It’s not new at all.
A scam victim lost his elderly parents’ life savings when an ‘evil’ crook pretended to be a Scotland Yard police detective in a sickening new con.
Semi-retired Jonathan Byrne, 63, has barely slept and says he feels sick to his stomach after being duped into handing over nearly £25,000.
The sophisticated con saw scammers posing as ‘articulate Detective Lee Mason from Holborn police station’, who spoke with a city banker accent, and a member of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
The marathon phone call lasted nearly four hours during which Mr Byrne was ‘hypnotised’ into transferring large sums of cash.
It’s just a slight variation on the old ‘transfer your money’ con.
The scam began at 4pm on September 10 when the former COO of a professional engineering institution received a call from a withheld number.
Scammers convinced him to believe he was being contacted by Detective Lee Mason from Holborn police station who told him a ‘Sarah Wiggins’ had been arrested that morning.
He was told officers had found his and 20 other people’s financial records in a notebook she owned.
Mr Byrne instantly searched Google for the station’s phone number and asked to ring back, but he was told he was being called from the fraud department who do not accept incoming calls.
Red flag, right there. Any real serving officer would have agreed to the call back. If they won’t, they aren’t real. And, even if that doesn’t cause concern, the minute they ask you to transfer money, it’s a scam. No one – absolutely no one – will call and ask you to move money about. No one.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy94vz4zd7zo
What could possibly go wrong
The government just love taking personal responsibility away from the proles. An infantilised population is so much easier to control and exploit.
And, you will note, they do it with someone else’s money: i.e. another stealth tax.
Hence the desire to ensure as few people as possible get a decent education . “CO2 helps plants grow” Racist! Bigot! Far right climate denier! Go to Lord Ed’s rightthink lessons for the next 10 years!
Apparently this imbecile was “the former COO of a professional engineering
institution”
I assume that means chief operating officer, which, according to go-ogle font of all knowledge: is an executive in charge of the daily operations of an organization (i.e. personnel, resources, and logistics). COOs are usually second-in-command immediately after the CEO, and report directly to them, acting on their behalf in their absence.
So the institute of chartered fuckwits has a vacancy then!!
Sorry, but for fucks sake!!!