UPS UKASH UKCASH Gumtree Scam and scams in general

Becciflo wrote: »

Hi all,

I was very very nearly just scammed by kate75porter@gmail.com too and received exactly the same emails as the person above.
This was for ad number 1002373541 for an iCandy peach blossom travel set.
I was about to go out and get the ukash voucher to pay for this item tomorrow and thought I'd google parcelforce using ukash and got a heap of forums up about the scam.

Thank you all for posting as you've all just saved me from being scammed out of £400! I've reported this to gumtree so I'm hoping to add is removed ASAP so nobody else falls victim to this scammer.

Thanks Becciflo! Glad you avoided it and I will add details of your your experience

toner29 wrote: »

I was almost scammed today by an add for a Stokke xplory baby stroller on Gumtree. The add seemed genuine until I had the request for Ukash payment from parcel force at which point I called them an they verified it is infact a scam. The person in question called themselves Kate porter and emailed from kate75porter@gmail.com.

This is a very personal an convincing scam. I am not happy this slimeball has my bame addrsss and telephone number! Lickily they do not have my cash!

Has it been reported to the police. If so does anyone have an email address or telephone number I can contact them on as this person is a disgrace and deserves to be brought to justice.

Thanks

toner29

Thanks for this toner29. Did you/can you edit your post and add the gumtree reference please? its clear gumtree are doing sweet FA to resolve this so I want all adverts noted.

In my opinion they probably aren't based in UK as the police told me that's why its so hard to trace (police powers only cover Uk waters)

Can I check how the scammers make “first contact”?

Am I right in observing, that scammer’s email address (e.g [EMAIL="deborah75regan@gmail.com"]deborah75regan@gmail.com[/EMAIL]) is only revealed by the scammer when they send a mobile txt to the victim? And this txt is always sent to the victim with a sender ID something like “pamela.s.ip“ or “deb.s.iphon” (or a seemingly a non UK number like "726352747", and maybe a French mobile?).

Thereafter, the scammers communicate by direct 1-1 emailing (and so not using Gumtree’s “secure” email address system). Then, in one of these non-Gumtree routed emails, the scammers provide a "bogus" mobile number e.g “Can be reached on (0)7973 425052 low signal strength area but check emails regularly”. I don’t believe any victim has received txts replies from this "bogus" mobile number, once the scammer has started using direct emails.

If so… does this mean the scammers could be using one email address/mobile to create their ad with Gumtree (for new ads), and then use other email addresses that are then sent by the scammers to the victims? Hence hard for Gumtree to spot/detect the fakes ads with their current system…. And are probably overwhelmed with fake ads.

GTK

rimmy wrote: »

Hi dgtjunior,

Would you be willing to provide any of your correspondence around this matter and how it was resolved? My point is Ukash cannot pick and choose who to refund, it is not a matter of the value of the claim or anything arbitrary; if they pay out for one claim under this fraud then they admit culpability and by virtue must pay out for all, where the conditions are otherwise equal or the same. I'd be grateful to hear of anything you can forward me..

Hi, ok, i'll go though it step by step.

My scam was for a Fender Hotrod Deluxe amplifier, £180.00 pounds, in the Bedford area. Pamela Hogan. Mobile number was 07973425052 , email was [EMAIL="pamela75hogan@gmail.com"]pamela75hogan@gmail.com[/EMAIL]

I got the usual template mails, the same as everyone else to hook me in, although I was quite persistent about going to the sellers house to try it out and pay cash /collect in person as I play guitar pro in band and that's how I buy my gear. She was helpful but evasive, the "i'm busy but can deliver" and "just found out you can pay Parcel force ect " so after two or three more mail replies - templates like others have received on here, I took the bait as I have used the amp before and know what to expect from it. What drew me in and got my confidence was the "pay on delivery if satisfied" bit, it seemed fair enough, although i'd not heard of it before...but I have been out of the country for a few years so, I thought Parcel Force must doing this service now... I was dubious about the voucher though. The rest is history as documented on here by others.

What i did is set out below, and I did it immediately after the amp failed to arrive at it's specified time:

1. I called Parcel Force - they said "sorry it's a scam...call the police or Action Fraud.

2. Then I completed the Action Fraud procedure online, and got the CRN number. It took about 45 minutes. It is very thorough.

3. I went onto the UKASH site and downloaded and printed out a PAPER refund form. I filled the form in with the required photocopies of my last bank statement showing my account details /driving licence i.d and original copy of the UKASH voucher and the all important CRN number. I added extra information saying that I thought the voucher redemption system was too easy to abuse and that UKASH were negligent in not changing it, as they must have known about a scam that has been going on for over two years - I quoted this website / blog for reference. I said that I thought they could have stopped this fraud long before now, implying that they are actually making a lot of money in letting it continue. Which they are. I put that in the post directly and they sent me a confirmatiuon e mail three days later to say they were looking at my claim and it might take 28 working days. I expected nothing more to happen other than refund refusal email at the most.

4. I also complained to Gumtree, who were pretty useless and took ages to even take the ad down. I had to report it twice to get it removed. I don't have the ad number.

About a week after the email from UKASH, I got a phone call from a guy called Peter Callum who said he was from UKASH, and wanted to give me a refund, but needed to check my bank details in order to pay it. The call was from a landline so seemed genuine, but as I was dubious I asked for more proof of his identity, fearing this maybe an extension of the scam. The funny thing is, he was also checking that I was for real, as he said UKASH feared I could be scamming them! Anyway, he was able to read my claim form to me, quoting word for word what I'd written as my additional info, which would have been impossible for anyone other than UKASH to know, so I gave him my account number, and as he didn't want my sort code (they already had that on the claim form) I was satisfied he was genuine and vice versa. The next day the refund arrived in my account, minus 10% refund fee, which was fine by me.

That's it, I can't tell you anymore.

Incidentally, all my original mails from Pamela75Hogan have vanished form my email account. I only have my sent mails, which contain the all the correspondence from from her side too. The fake Parcel Force mails disappeared when i reported them as suspicious mail to Hotmail. I have a paper printout of the main Parcel Force invoice / UKASH instructions mail though.

I think I may have got lucky, or perhaps my voucher hadn't been cashed by the time the claim was received. This is probably the case. I think the only way UKASH will refund en mass is if this case goes public on a show like Watchdog or similar, but I would advise anyone who has been caught to follow the steps I took immediately on realizing the scam. DO NOT HESITATE and get the claim in on paper ASAP.