Reports of frauds, deceptions and scams keep appearing, weekly even daily, on
major news channels and newspapers. Some of these frauds seem just too big and remote to be of immediate, direct relevance to our daily lives. But, we will eventually pay for the consequences and damages, in taxes, costs of goods and services, regulations, copy-cats etc.

I hope we can collect, in one thread, frauds and scams, reported or heard. We must become more aware and more educated to guard against frauds and scams
which impact upon the health, well being, and wealth of ourselves and our families.

Kyak,

I have received that email too.

Presumably it's a variation on the "clear your bank account out remotely" Nigerian scam?

Otherise, interested to know the scam as a guy at work wants to try it, and is not being easily pusuaded not to.

Andy, I would have thought that they are sending money to the victim in a way that is not guaranteed or is fraudulent and then bounces, and receiving money from him by a guaranteed mechanism. Don't know though, why don't you enquire :-)

Here are some more.

Hi there,

Would you like to earn some extra money working from home? We offer you a great opportunity!

Our company Ship & Pay International is looking for reliable and trustworthy people to be our representatives in your country!

This is not a sales gimmick requiring you to pay setup fees or sign up to a mailing list. You will need no money and no special skills to start. Anyone can work with us!

If you are interested, don't hesitate to visit our website:

http://www.shipandpay.com/jobs.html

Requirements:
1. A computer with access to the Internet, e-mail
2. We don't work with persons under 21
3. 3-5 hours free during the week (mainly in the non-business hours)
4. Be able to repeatedly lift 5-20 pound boxes.
5. Check your e-mail several times a day (each hour is welcome)
6. Reply to e-mails immediately
7. Bank account to receive payments
8. Account in: PayPal, E-gold (if possible)
9. Be responsible, hard working and communicable
10. Be able to answer phone calls

If you would like to join our team please visit http://www.shipandpay.com/jobs.html fill in the form and send your resume to us by e-mail listed on our website or if you are without resume or employment history simply send your name, address and a few comments or reasons why you should be considered for this position. Required information for your request to be reviewed is: your name, age, address, current and previous job, e-mail address, ICQ number (if possible), phone number.

Thank you.

Best regards,
Ship & Pay, International

Hello,

We're dating agency "RusDeluxe" Group Ltd.
License number 00042247933 since 21.07.03.

Due the expansion of our organization, our agency need employees from England for accomplishing of bank transactions.You must have an account in UK bank.
Payment will be made immediately, for every transaction (receiving and sending of money) you will get 400-900 british pounds.

We have two offices:
1) 12 Pushkinskaya street, office #19.
St. Petersburg, Russia.

2) 33 Bolshaya Nikitskaya street, office #7
Moscow, Russia.

If you are interested in our offer,then you may to contact to our manager for other detailes by e-mail: inforusdeluxe@km.ru or by ICQ# 338818190

Best regards!

kayak,

ok the old bounced cheque scam, where your bank appears to clear the cheque, but it eventually bounces weeks later, long after you have forwarded the money.

I think there is a way round this, where a person can ask thir bank to verify the cleared funds, it was in the MOS a while ago.

The second one intrigues more, "able to REPEATEDLY lift 5-20 lB boxes"!

last one, sending money to Russia, no thanks, I'll stick with Nigeria, it's more secure!

I looked at the website mentioned in the second one when I got the email and it was reasonably professional. However I can't believe it's not a scam. I think the lifting boxes etc. is just to make it sound like a real job. The domain is registered in China and appears to have been zapped.

Ive got a race car for sale on a couple of web sites and these two amusing jokers replied the second one calls himself jummy smith

Hello,

I saw your advertisement for the sales of your Goods, I am interested in buying. However, your urgent reply is needed so as to hasten the Transaction if my offer sound nice.
Also kindly provide the condition and price of the Goods if it will arouse my interest to patronise you.

Waiting to hear from you very soon.

Thanks

Hello,
I'm Interested in buying your advertised( cosworth turbo )Well,I have seen the advert and I think I'll like to contact the seller before I can proceed.So i want you to email me some recent pics of it and also i want you to get back to me with the actual price for it so as for me to proceed with this transaction.So I'll be paying with a Bank U.K Cheque which was drawn from a United Kingdom Bank.So get back to me as soon as possible with those informations.
My Regards


Jim

Kayak, offices in Russia and domain registered in China !
IMO, the financial and commerical regulations and enforcments of China and
Russia are likely to lag woefully behind their growing economies.
Frauds and scams are inevitable. But recent fraud cases, involving potentially hundreds of millions in each case, should have reminded us not to be complacent.
Large frauds and scams always seems to be several steps of detection and law enforcements.


davspeed, LOLLL. Trust and caution go both ways. Not talented with languages, I feel sorry for people who has to struggle with foreign languages. Good luck with selling your car.

Well, I certainly wouldn't provide any information that might arouse someone into patronising me :-)

From the little of what I've read, I shudder to think some people have profited and Custom and Excise costed every salary earners in the UK a few percentages/pennies on the income tax. Could the failed investigation had been a well-planned insider job ??? Must try to get the full Panorama transcript.

I had sold the car on ebay but the winning bidder failed to contact me despite repeated emails and phone calls which went unanswered. After a week he finally answered his phone and said that he had not looked at his email because he was going to Australia the next day for 4 weeks and he would pay for the car when he got back!! You can imagine how pleasant and polite my answer to him was?

davspeed :-(

This links through to quite a professional-looking site (since it's a copy of an existing site), although note the link address does not match the text. Of course eventually one is required to type in the PIN number as well as the credit card number.


Dear ********,

Daily Monitoring of your visa credit card and debit is the only way to protect potential identity theft in progress.
After so much identity theft in progress towards the Visa Institution we are proud to present the new Anti-Theft
service called (Verified by Visa).
This is a unique service that uses personal passwords or identity information to help protect Visa card numbers against
unauthorized use Visa Financial Institution now requires to all Visa members to Enroll in this service.

Our goal is to lower and eliminate the fraud against our Visa Members!
Please take 2 minutes and click on the link below to protect your Visa card right now
with Verify by Visa Protection Plan, and avoid any penalty or suspension actions against you.

https://usa.visa.com/personal/security/vbv/index.html

After we review all the information that you have submitted we will send you an e-mail notification within 48-72 hours.


Notification Department
----------------------

This email is for your information, and does not require a response.

Not yet but has good potential for scams, frauds and phishing. There are very little we can do and probably need to do, but it is good to be aware. Like all systems the biggest weakness is human integrity. In case of computer systems, we have to remember that IT staff, whether in the UK or otherwise, will probably have accesses to personal data for non-medical reasons. Making a complete mockery of data protection act and any "promises" made by governments or managements. Think about umbrella excuses of debugging, maintenance, data for testing, data security checking, backups (onsite or off-shore) etc etc etc

It would be very interesting to see whether the following groups of people
will have their medical records kept on the system - royal families, tycoons, cabinet ministers and their families ... Oh, I forgot, they are probably all private.


All IMO, DYOR etc

"A new NHS computer database may threaten the privacy of patients' medical records, the BBC has learned...."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4392555.stm

Is this legal?

I have received my latest Orange phone bill, and there are two charged calls, from numbers 89069 and 83222, neither of which I have ever heard of.

Total cost of the calls is 2 inc VAT.

I ran Orange and they said I had no idea what these numbers were, and I had not requested calls from these numbers. They informed me that I must have downloaded a rinbgtone or similar, or been on a chat line.

I told them I HAVE NEVER EVER downloaded anything to my mobile, and only use it for calls to people I know, never anything else.

I said the charges were a mistake, and please remove them, and they countered saying that it is MY responsibility to remonstrate with the company concerned, and ask them to refund my 2.

They checked my bill and these charges are now accumating every 5 days at the rate of 2 a time.

I asked orange to disallow these numbers, to prevent further charges accumalting, but they said they couldn't.

I asked the originator of the charges, and they couldn't tell me!

They did provide a list of 10 companies, some chat, some porn sounding, but none that I had heard of. They could not confirm the actual name of the company they were charging my account for, and they were paying! Interestingly, both of these numbers originate from the same company callcentre!

They gave me a number to ring, but it was an automated system, where I had to input my mobile number, and the two originating numbers, and they said they will text me within 5 days a code to block these messages in the future.

I then registered my mobile number with www.tpsonline.org.uk, which SHOULD stop this "within 28 days"!

My beef with Orange is that have simply charged my bill for two text messages I do not recognise, and are then proceeding to repeat this charge every 5 days!, regardless of me informing them I have no idea what they are for!

Does anyone here think this is correct or not?

If your Visa card was charged for an amount you had not authorised, who would you remonstarte with? Visa I think! Surely the same principle applies here?

I informed them that unless they withdrew the charges, I would close my account, and they offered to transfer me to account terminations, they would rather lose a customer than refund 2, what a bunch!

Sadly, I have had my contract, and number for many years, and if I terminate, I will have the inconvenience of having to source a new contract on worse terms, and I have an SPV phone with full web browser, which I use for streaming prices, and this is exclusive to orange.

I do feel they are unfairly treating me, as I genuinely have not used any service, and am being treated like the wrongdoer, and although Orange are charging me, they cannot tell me why, or by whom, and expect me to do the running around!

Does anyone have any ideas, or know my legal position?

I know it's not a lot of money, but it's a scam, IMHO Orange are failing in their duty, and allowing me to be ripped off.

Any info / ideas would be appreciated.

Andy.

Ok,

I have now received a text message from each number saying they have will stop sending messages within 1 day.

The messages were from WWW.WINPLC.COM

I foud the contact information for Winplc.com on their website, and all the mobile logos are there, the Orange logo is top of the page!

I rang them, they asked for my number, and they said the company that has been charging me is DIGITAL DAZE.

They gave me a phone number to ring for a refund - 0871 750 4019
So I have to ring a premium rate number to obtain my refund!


I did a check at Companies House for Digital Daze

DIGITAL DAZE ARE REGISTERED AS A COMPANY NUMBER 04915631.

18 Rudolf Place,
Vauxhall,
London
SW8 1RP.

I tried google, but no info re these guys, so if anyone does know something about them, pleas epost, os send me a private message.

TIA.

Andy,

Who are the directors ?

axdpc,

I presume you have to pay Companies house for that info?

Not sure how to find out otherwise.

I searched around on the address, 18, Rudolf Place, and found another company registered there, QLD Limited - company number 04875845.

I found a phone number for them 0207 735 7555.

I rang and said "is that Digital Daze?", and the reply was "yes"!

I related my story, and the guy said he would check, then their computer went down, so waiting for him to ring me back.

I have asked him to inform me how I started to recieve these text messages.

If I am at fault somehow, I will pay up happily and learn my lesson, but otherwise I want a refund.

Some of these problems occur when you request a service once. Unbeknown to you the terms and conditions state that you will receive one once a week. However you should of course be getting the actual text messages!

kayak,

Yes I have heard of examples of this hapenning with ringtones, but I really haven't requested ANY services, nor rung any chatlines or the like.

I rarely use the phone, only ever call people I know, and only access MAM monitor on internet connection.


Update

The company i rang have not returned my call informing me how i came to receive these unwanted messages, but I have received another text confirming they will not text me again.

I want orange to refund my account, IMHO these transactions were not authorised by me, so they have no right to take the payment IMHO.

I would like a legal view if anyone here can offer one.

If you look at www.winplc.com website, Orange are advertised there!