UPS UKASH UKCASH Gumtree Scam and scams in general

cheekychap00

janet brown parcelforce ukash gumtree scam.
just noticed some more ukash terms and conditions.
REGULATION
10.1 smart voucher limited (of which ukash is a trading name) is authorised and regulated by the financial services authority in the united kingdom as an electronic money institution. this regulation has been passported to all countries in which smart voucher operates, with approval from the relevant local regulator. smart voucher ltd (trading as ukash) fsa register number 900007.

10.2 if you are unhappy in any way with the ukash payment system please try and resolve the matter with ukash customer services first via the website www.ukash.com

10.3 if you are not happy with the ukash response you can ask for your case to be escalated as a complaint. if you are then not happy with the outcome or the way your complaint has been handled, and after 8 weeks has elapsed from receipt of the escalated complaint, you may be able to take the complaint to the financial ombudsman service. we will provide details of how to complain to the ombudsman.

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now consider that the fsa charge £500 to ukash after the first 3 complaints in a year my complaint just cost ukash £500.
that would really be unfair to ukash as technically i broke their terms and conditions and the fsa would tell me so and refund ukash the £500 it charged them for the complaint.
but looking at the bigger picture and the fsa regulates the biggest institutions and deals out mega fines for different so called infringements.
smart water trading as ukash is a new kid on the block so to speak (2005) that is one of the most used vehicles for scams in the uk
actionfraud knows some of the figures but only those reported.
there may come a time , i believe quite shortly, that the fsa will look at ukash and say - this is not working and is sullying our reputation so either clean it up or face the consequences.
ukash cannot be allowed to hide behind terms and conditions for ever and the bottom line is that the fsa is above the ukash terms and conditions. that is not to say they do not take terms and conditions into account but it is not the only factors
and the amount of police time that is factored into chasing up these ukash scams must be astronomical and in these times of police cuts have to be factored into the fsa decisions amongst others

gb12345

cheekychap00 wrote: »

the amount of police time that is factored into chasing up these ukash scams must be astronomical

Probably not - most police forces will recognise that there is not a hope in hell of tracking down the scammer and will just give the victim a crime reference number and do nothing more.

cheekychap00

[EMAIL="janet78brown@gmail.com"]janet78brown@gmail.com[/EMAIL] parcelforce ukash gumtree scam
on a lighter note doctor finds himself in court after performing an autopsy
lawyer says "doctor before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
doctor : no
lawyer says "did you check for blood pressure ?
doctor : no
lawyer says "did you check for breathing ?
doctor : no
lawyer says "so,then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
doctor : no
lawyer says "how can you be so sure doctor?
doctor : because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
lawyer says" but could the patient have still been alive never the less ?.
doctor :yes it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere

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never believe that you are too small or insignificant to make a difference
keep up the good work cheers

GTK

dgtjunior got a refund from Ukash, but this may have been as they were very quick to complain. He notes “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.” See post#350(Pg 18) for how to make a detailed claim to Ukash and getting a Crime Reference Number. (Posted by dgtjunior).

Also, under “Refunds”, Ukash notes

· 8.2 In countries where Ukash operates under license from the Financial Services Authority you can request a refund for a Ukash voucher code.
· 8.2.2 Voucher codes must be unused at the time of refund request.
· 8.4 Ukash will charge an administration fee…

Under Regulation…
· 10.2 If you are unhappy in any way with the Ukash payment system please try and resolve the matter with Ukash Customer Services first via the website www.ukash.com

Under Identification
11.1 By acquiring a Ukash voucher code, you give your consent, that Ukash has the right to perform such KYC (Know Your Customer) checks deemed necessary to comply with Anti Money Laundering regulations, or if Ukash, in its sole opinion, suspect fraudulent use and/or misuse of the payment system. You further undertake to co-operate fully to ensure the KYC information required is provided to Ukash within the time parameters to be specified by Ukash.

Under Limitation of liabilities
· 15.2 Accordingly, you agree that Ukash shall not be liable for:
Any validation provided by Ukash not being acted upon by a Participating Merchant for any reason;


If you look at STANDARD MERCHANT ACCEPTANCE POLICY I note there is nothing about Merchants must not “miss-sell” vouchers, or actively allow sell vouchers likely to be used for fraud or infringing Ukash’s T&Cs. Yet clearly this is happening by many merchants.
http://www.ukashbusiness.com/media/45301621/ukash_merchant_acceptance_policy.pdf

I am not a legal expert, but would argue Ukash provides a financial product regulated by the FSA, yet at the “point of sale” the sales person does not give clear advice to their customers on the allowed “use” and conditions of this financial product. That is failing the FSA I believe needs to be made aware of, and the operation guidelines for Ukash and Merchants in the UK needs to be reviewed as clearly, Ukash and its business partners are profiting by being complicit in poor advice from sales staff in shops.

Scams can become “large” scale too easily and in part due to Google Gmail (and others) making it nigh on impossible for individuals to prove an email account is being used for scamming to quickly disable the account. Only by escalating to the police or fraud agencies can this be changed or lobbied for by numbers. Through complaining already, “we” have made significant changes to Gumtree in their online system, and the reply to ad form, making it easier to spot scam ads, and improve their online advice. But, more is needed to be done! All, keep up the good work in detecting and reporting these scams, and helping others.

GTK

gb12345

GTK wrote: »

Through complaining already, “we” have made significant changes to Gumtree in their online system, and the reply to ad form, making it easier to spot scam ads, and improve their online advice.

Yet despite the prominent warning on Gumtree about not sending cash by Western Union/Moneygram/Ukash/wire transfer people still do it and then wonder why they have been scammed.

GTK

gb12345 you seem to want to blame the unknowing victim too easily. They acted in good faith, but were unaware of the warning signs.

The scammers target items that are known to have a high demand and a sensible known price. Most of the ads are all “real” from eBay that were “sold” in the last few months, and unless you have been scammed before you would not know how to easily spot the risks simply by seeing the ad in Gumtree.

With particualar scam, the scammers then create a dialog with the buyer over a series of texts and then private direct email, as the scammers do not reply to buyers using Gumtree’s secure email system (as far as I know). Typically, these scammers NEVER leave a contact number on their Gumtree ad, yet often will “ask” (on the ad) for the buyer to provide their mobile when replying. Examples below from real scam ads:
WILL HELP TO MESSAGE ME YOUR MOBILE FOR MORE INFO,ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE ASK.
contact number helpful for urgent sale. thank you

As this Ukash scam has yet to make mainstream TV or national press, then many are unaware of the dangers, and do not read “all” small print on every web page. Personally, I believe Gumtree need still clear warnings… e.g. “To reduce the risk of fraud and for your own protection, do not provide your contact phone details until the Seller has supplied their number or has replied to you via Gumtree’s secure email system”.

But other scams on Gumtree work in other ways and may need different advice.

Also, eBay does not watermark its photos after the sale of an item is completed (hence the widespread copying of these ads by scammers), and the merchants re-selling these cash “vouchers” have no UK requirement to warn buyers of the “conditions” for their use, and google gmail accounts cannot be easily disabled even when proven for use by fraud. The three last points are worth fighting to improve and in part why this scam has become so widespread, as tomorrow, there will be another Ukash type scam, but the last three points will be just as relevant.

GTK

alasam01

MrReesh wrote: »

Apologies if this has been posted many times before, but I had a search for this scam yesterday and found no results, and searched today and found an one (from this site) so I thought I would amalgamate all the points into one thread.

After contacting a seller from either Gumtree or whatever site you use, receive an email from that seller telling you that they are going to give you the item you wanted, and that they will provide for its delivery via a UPS business delivery.

Once you confirm that you want the item, you will receive two emails from "UPS United Kingdom", one of which confirms your details along with the shipping payment paid by the seller and is full of very convincing business stuff such as guarantees and shipping rules. The other will be from a person "in charge" of your delivery, and will request you to pay the value of your goods to UPS via UKASH using Paypoint, Payzone or ePay method, and send the 19 digit number to them for the shipment to be sent.

The seller will then email you saying that she (it tends to be a woman who may mention that she is a busy fashion designer) thought you would be able to pay at the door, and that you will be able to inspect the package before you pay, but either way you will have the option of rejecting the package and the driver will give you your money back.

I understand from the experiences of others that after you hand over the 19 digit number, the seller will either thank you or not make any form of contact whatsoever. No tracking number will be provided. No one will answer the phone number at the bottom of the UPS email you received. No one will respond to your faxes, though in all honesty nobody uses fax these days anyway. The payment will be lost and the money untraceable. You will be very upset, and feel foolish.

At all times the seller appears to respond within good time, and messages are not automatic.


Now if you have been caught up in this scam, don't go too hard on yourself as it is very convincing. However there are some tell-tale signs and tips which you can use to avoid such scams in the future:

• If the seller links their sale to a courier of some sort, verify this with the courier themselves. Go on their website (without using a link in an email) and call their customer services. Speak to a person and tell them about what the seller is asking, and what the email purporting to be from them is asking for. They will tell you if this is part of their standard procedure or not, and will confirm whether from their side it appears to be a scam.
  
• Unusual payment methods scream scam. I personally have never even heard of UKASH (or UK CASH) before yesterday, so instantly a red flag went up on the payment. Give it a Google to see what information you can find on the payment method, and if it is rife with scams (like UKASH actually is) then either request another payment method or simply move on.
  
• Check the emails. Couriers on the scale of UPS or EMS or DHL etc have their own websites and send emails to customers via that domain e.g. info@ups .com. Ignore the name on the email address and look at the email address itself. If it is not the courier's official website it is 100% fake, no question. The email I received from "UPS" was from "ups.package.inspection@post.com". The person clearly purchased the domain "post.com" and used it for the scam.
  
• Big companies use safe methods of payment. No self-respecting large scale company like UPS (which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange) will only ever invoice you, or request payment via Paypal (though Paypal is far less common and should still raise a red flag). These types of payment are usually more easily traceable, and so avoided by scammers and the like.
  
• Pay attention to the little clues. These are inconsistencies in the stories the seller is making with their story. I asked this "fashion designer" if she was able to make trench coat belts (as I needed one) and she said she couldn't make one as she only does women's dresses for special occasions. So you can make fancy dresses but are unable to put a buckle on a strip of fabric? Additionally how exactly would the driver be able to refund you the money you paid via UKASH? Do they drive around in their thousand pounds vans, carrying thousands of pounds worth of goods, carrying thousands of pounds? Risk assessment for such a company would be ridiculous.
  
• If its too good to be true it probably is. In my opinion the only perfect thing on the planet is fresh sliced bread, and even then it might not be perfect for someone with a gluten allergy. A great deal on an item (mine was a £380 13 inch macbook pro) with free 24 hour shipping, with the ability to reject the parcel and get a refund is sadly too good to be true and should be looked at with scepticism.
  
• Google it. If you're suspicious, there's no harm in Googling a few things to verify it.

Hopefully this should be of use to some, and any other tips on how to avoid scams would be appreciated.


And here are the two addresses used to contact me, please note that the person's name was "Anne" though it has also been reported that she may use the name "Jessica" instead:
annesigns@gmail.com
ups.package.inspection@post.com

this ad is on again have informed gumtree
i am going to call him the postman
same again get ukash code send to parcelforce he gets code when you sign for parcel

alasam01

just to let everyone know that this scam is on going as i was scam 2 day ago i check gumtree last nights and these scumbegs are still posting ads. reported it to gumtree and i posted an ad to let the good people know about the parcelfarce scam and how they do it but gumtree would not post it NOW WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU if gumtree want us to use there site then if we all get together mybethey will listen
PS if anyone needs to talk if there unsure call sam on *
I know it my not be i good thing giving my number

dgtjunior

This thread seems to have run dry. .

Has the scam ended, has it been busted (unlikely) or have all the protagonists of this blog just given up on it? I can't see any resolution posted anywhere, nor any new cases since 18th January above.

girlfairy

This scam has started appearing on free goods websites now such as Freecycle.. often someone will be giving something away (usually something too good to be true!) then will try and get a UKASH voucher sent to them to pay for 'delivery'. Apparently scammers are also targetting people with 'wanted' posts, saying they have the wanted item but live far away so need to be paid to send the item to them, and they tend to target people who appear elderly etc. because they are vulnerable.

So yeah I don't think the scam is ending! But there isn't really anything you can do about it. xx