Have I given too much info to scammer?

Mr.Generous

For anyone reading this these scams have been around for a long time, they try and get share holders to sign over shares and post off the certificates for a vastly inflated price rather than buying them on the stock exchange, they will then state various reasons for all sorts of unexpected delays as to why your payment is delayed while they trade the shares and launder the proceeds. At some point they will just stop communicating and then what do you do - no shares, no money. I don't believe they are harvesting personal info directly, but they may well add you to a list for other scammers with all the details they could find - so as others have said - be careful.

Unfortunately people do fall for it, convince themselves a huge windfall is coming their way, and send off share stuff pre signed. I tried to warn someone once and they ended up convincing another relative to join them and send off certificates, lost it all and now refuse to speak to me because I tried to warn them!!

Mr.Generous

k6chris said:

hupik said:

sebtomato said:

I am more than happy to check for you if your data was compromised. However, please send me the previous details mentioned, as well as your National Insurance number for that to happen.

Don't you need credit card details?

In relation to original post I would not be worried, that information will most likely be in the public domain anyway and people post more than that on social media.

Yes, so best send that and your pin number too.  You can trust everyone on the internet, we're all nice people.......

Don't share this on a public forum please, DM me the details. Oh and the last 3 numbers from the back of the card to verify please.

artyboy

Mr.Generous said:

k6chris said:

hupik said:

sebtomato said:

I am more than happy to check for you if your data was compromised. However, please send me the previous details mentioned, as well as your National Insurance number for that to happen.

Don't you need credit card details?

In relation to original post I would not be worried, that information will most likely be in the public domain anyway and people post more than that on social media.

Yes, so best send that and your pin number too.  You can trust everyone on the internet, we're all nice people.......

Don't share this on a public forum please, DM me the details. Oh and the last 3 numbers from the back of the card to verify please.

We laugh, but how many people do you see on this site alone that sign up using their real name...? T'interweb is a gold mine for scammers when people don't take even basic precautions...

As an aside my own mother had one of these calls recently - different shares, but pretty much word for word the same story. Easy to call 'scam' when you know the rules about a 3% stake being notifiable, and 30% requiring a full takeover bid; but it's probably not layman's level knowledge. At least she is a suspicious person by nature!

Albermarle

John464 said:

Daliah said:

You can also get call blockers, or perhaps your provider offers a call minder service / number display. Just don't answer calls from numbers you don't recognise.

Like what?
The BT call blocker I have became useless when the scammers started spoofing different numbers.  My BT phone memory became full of them. so I couldn't block any more  And if they call from the same number as a genuine bank you would be blocking them.  And I often get calls from people I want to hear from ringing from numbers I don't recognise.

Same for me and I tried call minder as well .
My 'solution' is to answer all calls, as some are genuine even if from an unknown number. Normally the scam calls are very obvious- delay in speaking - chatter of call centre in background - often a non native English speaker - ' Am I speaking to Mr .....' etc 
However I did briefly fall for one the other day. Someone from BT checking why I had not paid my bill, sounded very normal British person, quite relaxed. I checked my bank account and it had not been paid, but when they started asking for bank details and that I would get cut off , I just put the phone down. Later I realised that BT take the direct debit a few days after the bill, and I assume the scammer knew this, and was just hoping they had phoned in this gap of a few days that happens every month.

John464

sevenhills said:

John464 said:

I don't have a simple solution - if we did the scammers would be out of business.
I think you have just got to be on your guard against cold callers.

But they are very good at convincing people, even though the information is available to anyone, steps should be taken so that they cannot call or email.

But how?
How can you stop someone in a foreign country who can spoof any number they like from phoning people up and telling them lies?
The problem we have is that our antiquated phone network relies on information in the call itself to tell it what number it is coming from.  Information the scammers can put in themself.  A technical solution to this would be very costly - who is going to oversee it and pay for it?  That could be another absurdly expensive catastrophe on the scale of PPE/Eat out to spread it around/bounceback loan etc fraud.  So we just have to make the best of the network as it is.  By being our own call blocker.

John464

k_man said:

unknown numbers can still get through.

Exactly
And my worry with stuff like that is it can lead people into a false sense of security, thinking the call must be genuine to get past them.
We just need to remember its like the wild west out there, scammers will ring up and say absolutely anything, and they will soon learn what to say to get them through. 
So we have to be our own call blockers.

Daliah

I haven't used my landline in years, and people who I want to talk to know that I prefer to be contacted on my mobile, not least because I don't give out my landline number any longer. The landline is on voicemail, it occasionally rings but nobody leaves any message, so it can't have been anything important or urgent. My mobile is set up so calls from unknown numbers all go to voicemail without ringing. There have been quite a few callers on the mobile who didn't leave a message - again, it can't have been anything important or urgent, and most probably was a scammer, or some salesperson trying to sell me an allegedly cheaper broadband or mobile contract.

However, spoofed numbers do ring if they are in my contact list as genuine companies. I recently had one from "Santander", where I have accounts, and it took me a couple of minutes before I began to be suspicious. The guy was very convincing, professional and spoke perfect Queen's English but he was just an evil scammer, and I told him so. Not that he would care, as he'll just try it on with others.

tempus_fugit

Albermarle said:

John464 said:

Daliah said:

You can also get call blockers, or perhaps your provider offers a call minder service / number display. Just don't answer calls from numbers you don't recognise.

Like what?
The BT call blocker I have became useless when the scammers started spoofing different numbers.  My BT phone memory became full of them. so I couldn't block any more  And if they call from the same number as a genuine bank you would be blocking them.  And I often get calls from people I want to hear from ringing from numbers I don't recognise.

Same for me and I tried call minder as well .
My 'solution' is to answer all calls, as some are genuine even if from an unknown number. Normally the scam calls are very obvious- delay in speaking - chatter of call centre in background - often a non native English speaker - ' Am I speaking to Mr .....' etc 
However I did briefly fall for one the other day. Someone from BT checking why I had not paid my bill, sounded very normal British person, quite relaxed. I checked my bank account and it had not been paid, but when they started asking for bank details and that I would get cut off , I just put the phone down. Later I realised that BT take the direct debit a few days after the bill, and I assume the scammer knew this, and was just hoping they had phoned in this gap of a few days that happens every month.

That's why I never entertain them at all. Apart from the fact that by answering them at all can put you on a potential mugs list and you'll just get more and more calls, there's always that chance that they'll catch you with a convincing line and on a day when you are vulnerable (most people caught out by these things talk about how they were not concentrating fully because of other things going on at the time). I don't answer them because for a start none of the institutions that I use ever call me and I know the numbers of anyone else who might legitimately contact me, so I will know when it's them calling. I have zero tolerance to unsolicited calls, they just don't get answered. If it's important they'll get through by some other method.

tempus_fugit

John464 said:

k_man said:

unknown numbers can still get through.

Exactly
And my worry with stuff like that is it can lead people into a false sense of security, thinking the call must be genuine to get past them.
We just need to remember its like the wild west out there, scammers will ring up and say absolutely anything, and they will soon learn what to say to get them through. 
So we have to be our own call blockers.

With a "call screener", rather than a call blocker, unknown numbers do not get through because they have to leave a message identifying themselves and you then have the option to take the call or not. 99% of spurious callers do not bother leaving a message and this blocks pretty much any scam call a person is likely to get. You can allow your most frequent (legitimate) callers to bypass the screening and any others can be added as and when they come in. I do agree though that people need to be their own call blockers as well, and be aware of how scammers operate, but it's clear that an alarmingly large proportion of people just don't educate themselves judging by the number of, for example, APP scams that are still fallen for so any additional armoury in the defence is a good thing, IMO.

sparkiemalarkie

Thank you for all your comments and suggestions.
I have scanned my laptop, and in the process of changing all of my passwords.
I have blocked the number with our call blocker
and I have learnt my lesson......

I'm normally very savvy..... but as mentioned in some of the posts above, I was running late.
I had just picked up my handbag and striding towards the front door and my OH answered the phone...he handed it to me saying it was an important call about my BT shares...
I wasn't concentrating and time was ticking on... to speed things up I gave my email address and cut them off saying I had to go.
The email arrived before I returned home but I didn't see it.
I had a second phone call from the same scammer while I was cooking dinner and she was encouraging me to go and open the email  and print out the paper work while she was on the phone...but all this had to be done in secret!
I don't do emails at meal times so I said I would take a look later.....
It wasn't until this point that I started to get suspicious.

I'm pretty sure that no harm is done...
Hopefully I've learnt a bit 

sx