Current scams

Get your Digital Coronavirus (HPS) today….

I don’t think so! 

My landline logged a call from a local number on Monday. As I sometimes do, I rang the number back on Tuesday, but from my mobile phone, but the voice message suggested they were busy.

They obviously recorded the fact that I had tried to ring them back, for they rang me on my mobile this morning - again presenting a local to me phone number, but with a very foreign and difficult to understand accent.

He immediately launched into suggesting my Ebay account had been hacked, had I bought an HP laptop for £50 - I had, bought a new HP recently, but for a lot more than £50.

Did I want to stop the transaction - playing along I said yes please. He then asked me to log into my ebay account - at which point I told him where to go.

Puzzle is - how did they know when ringing my mobile number, what my local code might have been? What number to spoof? I could have rung them from anywhere in the UK on my mobile, when I rang them on Tuesday.

Harry1000, your mobile number doesn't have a local code, your home phone number will have been used on a random calling system. Avoid responding to unknown callers, particularly with a mobile. If you do get problems look up Ofcom and their advice in the nuisance calls section. 

You played into their hands, Harry. Standby for more scam calls.

I rarely get cold/scam calls on my mobile, but my landline used to be inundated with them (ex-Taltalk). Which was why I ended up needing a caller filter, which very successfully has blocked all, but the genuine callers ever since.

Most often, when I do phone a missed caller back to see what the call was about, the number they have spoofed is an invalid number - so no harm done.

This one, a local code, actually rang and went unanswered, until a tape message cut in with a US accent.

Not sure if this was a scam when first reading it or just plain disturbing.

Oh and MiL have Kindle and have had them for a good few years now. There has been no recent problems with them but both have received notifications from Google that they won't be able to access their Gmail accounts without giving Amazon complete access to their email accounts and the wording means Complete. Without your consent you are blocked out of your gmail account. The new T&Cs seem to indicate that you are agreeing to Amazon doing whatever they want with your emails, changing them, deleting them, reading them etc.

I've looked on Google itself and this message has appeared in the past with users of Kindle worried about it being either a scam or too much information being available to Amazon.

Looking at those postings it would appear that you can by-pass these T&Cs by downloading the gmail app onto Kindle but this apparently isn't as proficient as keeping the original gmail system. OH now trying to get various other email apps downloaded for her other email addresses but having problems putting more than one gmail account on. Any advice gratefully received.

We were surprised to suddenly get this and am wondering if other Kindle users have had the same problems.