Bio Bank data loss email, followed by dodgy sounding phone call.

anotherbob

My wife received an email from biobank saying that her name and contact details had "accidentally become publicly accessible" sometime in June.

Today we got a dodgy sounding call to our land line (which we hardly use) claiming to be from Visa/mastercard and telling us that our card had been used for a transaction of £600.

It hasn't (according to internet banking).

The call didn't say anything else (or at least we didn't hear any more. The call came from 01828187388.

I don't know if we should take any precautionary action as a result.

[Deleted User]

I wouldn't worry too much about it. Sounds fairly commonplace. Most people get such calls.

Apparently HMRC are sending someone round to arrest me shortly.  It's a bit of a nuisance, as I wanted to catch up on 'Modern Family' on Netflix.

Ebe_Scrooge

As above, it's almost certainly a scam call.  Such calls and emails are fairly common-place, unfortunately.  If you're at all worried, the simplest thing is to call your card issuer - on the number you know to be genuine, it'll be printed on the back of the card - and just double-check with them.

The_Fat_Controller

SNAP !
I had the Visa/MasterCard scam call today, also for £600 for an overseas transaction in the last 30 minutes, as I was getting lunch I didn't have time to string them along this time.
Just ignore it.
The "Amazon Prime" subscription call is probably coming soon too....

anotherbob

Thank you for your responses. My wife was concerned that there might be a connection with the biobank info but it seems not.

Gerry1

Yes, I've had hundreds of these wretched calls, including five Amazon ones so far this week  The Visa / Mastercard one is obviously a scam because you'd be called by one or the other, they wouldn't just say it was a foreign country, and why would they use a generic recorded announcement rather than a real person?  Are thousands of people all being defrauded of exactly £600?

The number is spoofed; the number range 01828 18 has not been allocated.  No point in blocking it, the scammers usually use a different spoofed number every time.

Sadly, the over 75s will probably be the next targets: 'This is TV Licensing, and to avoid immediate prosecution you must buy a licence right now using your debit card'.

jonesMUFCforever

The £600 scam call is months old and certainly pre -dates June and this data breach.
Hundreds of thousands of people have had this call.