Potential MSE scam invoving PPI?

GailPB

RE: POTENTIAL MSE SCAM



I was called this morning from a company claiming to be MSE who informed me that my recent PPI claim had been succesful. I have made some PPI claims and have previously been told that these had not been successful, so I was a bit sceptical.

The person told me some story about referring the claim the Min of Justice etc.etc. I asked which company was indicated in the claim and was told by the person on the phone that they were not privvy to that information, that they were just a messenger.
The person mentioned that the PPI calim referred to a company to which I had made payments for three years, and this rang true to me, though they did not have any other information.

Someone was going to turn up at my home with a cheque for £4,681, and asked for a window when I would be at home to receive the cheque - I gave them a window of today - they have not shown up
The caller gave me her name as Sonia Wilson and gave me the courier name of June Rogers

She me a phone number to call to check them out - 0203 896446
I called and the number is unobtainable
The person on the phone said that to cover admin charges they requested me to get a one4all card to the value of £150
The person would want to see my ID details together with this one4all card on delivery of my cheque

I was told not to hand them the card yet and would not be charged anything until after my cheque for £4k had been cleared at the bank. Seemed odd but I did have a claim approved in the past for which the company took a percentage fee so I was not shocked that there would be some sort of admin fee involved.
They did not ask for my bank details

After hanging up, a few moments later a man called to reiterate the instructions for acceptance of the cheque.

I have not been in contact with MSE at all in the past for anything, so why are they contacting me now, and how have they got my contact details?
So my question is, is this a scam? I think it is
If it is, then an alert should be publicised

Nasqueron

This is obviously a scam, MSE don't deal with PPI complaints and don't take payments. especially not in untraceable gift cards.


You should not spend any money and block this number

Berkshire_Beancounter

Anything asking you for an admin fee (especially in the form of a gift card???) is going to be a scam. Sometimes scammers have your name and details from lists that get bought and sold for this purpose; sometimes they might just be randomly trying telephone numbers. (The number of 'we believe you were involved in an accident' calls I get is astonishing, and I've not been involved in an accident for years - I assume they're randomly dialling numbers until someone answers who has had an accident recently, and falls for it).

As Nasqueron says, don't give them anything and ignore any further contacts. If they did give you a cheque, my betting would be it would be cancelled after paying it in as it would be marked as a stolen cheque or something like that.

dunstonh

Most cold calls on the phone are scams or dodgy dealing.

Lets spot the obvious scam points.

1 - Claims to be from MSE (insert Govt, regulator or some other body). None of which get involved in these things.
2 - Why would a genuine complaint use an unknown third party to pay you the money?
3 - why would someone hand deliver a cheque? Why would a bank or lender refund to this third party?
4 - payment by gift card or other means is part of the fraud as it prevents them being tracked.
5 - ID is so they can steal that as well.
6 - if they had the money, why would they need money from you to release the money.

This is so obviously fraud. It has all the usual scam hallmarks. Stop taking cold calls. Get BT protect (which is free) or other methods of blocking.

DCFC79

The number is 1 digit missing, might explain why its unobtainable.


Let Martin Lewis know or maybe moneysupermarket since they own MSE now.

GailPB

Thanks all confirms my suspicions. I do block nuisance calls regularly, but just happened to be in to take this one. Very weird that it kind of rang true on some counts. I was going to wait for them to turn up and apologise that I did not have a one4all card yet.

soolin

is this a scam? I think it is
If it is, then an alert should be publicised

I think that as this is such an obvious scam that it would waste valuable resources warning about it, I would think the chances of anyone falling for it is pretty remote and I would prefer MSE to be warning about less obvious scams, the ones that really catch people out, especially those who are vulnerable.

However, this is worth bringing to the attention of MSE, so thank you, Martin has taken steps in the past to stop scammers using the MSE name as I suspect there is a chance that it might just sway some people into not using their usual caution.

sourcrates

Please do not be fooled by such an obvious scam.

GailPB

Also the caller gave me a number 0203 2896446 which I dialled and got th unobtainable tone, so I thought I had written it down incorrectly!

Anyway at least there has been no harm done yet...
Leaves me wondering what the purpose of the call was as they said they would not take the card or money until the cheque had cleared.
Guess June Rogers had better things to do today...

GailPB

I just checked MSE website and came across a link which pretty much deals with this type of fraud where scammers use the MSE name to try to gain credibility







thanks to all who posted

-taff

GailPB wrote: »

So my question is, is this a scam? I think it is
If it is, then an alert should be publicised

This has been publicised prett much everywhere, television programs, the internet, newspapers etc.

Google Advance Fee Fraud.
It's been around since the 18th century apparently.....