Just got this on email - is the £315 thing even possible?
Postal Scam:
Can you circulate this around especially as Xmas is fast approaching - it has been confirmed by Royal Mail. The Trading Standards Office are making
people aware of the following scam:
A card is posted through your door from a company called PDS (Parcel Delivery Service) suggesting that they were unable to deliver a parcel and that
you need to contact them on 0906 6611911 (a Premium rate number).
DO NOT call this number, as this is a mail scam originating from Belize.
If you call the number and you start to hear a recorded message you will already have been billed £315 for the phone call.
If you do receive a card with these details, then please contact Royal Mail Fraud on 020 7239 6655.
For more information, see the Crime Stoppers website:
http://www.crimestoppers-uk.org/crime-prevention/helping-prevent-crime/scams/postal-delivery-scam
Have you gone to the link?
http://www.crimestoppers-uk.org/media-centre/crime-in-the-news/november-2010-crime-in-the-news/crimestoppers-parcel-e-mail-scam-5478547
A scam that was shut down in 2005
http://www.snopes.com/fraud/telephone/pds.asp
It was circulated around my workplace yesterday.
In the 5 minutes it took me to google the phone number and establish it was old news, most of the people in my section had already sent it on to
everyone they knew.
These days, stuff like that is almost a virus by another name.
9 times out of 10, any reported scare like this, where they are claiming an authoritative body has verified it, is going to be junk mail. Who needs to write a fancy virus to send spam everywhere, when you can socially engineer people to send spam for you.
Well my main question was is the £315 thing even possible? I can't see how calling even a premium rate number can run up a bill like that unless you stay on the line for a couple hours listening to an answerphone.
it's not possible, unless, as you say, you're daft enough to hang onto it for hours - premium rate lines are capped at £1.50 per minute.
It could be one of those 'Press number for x' scams as I believe they can autherise payments and such.
And don't call Royal Mail Fraud as they get very testy and point out that, if it existed, it would be telephone fraud, not postal.
quote:
Originally posted by vinny1275
it's not possible, unless, as you say, you're daft enough to hang onto it for hours - premium rate lines are capped at £1.50 per minute.
quote:
Originally posted by Ninehigh
I don't ring premium rate numbers, wouldn't even do it if Camelot had one to claim my 6 number winning ticket
I'd rather drive down, I'd trust it'd be cheaper