Royal Mail Hoax Scam (involving PDS)

Astaroth

bingo_bango wrote:

Can't have government departments issuing incorrect info all the time

Them having correct info at any time would be nice though :rolleyes:

Fifer

bingo_bango wrote:

Quite possibly that's the case. I haven't actually got one myself...just relying on what punters tell us when they ring. But, as we have had to issue press releases, the £15 has been confirmed.

As I understand it, all call charges are collected by your telephone service provider who is not allowed to charge more than £1.50 per minute for any call. How does the scamming company get their hands on the £15?

Heinz

Fifer wrote:

As I understand it, all call charges are collected by your telephone service provider who is not allowed to charge more than £1.50 per minute for any call. How does the scamming company get their hands on the £15?

Presumably (which is why I have asked him twice now to provide a link), the authoritative Trading Standards Press Releases will enlighten us regarding that!

Or perhaps not.

EDIT 11:50AM 4/11/06

Obviously not!

Further edit 15:29 17/11/06

Most certainly not!

If anyone's in any doubt, below are the latest on this (dead and buried) scam.

http://www.icstis.org.uk/consumers/adjudications/default.asp?node=&id=576

http://www.icstis.org.uk/pdfs1/StudioTel_Oralhearing.pdf

But don't think it won't re-surface again. It almost certainly will!

acdavey

I was asked today by a friend if this email was a hoax as he'd just received it (as had an enormous mailing list!).

You can find out more info here:
http://www.sophos.com/security/hoaxes/parcel_delivery.html

caveat_emptor

Apologies if this has been posted before. 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 £15 for the phone call. If you do receive a card with these details, then please contact Royal Mail Fraud on 02072396655 or ICSTIS (the premium rate service regulator) at www.icstis.org.uk

trisontana

caveat_emptor wrote: »

Apologies if this has been posted before. 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 £15 for the phone call. If you do receive a card with these details, then please contact Royal Mail Fraud on 02072396655 or ICSTIS (the premium rate service regulator) at www.icstis.org.uk

If you look below you will see that this has already been mentioned. What you have published here is a spam email which has been doing the rounds for over a year and is untrue. For more details see here :-

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/pds-phone-scam.html

You should take particular note of this from the hoax-slayer website :-

A real problem with emailed warning such as this is that they often continue to circulate for months or even years after the described threat has disappeared. They also tend to mutate as they travel, further diffusing the truth and relevance of the information they contain.

Before forwarding scam warnings, recipients should always check that the warning is genuine and current. False or outdated warning emails such as this one do nothing more than add to the clutter in our already junk-ridden inboxes and spread misinformation.

deanos

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH !!!!!!!!!!!!

Mrs_B_12

A STATEMENT FROM PHONEPAYPLUS ABOUT THE CURRENT
‘POSTAL SCAM’ CHAIN EMAIL

PhonepayPlus, the phone-paid services regulator, is aware that a chain e-mail about an alleged
postal scam is being circulated on the internet. The email refers to the Royal Mail, Trading
Standards and ICSTIS (PhonepayPlus’ former name).
PhonepayPlus appreciates that recipients of the email may want to find out more information
about the alleged scam and has therefore issued the following statement:

• The chain email refers to a service that was shut down by us in December 2005.

• We subsequently fined the company that was operating the service, Studio Telecom
(based in Belize), £10,000.

• The service is NO LONGER running and has NOT been running since December 2005.

• The email refers to a £15 charge for simply being connected to a recorded message.
This is NOT TRUE – a £15 connection charge does NOT exist. The service in question
actually cost £1.50 per minute and lasted six minutes, making a total cost of £9 if callers
stayed on the line for the full six minutes.

• You do NOT need to contact us, or the Royal Mail, about this service as it was stopped
almost two years ago.

• If you receive a copy of the email warning you about the alleged scam, please do NOT

forward it to others. Instead, please forward this statement from PhonepayPlus.

• Please go to www.phonepayplus.org.uk/pdfs_news/ConsumerGuide.pdf for useful
information about how to recognise phone-paid services and understand what they cost,
and some simple tips to help you enjoy using services with confidence.

• For more detailed information about our work, please visit www.phonepayplus.org.uk.

19 October 2007

trisontana

Snopes have now added the PhonepayPlus statement to it's article about this story. Lets hope this stops all this unnecessary "warnings".

It makes me wonder about the standard of modern-day journalism whereby several newspapers have published this story, presumably derived from an email, without doing any research to see if it's true or not.

trisontana

I have now heard back from one of the newspapers who ran this story. According to one of them they received it from the "PSNI Press Office" which I think is the Police Service of Northern Ireland. So it looks as though they may be responsible for this false information. But they should have checked their facts before releasing it.