Police spreading hoaxes - PDS

David88_2

Check out the first news item posted on this page http://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/npt/area.asp?id=224

"There is a Mail scam that has come to our attention this week. - it has been confirmed by Royal Mail. The Trading Standards Office are making people aware of the following scam:
A card is posted through your door from a company called PDS (Parcel Delivery Service) suggesting that they were unable to deliver a parcel and that you need to contact them on 0906 6611911 (a Premium rate number).
DO NOT call this number, as this is a mail scam originating from Belize.
If you call the number and you start to hear a recorded message you will already have been billed £315 for the phone call.
If you do receive a card with these details, then please contact Royal Mail Fraud on 020 7239 6655."

Check out the truth behind the story here http://www.snopes.com/fraud/telephone/pds.asp

Is terrible that the police are spreading this hoax without even a basic check on the facts, yes there was a scam similar to this a few years ago but it has been stopped plus no way you could be billed £315 for a few seconds phone call (the hoax used to be £15 but obviously someone inserted a 3 along the way).

The police really should know better than this!

Rossy.

Probably an admin error or an oversight.

Not really high priority for the police though is it. I'd rther them be on the street dealing with the thugs that seem to destroy our confidence in society

I mean if you haven't ordered anything you would be skeptical straight away at a delivery card. If however say you had ordered something then the majority of times your emailed by the courier that is delivering your parcel or will at least know who will be delivering it.

Whilst it is missleading in a way, it's not a big deal imo

trisontana

Not an admin error, just the police passing on this rubbish without doing a few basic checks. If they had just thought about it for a couple of minutes that "£315" would have told them that this was a hoax. On top of that this same "warning" has been doing the rounds for five years. They should have wised up by now.

sarahg1969

Merseyside Police warned of this "scam" at a conference a few weeks ago. And the supermarket cashback "scam", too. I had a little titter about it.

soolin

I had one of these chaim emails yesterday from a colleguae and from the 'forward' list it came from a police unit as well. The chain letter I got was 4 years old and had mainly US language in it (the old labels on windscreen/carjacking one) yet it was still circulated to everyone as a real 'police' warning.

2 seconds on snopes turned it up as a fake.

I am actually getting a little harsh in my responses to people who continually send this rubbish onto me without doing a basic snopes check first.

judderman62

soolin wrote: »

I had one of these chaim emails yesterday from a colleguae and from the 'forward' list it came from a police unit as well. The chain letter I got was 4 years old and had mainly US language in it (the old labels on windscreen/carjacking one) yet it was still circulated to everyone as a real 'police' warning.

2 seconds on snopes turned it up as a fake.

I am actually getting a little harsh in my responses to people who continually send this rubbish onto me without doing a basic snopes check first.

me too - it takes a few seconds for crying out loud - wake up people and stop wasting bandwidth :mad:

trisontana

And when you tell people that it's a hoax, you often get the reply "Ah, this might be a hoax, but it's always best to tell people in case it happens again"! Talk about crying wolf, where do you draw the line?

Freddie_Snowbits

Elf Bowling will change the world as we know it

Xmas 1999

Would not expect accuracy from the Yorkshire pigs, it took them years to catch Pete