Telephone Scam cost £20k

First class 1d1ot.

I know a couple people that almost fell for such scams, it's surprisng and depressing. One was only stopped because the bank stepped in.
I hate the ******s, the especially love going after vulnerable people, lowest of the low.

Never give anyone who contacts you any details whatsoever.
I've had calls re probs on my computer and my bank wanting to confirm my details.
My son was here and led the computer scammers a merry dance whilst I just told the bank lot where to go.
I never click on a link on an e-mail either, that's any link and not just ones I think are dodgy.

I had one..  "your broadband will be disconnected today"  I just put the phone down.Amazing how many of theses scammers are out there

My parents had the same broadband disconnection imminent scam attempted on them. They fell victim to The Gas Board scam, some scoundrels tricking people in to taking out a gas boiler service contract. I did, however, manage to recover their cash for them. Likely that many others have just sucked it up.

What's funny and obvious if paying attention is they call and read from the script (in an indian accent in my experience, that's a fact, these are generally call centres over there that their authorities should be raiding but .. ):

"Hello I am calling from your internet service provider".
It's not
"Hello I am calling from [the name of your provider]" - which would be the case if they KNEW. How would they not be able to name their company you ponder..

I get this sort of call. BT calling because my router has been compromised/hacked and have some files on there.

I always ask them what my BT account is, they reply that they are support not accounts so don't know my account number.

This is the stage where they are told to go away impolitely.

As all have said, better not to get involved but, if you want a laugh, tell them that first they will have to answer some security questions!

Just ask them some random, made up ones, if they haven't put the phone down already.

Not wishing to appear naive but, having your bank details, how do they then take the money?

I would be contacted by "Barclays Fraud Team" for much lesser amounts, as being unusual spending!

If not that, at least "Verify By Visa", which then requires the password......
......or am I being naive?

The calls i have had  have always said .....i am calling from(the name of my broadband provider) so obviously some providers have been hacked
Yes Indian accents too

Do none of you play along for a bit?  It's great sport winding up a fraudster and taking up their precious time.  Some get quite touchy about it when you finally let on that you're not the gullible sucker that they thought you were.

As all have said, better not to get involved but, if you want a laugh, tell them that first they will have to answer some security questions!

I work at a place where we deal with telephone cards, gift cards, itunes cards etc etc. There is a group that calls us every week. Long story short, you get a call telling you to fulfill telephone requests only when someone gives you the pasword. Then they call again and ask you to send them codes or balance, and give you the password.

I have a lot of fun playing stupid, telling them the password is wrong If I have more time, I always give them some made up code.

If they do catch someone stupid, they can easily get up to a thousand bucks out of the person. If you hit a couple of people a month its worth it. hence so many do this.

Other variations involve asking you to "renew" your boiler/television/washing machine coverage.

I just tell them to continue coverage using the same debit/credit card which is when they start to get shirty

My mother won the German lottery.  Very excited.
I asked her had she bought a ticket.  No.

There are some incredible tales on YT, which I have no reason to doubt, and where the scammer is massively out of pocket, or at least screwed up!

this is one such, which is a long read, and may of course be made up, but either way is genius
.
https://www.419eater.com/html/john_boko.htm!

I guess they would just dip the account, for perhaps a low amount, and then crank it up bit by bit, until it failed!

Have to ask, who holds £20k, in what must have been, a current account?

Just asking for trouble!

Even the high rollers on here wouldn't do that, but would do what sensible people do, which is to transfer funds between accounts when needed!

What's the source of this sorry tale?

well I have a £5k overdraft facility for a start and often have at least £5k in the account so not hard to see how.

I've had the Windows scam tried on me at least three times.  Also had pension and finacial cold calls that could very easily be boiler room scams if I'd let the calls last that long.

Slightly off topic, I had 450 odd pounds put into an account that I never use and had been meaning to close, I phoned the bank to tell them, they said nothing they can do unless someone comes forward to admit the mistake, thought that was that, never touched or spent it either, next thing I know I'm in the supermarket and my other account/bank card was rejected, phoned the bank and they told me they'd been frozen because someone claimed I had taken their money, I told them to call the police and investigate and they can have anything they want, my transaction history, laptop  etc, they soon realised it must have been a mistake.

Is that some kind of low level scam or a genuine mistake, I don't see how you can transfer money by accident when you need someones sort code and account number unless theyre near identical and the chances of that are huge, would also need the same name as me? confused me anway.

I use call blocker on my phone, best £30 odd quid i have ever spent. when those scammers call i just press the button on the call blocker and it cuts them off then blocks that number for good. But it dont work on withheld numbers but you can get it to block all withheld numbers if you like.

In my last job I logged into the US bank account to find a credit for, if memory serves, a $600,000 payment from Lexington Insurance.  So if you can make mistakes that big  you can make mistakes for smaller sums.

In the legal profession they used to (and prolly still do) not send you the actual tax invoice until you'd paid the bill.  The two were more or less identical and it was very easy to pay these bills twice if you don't have a good system.  Duplicate payments are common enough tbh.  I was once paid 3 times by the same bookie

Well a bank transfer is just a number, just needs one fat thumb to send to the wrong account.
Last time I did a decent size transfer I set it up, then transferred a little and confirmed they'd got it other end before I sent the rest as I don't trust myself never mind other people :)

I had the microsoft computer one which said my computer had been hacked and they needed access to it. I told them that was amazingly good service as I had only reported it faulty half an hour ago. The increasingly excited operator passed the call to his supervisor and I said I just needed to check that it wasn't a scam and could he just tell me the IP address of my computer? He tried eight times with me shouting "oh nearly" telling him he was very close but not quite right before he finally hung up.

I know the address of your computer. It's 127.0.0.1 .

I just had one now from a 'bank' who asked if I authorised a payment for $300 for shoes, and when I said I had they said I sent another to Western Union for $1100 which I said I had, and then they said I needed government approval for it. However they hung up when I asked to speak to the PM.

One called me and said he was calling from BT. I asked him what my name was and he said "We are not allowed to give you that information, sir!"

On a similar theme DIE LINKE, some shyster firm from Mumbai or wherever it was (he said his name was Arthur which I wasn't totally convinced about)was ringing about a recent car accident I had, which I hadn't of course. He then went into his spiel to get my "details" and I stopped him in his track and asked which vehicle was it as I have two, one for me and the missus and he declined to give me the number plate of the car in question as it was a matter of data protection