Win - advice needed please.

PennyRT

Glad it all worked out well, think you did the right thing by looking into it! Congrats hun xx

jonnybrussell

timmmers wrote: »

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

well the problem being there is that finding out quite a bit of personal info on a celebrity isnt really that hard.

I believe the direct debit taken out was to a charity...so it was more than likely an employee at an 'respectable' business that set it up.

the bank are also having a laugh about data protection, as it was a case of fraud. They knew where the cash was going and therefore the police should have been involved and it should not have been too hard to track the culprit down.

I suspect seeing clarkson with egg on his face played a large part

then of course clarkson could have got his money back under the direct debit guarantee.....(but it was for charity)

You also wonder why (if it was that easy to do) a professional fraudster didnt empty clarksons account....after all i suspect he has more in there than most of us....

Like i said everything is a risk, from simply going on line to entering comps, to claiming any prizes.

Thousands of people already have access to your name,address, account number and sort code .... we constantly give people and companies this information (and more), we even give this info to people over the phone to set up direct debits...now do we check up on them? do we ensure they are credible and have the correct data protection in place? in fact do we even check they are who they say they are?

When we purchase something via a cheque we willingly hand over our account number, sort code, name and signature...when we post cheques we are blindly trusting postmen, receptionists, cashiers, business people we know very little about....etc etc etc.

and yet there is far greater paranoia about giving fewer details simply because its requested on line...

after all if we applied the same measures to everything else as we do to 'on line' then we would have no direct debits, we wouldnt use cheques, or telephone banking etc etc....we would be trailing to the bank every thursday with a wad of cash to pay our bills.

i say apply the same common sense to on line as to everyday life and you wont go far wrong.

If your worried about fraud then invent a false personality .....although maybe some competitions companies would then say you are trying to defraud or 'scam' them by providing false information .. :-)

The truth is people get scammed sadly, even the most cautious and paranoid get scammed.....common sense is the key




oh sorry >>>>>>>>>> brilliant news you got your cash ok