Beware of new telephone fraud

We have been advised of a new telephone fraud in operation and this applies to incoming calls only whether it is on your landline or your mobile. This fraud is now so rampant that even BT is being forced to do more to take action against these rogue operators. Here is a brief description of how this fraud is perpetrated and you need to know what you can do to avoid becoming a victim of this scam. Just remember if anyone asks this is where you heard it first.

Firstly, your phone will ring as normal. Upon answering the phone, you will hear a recorded message congratulating you on winning either an all expenses trip to an exotic location or some other lucrative prize(it can also be a cash prize). You will be asked to press 9 to hear further details.

As soon as you press the digit 9 you will be connected to a premium rate telephone line that will charge you a horrendous level of money on a per minute basis. At this stage even if you hang up it will not disconnect the call and will continue to charge you for up to a minimum of 5 minutes. The call will be designed to keep you on the phone for as long as possible in order for you to confirm confidential details in order to claim the prize. By now you may have guessed the fact that there is no prize money due to you. The only people who have successfully claimed their prize is the unscrupulous service provider who may have even charged you up to £20.00 per minute for the privilege of listening to their recording. This has taken many people by surprise once they have received their telephone bills. The best action to take when you receive these calls is to immediately hang up and not follow the dubious instructions. Just remember there is no such thing as a ‘free lunch'.

These companies operate from outside the UK and therefore not governed by UK regulators and legislation. There appears to be other variations of this theme. We have also heard of people receiving calls on their lines from individuals claiming to be BT engineers conducting a test on the line and asking for the unsuspecting recipient to press 9. BT has warned consumers not to dial 9 for anyone as this is not a normal procedure.

Scams on Mobile Phones

A whole series of similar scams are operating on mobile phones as well which you need to be vigilant against. The most common ones are as follows:

      1)  You will receive a missed call from a number beginning with 07090……Beware of all mobile numbers beginning with this code. They will charge you a premium rate and will be outside of any free call allowance that you may have for calling different networks.

      2)  You will receive a text message saying that someone you know would like to meet you for a date. Before you let the adrenalin take over with passionate and impure thoughts filling your brain, please relax as this is only a con designed to get you to reply to the text message which will charge you at a premium rate.

Please feel free to share this information with your nearest and dearest so they do not fall prey to these telephone vultures who will always find new ways of alleviating us from our hard earned cash.