Postal Scam - Be Warned!!

Daisey-Duke

Circulate this around your friends especially as Xmas is fast approaching -
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 tocontact 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.

ckerrd

Old and inaccurate

http://www.sophos.com/security/hoaxes/parcel_delivery.html

Daisey-Duke

it may be old and inaccurate, but, if it draws peoples attention to these awful scams then all good.
What with Christmas fast approaching, ebay and the postal strike, just maybe these scammers might find Now is the time to take advantage of peoples good nature.

ckerrd

I am all for people avoiding scams, of any sort, I was only pointing out the factual inaccuracy of the post.

No intention to belittle your reasoning behind the post

tomstickland

Always run a phrase from these emails through google.

Google

A card is posted through your door from a company called PDS

and the first result is:
http://www.hoax-slayer.com/pds-phone-scam.html

This email warning was widely circulated for several months at the beginning of 2006. However, recent submissions indicate that the warning is once again rapidly gaining momentum. The information in the message was mostly factual. However, the particular scam described in the message was shut down almost a year ago and the information is no longer relevant. ICSTIS, the UK's premium rate services regulator, has issued the following statement:

It seems odd that the Royal Mail have confirmed that Christmas is fast approaching. It feels to me that it's approaching at the same rate as previous years. About one day closer each day.

trisontana

The main inaccuracy in the email is the fact that you will be charged £15 when you immediately phone the number. This is impossible. Circulating this email is also the equivalent of junk mail. It clogs up people's in-boxes and people just don't need it.

trisontana

IT Week investigated this hoax last November and they found that many organisations who should have know better have passed on this email. You would have thought that Trading Standards and newspapers would have done some investigation before issuing this "warning".

Story here :- http://www.itweek.co.uk/computeractive/news/2168900/authorities-fall-hoax-emails

maninthestreet

The maximum possible cost per minute for a premium rate number is £1.50, not £15.

Mrs_B_12

I emailed the local paper and radio who put the story out again last year and only the paper replied saying they'd got it from the local police! How stupidly they read emails and publish things as fact without doing a simple check.

trisontana

Mrs_B wrote: »

I emailed the local paper and radio who put the story out again last year and only the paper replied saying they'd got it from the local police! How stupidly they read emails and publish things as fact without doing a simple check.

I'm afraid this madness has started all over again. If you type in "PDS Scam" into Google you get pages of "warnings". Admittedly most are from last year but I have found at least two local newspapers (one in Peterborough and one in Lincolnshire) who have published this "warning" in the last week. Added to that it also appears on websites run by local community groups and business organisations.

PhonepayPlus (the new name for Icstis) have issued this statement and ask anyone who receives this email to pass it on to the sender :-

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 https://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 https://www.phonepayplus.org.uk.
19 October 2007

Mrs_B_12

I have forwarded detail of that to the local radio station that had the 'scam' on their news today along with a statement from the local police. :rolleyes:

Last year I emailed the local paper who had published it and they just said they had got the info from the local police and to tell them. I emailed them too and didn't even get a reply.