Hello, Please Give Me All Your Money

The fraudster will telephone you and pretend to be from a legitimate organisation such as your bank or a government department, or may impersonate an authority figure, such as a Policeman.

The fraudster will make up a ‘story’ and that is likely to sound convincing, such as ‘your bank account has been compromised’ or ‘there are suspicious transactions on your credit card’ or ‘there has been a suspicious withdrawal from your account’ or ‘you have an unpaid bill and enforcement action has been taken against you’.

Throughout the telephone call, the fraudster will seek to appear professional and efficient; they will make you feel a sense of urgency, whilst giving you the impression that they are able to assist you and you must act quickly.

The fraudsters typically have a ‘tried and tested’ approach; they may start by asking you to confirm your name, address and landline number. Be aware that they may already have these details from some other compromise. Then, they may ask you to confirm whether a list of financial transactions showing on your bank account were performed by you – of course, you will not recognize these as they have been made-up by the fraudster.

Next the fraudster will tell you, that they can cancel the suspicious transactions, but in order to do so, they need to confirm your bank or credit card numbers. It is this information, that they are after, and once they have this, the telephone call will soon end and they will begin to use your card details to defraud you immediately.

There will be permutations on the example above, however the key thing is that they will want you to reveal your bank or credit card or other sensitive information, such as your date of birth, your passport details and the like, which you should never do.

What Should You Do ?

You should always be suspicious and you should never provide your information when you receive a telephone call from unknown person or telephone number and you are asked to provide your personal, sensitive information or bank or payment card details.

If you have been defrauded via telephone fraudster, you should always report it to the RCIPS.

Report to the RCIPS, call 911