Telephone Scams

Fake Broadband scams Phonecalls about your internet are pretty common scams. I had one yesterday, purporting to be from a Broadband provider (which as it happened, was the one I used, but they just cycle through the main companies, knowing the probability of getting it right is quite high), saying they were 'Shutting down my internet connection because of suspicious activity on my IP Address'. This is designed to frighten you, to stay on the phone, and they will then try to persuade you to allow them to remotely look at your computer, and hence be able to subject you to ransomware, or just lift your passwords etc etc; or get you to give them your details so that they 'can rectify the problem'.  Never, ever let them continue. They can be very persuasive. Because they get shouted at a lot, they often use a recorded or generated voice introduction, which supposedly gives you the reason for the call, and then asks you to 'Press One' to talk to 'The engineer'. Once you do that, you'll get a real person, but it's a scam. COVID-19 vitamin pill cold calls  Criminals exploit our vulnerabilities. A common tactic for cold callers is pretending to be from the NHS or local health services offering low quality, cut-price vitamins and supplements. Here’s what to watch out for. Cold callers try to sell samples of low quality multivitamins as a way of getting hold of people’s payment details. Your details are then used to sign up to expensive regular payments without permission. It’s a ruse to take your bank details and regular payment without your permission Fake sellers online are a growing problem There's a huge growth in fake online sellers. Which Magazine has found  "Alarmingly, we found that almost one in 10 people (9%) have fallen victim to a purchase scam – when someone is misled into paying for a product that never turns up or is not at all as described – via an advert on a social media site." If you come across what you think is a scam, or you get caught by a scammer, report it.