those with less letters after their names spot them a mile off. Its a tax on lack of common sense, nous or just general ‘smarts’. Just because you can do integral calculus does not IMO make you ‘clever’, it makes you intellectual. If you fall for these sort of scams it just shows that despite your accomplishments in some areas you are as dumb as a box of rocks in others and aren’t as superior as you think you are. Trouble is that society selects for intellect when choosing those to be in control of things and others, not nous, or (ideally) a combination of the two. Thus we end up being ruled by lawyers who can argue the most obscure points of law but couldn’t run a whelk stall or who fall for the most obvious scams going.
Having been a driving instructor as well as a motorcycle instructor, I’m very familiar with this phenomenon.
Dear Longrider
We the sheeple™ seem to do that at every election, voting for the most ridiculous promises of ‘government’ largess, then wonder why taxes go up.
Now that is a tax on stupidity.
They also lap up the preposterous claims made up by ‘experts’ and promoted by politicians, media and bureaucrats, applauding while hundreds of billions of their money are squandered on the most blatant white elephants.
The elite: scamming the public since forever.
DP
But what choices are there? Therein lies the problem. A choice between bad and awful. That or abstain.
Don’t bother I guess. And avoid paying tax as.much as possible.
“However, all too often, it’s younger people who fall for it. And again, I ask myself, why?”
Greed..?
Telephone scams seem to prey on fear rather than greed.
I thought it obvious too. I had one about a year ago now. It was the internet will be cut off if you don’t pay X a lot of cash. Rubbish. I mentioned it to my brother, an intelligent man. His face told me all I needed to know. I asked him how he could fall for an obvious scam. It was obviously a panic reaction and the threat itself. He got his money back plus £2000 mispaid him by his bank. An ill wind etc.
We generally don’t answer the phone if we don’t recognise the number. On the odd occasion that we do get a scammer it is always pretty obvious. Their pitch is invariably pretty implausible, they tend to hang up when I start taking the piss.