Fraud Advice - Personal & Bank info given to email scammer

JasX

Afternoon all, after a bit of advice re: my father.

Essentially he was lulled into bidding on a scam ebay auction for a campervan. 'Spanish' overseas bidder, ending the Auction early then makes contact outside ebay offering to send the car over and give him a week to check it over so long as he deposits the £5,000 with a fake escrow service...

Fortunately when he went to the bank the cashier was quite switched on and pointed out and explained the scam to him and no money was transferred.

However at this point my father decided to have some 'fun' with the scammer but didn't quite get it how to do this and went on to send this guy the following REAL information about himself (after learning it was a scam :wall:)

Real bank account number
Real sort code
Real home Address
Real full name
Real example of his signature

I've now told him to have no further contact whatsoever with this scammer but would anyone have advice on what the minimum he should be doing to protect himself is?

I've strongly suggested he close the account and/or at least request a new account number but he won't ("I've had it for years...." "I've memorise the number", "too many direct debits" etc etc) and he doesn't want to pay for a CIFAS registration. I did manage to get him to speak to his bank's fraud dept (Natwest) who he said had now put 'something' in place to ensure extra checks for new SO's DD's etc that might get setup.

I've also suggest he sign's up for an online 'view your credit report type company but as he refuses to spend money on it have suggested he waits 3 weeks or so then takes the 30 day trial.

Any suggestions? think the above comes close to being enough or can he expect trouble down the line?

Ta

hippey

Errrr.......

Not a lot you can do really, you look like you have suggested what I would recommend and it looks like in one ear and out the other, but you can't help some people.

Why people ever click on the links or give out real information I will never know, but it keeps me busy anyway! I'm not suprised what people do anymore, and when you tell them they should never do it they just carry on!

benoit

LOL if you are going to play games with these scammers it's best not to give them your real details. Doh!

You could try sending one last email telling them you accidently gave the wrong account number - then give a fake one.

MarkFromCornwall

JasX wrote: »

Any suggestions?
Ta

Upgrade to Father version 2.0.

Mark

bengal-stripe

Even if those details are not of use to that particular bunch of fraudsters, your father is now known in the con-trade as a ‘soft touch’ and his details will be passed on to other scammers.

Soon he will have won the Spanish lottery; the widow of a Nigerian general wants to transfer a few million dollar onto his account, a relative he has never heard of has died in New Zealand (or wherever), leaving him huge wealth, he will have won free holidays, houses, cars etc.

From now on, never a dull moment.