I Was Almost Scammed
I look after my mother's phone and broadband account with BT. We have been having regular problems, with the service going down for hours and also intermittently. Last week, following a 25 minute 'chat' on their website, BT sent out a technician to check the setup. He rang me whilst on site to say it needed an engineer to have a look externally at the service going into the house. I am not happy that my mother has no phone and broadband as without these services she can't contact her doctor or the emergency services and is unable to watch TV.
A few days later we were visiting my mother and the landline rang and as it was BT, I was asked to take the call. The lady explained that as we were experiencing issues with the service they wanted to conduct further tests. She asked me some questions (e.g. how many connected devices, etc.) and then passed me over to her 'technical' department. He asked me to run a speed test (and explained how) which confirmed that it was running slowly. He also asked me more questions and then explained I would need to download the 'BT Anydesk Remote Desktop' app on my phone. I said to him I was uncomfortable doing this and he then re-assured me and explained I would be able to see the BT server name I was connected to. He then proceeded to show me how our IP address was public and anyone could have access. He asked me to write down a code number. All this sounded pretty much like nonsense to me so I hung up. I then rang BT and they confirmed that this was a scam. They never ask customers to download anything and they never call customers unless it's a pre-arranged call or a sales call. They always send you text messages to confirm security.
This left me somewhat shocked as I can see how easily anyone with even less technical knowledge than me would fall for this. If I had downloaded the software he would have had full access to everything on my phone.
Fraud, and in particular these types of scams are now the biggest global form of robbery, having overtaken the drugs trade. In countries such as Laos and Vietnam, there are huge call centre operations dedicated to scamming people all over the world out of their life savings. They also target business and some have lost millions to these people.
My advice: only trust people you already know. Assume every call from a stranger is a scam. This is the only way you can protect yourself. And believe me, they are extremely professional and proficient at what they do. They take their time, they guide you through, they try to be ever so helpful, pleasant. BEWARE.
HSBC are so irritating
Last month we had two problems with everyday banking with HSBC.
First paying in a cheque. How hard can that be? How many hours can that take?
Well I tried to pay in a cheque using the app as I have many times before, but now it doesn't work! I must have tried dozens of times and each time it fails. So eventually I went to their only remaining bank branch in the area and tried to pay it in using their cheque paying-in machine. It rejected it. So I queued to see a member of staff. He tried and of course it worked.
I think they do it on purpose to dissuade people from using cheques as they are so expensive to process.
Then my wife attempted to transfer some money to another account she has. She does this on an infrequent but regular basis. This time they decided to decline the transfer as it was 'potentially fraudulent' and asked her to ring them on a number they provided. So she rang and they were closed! She rang back later and was put through a 20 minute inquisition before they agreed to release her money.
I understand the need for organisations to protect their customers (see my BT scam above) but when you are making a transfer from one bank account to another on a regular basis, both accounts in your name, is this really sensible? Maybe it is! I don't know what the fraudsters are up to. I'm thinking that if this sort of transfer is at risk of fraud, then pretty much anything and everything we do must also be at risk. Any transfer to anyone.
I think the message to myself this month is assume everyone is a fraudster unless you are CERTAIN that it not the case.
Quote for the Month
"God gives us the nuts but he does not crack them"
Franz Kafka, born in Prague in 1883.