Win - advice needed please.

Marg2k8

Just another thought. The details that you gave when filling in the survery - were they all genuine? For example, when filling out competition entry forms, if asked for my date of birth, I always give out a "comping date of birth", which is not the same as my actual date of birth that my bank know me by. Therefore if someone were trying to dupe my bank into parting with my money, whilst they might know my sorting code and bank account number, if I had given this out to them, they would not know my real date of birth, if this makes sense.

There_e_is

PennyRT wrote: »

Not sure about this one, I think it would be an odd scam just to pick one random person to attempt to fraud?

Its odd that you presume they are only trying to scam 1 person ???


OP theres some woeful advice been said in here , lack of common sense to.

Dont ever give you're bank details out to anyone , this sounds so shady i highly doubt theres any prize but if you really do need to find out go and open a new bank account and use that for it.

basuti

Only give account no. and sort code; they can only transfer money in as they would need this if they were your employer.
Moreover if you inform your bank, they will flag you of anything different and put things in place so that any movement will be monitored. All the big banks will comply with this, I understand your concern.

PennyRT

There_e_is wrote: »

Its odd that you presume they are only trying to scam 1 person ???


OP theres some woeful advice been said in here , lack of common sense to.

Dont ever give you're bank details out to anyone , this sounds so shady i highly doubt theres any prize but if you really do need to find out go and open a new bank account and use that for it.

From the original Facebook post, there's only 3 winners, hardly scam of the century.

jonnybrussell

PennyRT wrote: »

From the original Facebook post, there's only 3 winners, hardly scam of the century.

thats what i was thinking, if it is a scam they have put a lot of effort in to 'scam' 3 random people (who for all they know have nothing in their bank accounts)

yes some of the links between the companies and people look a bit weak, but apart from the really big companies i would imagine thats usually the case.


as for the advice of not giving out your bank details - thats correct if we are talking about ALL of your bank details, but we arent.

we are talking about your account number and sort code - thats it....i tried to do a quick count of how many people over the years who i have given my account number and sort code to, and then multiplied it by the amount who would of had access to my account number and sort code.....i quickly gave up because i realised that over the last 20 years there are probably over 10,000 people who have had access to that information.

basically everyone i have ever sent a cheque to (and their employees), everyone i have ever worked for (and their employees), everyone i have had a direct debit with (and their employees)....the amount of people who have had very easy access to my account number and sort code is quite scary....the vast majority also have my name and address and a lot also have my d.o.b......i would imagine if most people thought about it they would be surprised at how many people already have that info on you.

And yet only a very small percentage of us suffer from scams....

I will say that giving ANY personal details carries a risk, the truth is if someone really wants to get your identity or cash they will, the reality is involves far too much work and risk with little reward, which is why most of us aren't affected by it.

Every comp we enter carries a risk, even just by entering it.....

I tend to think of it this way..... If this company was selling something i wanted would i be happy sending them a cheque.........if the answer is yes then giving them my account number and sort code isnt a problem...in fact its a bit safer than sending them a cheque because they wont have a copy of my signature.

hdh74

Thank you again everyone. I got replies from both who explained that the company who e-mailed me owned the FB page but the guy who contacted me only looked after the FB page and didn't know it would be a bank transfer so asked for my address in error. I dug out an old savings account with only a few quid in it, and decided to use the details from that. I just received the dosh. And rather like the queen I have an 'official birthday' - there's some info I don't give out anywhere.

mell

Lovely, enjoy your win. I am like that with my birthday, keep forgetting my real d.o.b and think I am younger than I really am! :rotfl:

pinkdeedee

yay, glad you got your money

timmmers

Just so you know, giving your bank details out ISN'T safe at all.
A rather good demonstration of this is when Jeremy Clarkson had a column in the Sun and printed his there being a !!!!!! saying it was only the same details on a cheque. Here's what happened to him:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/jan/07/personalfinancenews.scamsandfraud

Personally I'd refrain from giving out advice on things that are potentially dangerous regarding online and other security matters unless you're 100% sure, many people seem keen to give opinions on these things but are often wrong and dangerously so in some cases.

Facebook is full of social media management companies, some of these are one man bands getting into a growing industry and their professionalism varies....this looks like one of those. Glad it seems to have turned out well, but they handled it pretty badly and you were right to be concerned.

Good to reading about a prize rather than a scam

Blulu

YAY - am really pleased it turned out well for you. Even so, you were right to be cautious. Enjoy your win :T