They fell for the 'Mum, I smashed my phone' scam text thinking it was from my sister. Soon followed by loads of pleading messages for money a 'she was in trouble with some money lenders'. Couple of grand taken in total, sent to 3 different accounts.
They feel very foolish and embarrassed and I can see it's hit them hard.
I can see how it's happened...
a) they always communicate by text as they can't hear well on the phone as they're both in their 80's
b) my sister often changes her phone and number
c) my sister does ask for money from time to time, but usual sub £100 at a time
We've been onto bank fraud team yesterday, but we're not holding out much hope of getting money back as they approved the payments.
We've drummed it into them over and over to check with us if unsure, but the messages they received frightened them thinking my sister was going to come to harm and there was great urgency to get the payments done.
Bugger. Sorry to hear that 🙁
I've been getting quite a few of these texts in the last couple of weeks.
That's awful.
Please bear in mind that these ****ers may come back for a second or third go, or sell on their details for other scammers to have a pop, so make sure everything is locked down. It might be the right moment to talk to them about setting up a Lasting Power of Attorney which might offer a little more protection in future.
Based on the OP, I'd be asking the sister to pay TBH
What a shame, that is really rough for them.
Scammers are good at wat they do, and getting batter all of the time.
Scammers are good at wat they do, and getting batter all of the time.
Definitely a bit fishy.
Please bear in mind that these **** may come back for a second or third go, or sell on their details for other scammers to have a pop, so make sure everything is locked down. It might be the right moment to talk to them about setting up a Lasting Power of Attorney which might offer a little more protection in future.
All in-hand! 👍
We were going to do LPA's last year but I moved house and couldn't deal with it at the time. But it's a priority now.
And between my parents, sister and me we've agreed that should anyone need money we're to confirm with each other before doing a thing.
Scammers are good at wat they do, and getting batter all of the time.
The texts are very convincing.
I didn't think anything was wrong at first when they said my sister had asked for money (they didn't tell me the amounts) and I was having a right rant about my sister being a lazy arse and at 50 she should sort her bleedin' life out.
It's only when my parents said 'ooh, your sister has got a new phone number that you should have' and showed me 'smashed phone' text that it fell into place.
Hang in there with the bank.
My mum fell for the same scam and even continued with it when the bank phoned to check.
Once she finally told me what had happened she got back onto the bank and explained and they refunded her in full.
I was the recipient of one of these texts, but that was "from" a neighbour and, though convincing, was just completely out of character.so that flagged it for me. It's not difficult to see how folk can be taken in. I guess I'm also of an age where I'd expect a plea for money to be made in a voice call, not a text message.
Reading this scares me...I too have a lazy arse brother who has probably only worked 5 years total..now in his 50's , anyhoo he is always getting money out of my dad who is nearly 80, my dad is pretty clued up but in time he will get scammed , if anything my brother will probably be behind it
We’ve been onto bank fraud team yesterday, but we’re not holding out much hope of getting money back as they approved the payments
If the transfers were to UK bank accounts, they should get the money back as there is a voluntary agreement between UK banks
Was it just a coincidence that you're sister often asks for cash (by text)?
Feels a bit fishy to me, have you actually spoken with your sister?
I was the recipient of one of these texts, but that was “from” a neighbour and, though convincing, was just completely out of character.so that flagged it for me. It’s not difficult to see how folk can be taken in.
A few years ago I, and a load of other race volunteers, Commissaires etc, got an email from a well known race organiser.
He was trapped in Cuba, lost passport, hotel wouldn't help etc etc. Needed money.
Yeah right. Delete. Several people contacted him to say his email has been hacked.
Meanwhile, one guy had transferred £700 right there and then. 😳
My Mum is under strict instructions never to respond to messages like that and to always cross reference with me or my sister if she gets a text/WhatsApp purporting to be from one of us. We've told her countless times that we'll never ask for money by text. Hopefully, that's been drummed into her.
Good luck getting a refund.
Was it just a coincidence that you’re sister often asks for cash (by text)?
I've received the "hey Mum..." text. I'm male, with no kids and even if I did they wouldn't be old enough to be financially independent.
Costs them nothing to cast the net wide and see who bites.
b) my sister often changes her phone and number
Thats a pain in the hoop even without the obvious issue in the OP. Get her to stop doing that?
That sucks.
I have had to have a word with my dad (79) the last month as he seems to be getting very confused when he gets a scam text or email. So far he has been good with it, but he has just got rid of a phone number due to volume of scam texts and calls, I suspect after he responded to one just to tell them they had wrong number and signed it with his name....(and he had not realised that confirmed his number and name to a scammer...). He has also just had a confusion over his energy supply costs, which saw him concerned his bill would rise from £59 a month to £430+ a month - and he has always been superb at these calculations / getting best deal before.
Scammers are getting cleverer and when combined with an ageing parent, it is a worry..
Feels a bit fishy to me, have you actually spoken with your sister?
I've spoken to my sister.
She's not behind this. She's not a bad person, runs a good household, has two nice kids - she's always been shit with money though. You'd not trust her to invest your life's savings! 🙂
My mum got done a few years ago when the "bank fraud team" called.
Cleared out her current account, which was embarrassing for her, but not the end of the world (she only has a few hundred quid in there at most, and has a good buffer of savings and a decent pension).
She then texted my brother back a few months later, calling him scamming scum and told him to get a proper ****ing job when he asked to borrow a couple of grand for 10 days or so while he sold some shares to cover some work on the house.
As above... keep going with the banks.
My mum fell for exactly the same "Mum, ive broken my phone" scam... she only realised when I spoke to her the next day and didn't thank her for the money!!
The bank refunded her in full. I think she also reported it to the police.
However as a side effect, she now has trouble transferring money for real (for nephews / nieces birthdays) I think she must be on some sort of "at risk of scam" register at the bank, but I'd rather that, than have her get caught out again.
Scammers are getting cleverer
Indeed.
And just to add a bit from the banks' point of view - these types of payments are incredibly hard to detect and flag as suspicious. Payments fraud used to be people pretending to be you making a payment out of your account (so stolen or phished login details, hacked passwords etc). The banks got good at spotting these, as they could use things like IP address history, location etc to judge whether it was actually you logged in, or someone pretending to be you. With the introduction of Multi Factor Authentication it became much harder still for the scammers, as pretending to be you on more than one device at once is particularly tricky.
So, the scammers moved on to getting you make the payment - it's called a Fraudulent Push Payment. If you make the payment, how is the bank to know whether you're doing it willingly, or under the influence of a scam? You'll probably have noticed that there are now quite a lot of "are you sure you want to make this payment, are you sure it's not a scam" type messages now within a payment request, this is an attempt to get people to think a bit more before hitting "Make Payment"
I think she must be on some sort of “at risk of scam” register at the bank, but I’d rather that, than have her get caught out again.
Yes, my mum has the same thing now. She can only do certain sorts of transfers, and they ask all sorts of extra questions before allowing the transfer. Like "Have you confirmed that you recognise the receiving account number", "Have you confirmed the identity of the recipient" and so on.
She's had a few genuine transfers refused. Which is not a problem compared to the alternative.
Hell, i probably get more transfers refused than her, because half the banks/payment processors in the UK don't seen to recognise ÖÄÅ of which i have 4 in my address, and most Swedish banks don't trust any UK banks because their security is shocking...
b) my sister often changes her phone and number
Why?
There may be plenty of social reasons for changing your number ("my ex keeps harassing me" and so forth) but no technical ones. Being told you need a new number used to be a popular sales tactic because they got more commission for a 'new' connection than for porting an existing one.
Why?
No idea - you'd need to ask my sister that! 🙂
It's not on a monthly basis, usually every couple of years.
Based on the OP, I’d be asking the sister to pay TBH
Not sure how you came to that conclusion. She had nothing to do with the scam.
Why?
There may be plenty of social reasons for changing your number (“my ex keeps harassing me” and so forth) but no technical ones. Being told you need a new number used to be a popular sales tactic because they got more commission for a ‘new’ connection than for porting an existing one.
Knowledge. I know people who always change their number when they change provider. When pointed out that it is dead easy to move numbers across they 'can't be bothered with the hassle'. I know...
b) my sister often changes her phone and number
bit odd. Ive had the same number for the past 25 years, or even more.
edit: i SUPPOSE it does take a few hours to port a number across, and you use the new sim number till thats done.
Knowledge. I know people who always change their number when they change provider. When pointed out that it is dead easy to move numbers across they ‘can’t be bothered with the hassle’. I know…
Well, quite.
You text PAC to 65075. That's literally it. If they have the wherewithal to change provider, they can port their number.
b) my sister often changes her phone and number
Thats a pain in the hoop even without the obvious issue in the OP. Get her to stop doing that?
there are plenty of good reasons why someone might be in a position where they have to do that. Few is them too nice to contemplate. Let’s not be so quick to blame victims for the actions of the perpetrators. It was nothing other than luck that the the scammers MO was successful on this particular occasion.It’s not anyone else’s fault.
These scams are a multibillion dollar industry. We’re idiots if we allow ourselves to think it’s only idiots that fall for these things
Anyway - can we stop the character analysis of my sister.
She does some odd things at times, she's not perfect - but who amongst us is.
Anyway – can we stop the character analysis of my sister.
She does some odd things at times, she’s not perfect – but who amongst us is.
Indeed, I know plenty of folk who don't do things that appear obvious to the rest of us. It's not a character flaw, it's just who they are.
It's just one of those things that give the scams an air of credibility, are folk going to pick on the fact your folks had kids next?
As others have said, the bank may still refund you (even if they aren't obliged to if your mother verified any anti-fraud checks she was presented with).
These scams are a multibillion dollar industry. We’re idiots if we allow ourselves to think it’s only idiots that fall for these things
100%.
Time was, I used to think that way. But scams are getting ever more sophisticated and it's increasingly difficult to know what's legitimate.
A few years ago I, and a load of other race volunteers, Commissaires etc, got an email from a well known race organiser.
He was trapped in Cuba, lost passport, hotel wouldn’t help etc etc. Needed money.
Think i saw when someone posted about that on FB when it happened.
Unfortunately this is a common scam going round currently. I warned my mum and still got a facebook message to ask me why I was texting asking for money, thankfully we communicate by facebook messenger rather than texting otherwise I think she may have fallen for it. Fingers crossed that the bank gives them their money back, people really are scumbags.
But scams are getting ever more sophisticated and it’s increasingly difficult to know what’s legitimate.
And it's making life very difficult for genuine bank calls and sometimes even calls from councils, businesses and so on.
We were always scared that my grandfather would be taken in by someone knocking on the door pretending to find a problem with the gutters or something and doing him out of thousands for it. Scams now are considerably more high tech.
She then texted my brother back a few months later, calling him scamming scum and told him to get a proper ****ing job when he asked to borrow a couple of grand for 10 days or so while he sold some shares to cover some work on the house.
This is gold. 🤣
My slightly younger than yours parents were all of a bother a few weeks back with the same scam - my folks are switched on but still nearly fell for it despite my brother living in Australia, the text numbers coming from a +44 UK number and "really M&D - why would financially really solvent brother need to borrow for a replacement phone?"
I got caught out by that scam a few months back. Made a payment by credit card and another by bank transfer. When I realised rang my bank (Nationwide) and they were able to reverse the payments back into my accounts. Phew.
*Hangs head in shame*
They are VERY good at it. We had one at work where they had got into someone senior's email. They found an email for an invoice a year ago that was about due and containted two payments. They updated the date, left the bank details of the first the same as the original and changed the details on the second to theirs. They then sent an email to our finance team saying it needed to be paid urgently. Fortunately we spotted it as just requesting it be paid urgently isn't enough but it was super slickly done. It would be easy to get caught out if you had an overbearing CEO and a finance team that are easily pressurised.
You’ll probably have noticed that there are now quite a lot of “are you sure you want to make this payment, are you sure it’s not a scam” type messages now within a payment request, this is an attempt to get people to think a bit more before hitting “Make Payment”
My Barclays App used to show these all the time, even with payments to people I'd been paying the same amount each month for years. Totally counter productive as it just conditions people to ignore them...
I've lost count of the number of times my mother-in-law rings in a panic because she's had a text/email claiming she owes someone money or that she'll be locked out of her bank account or something like that. We've told her in no uncertain terms not to respond to anything that she hasn't instigated herself and to ignore it but she still gets worried about it. At least she rings us first before doing anything.
Also whilst they're not scams, my parents are suckers for cold-calling salesmen. They've had a roof treatment they didn't need, legal services for power of attorney and putting the house in trust for when they die which were totally unnecessary, and now they've just forked out 10k on solar panels on the false promise that they will save thousands on their energy bills. I"ve concluded they just like giving their money away (not me of course 🙂 ).
One of my screwfix customers was being scammed. Out the blue visa ring him and off he goes into the patter.
Hapless customer does zero to confirm he is talking to Visa, no question like ' whats my credit limit' or 'list the 3 previous s transactions'
Conman yells him £900 has been spent in California, is it him?
I could have sworn its dollars, and amazingly it was exactly 900 quid.
So hes off out the door saying ' sorry. Gotta deal with this'
Before i could even say, its a scam.
When I realised rang my bank (Nationwide) and they were able to reverse the payments back into my accounts. Phew.
I think you'll find that what they actually did was probably not "reverse the payment", i.e. got it back from wherever you'd sent it to, they in fact just refunded you the money and took the loss themselves (and the losses that the banks take on the chin from fraudulent payments are eeeeenormous)
Which brings, for me, an interesting ethical question - should banks be compelled to give people their money back when those people have given it away of their own volition (even if that may have been a result of a scam). If someone had ben scammed into posting some money to a scammer, would they expect a refund from Royal Mail?
Don't they have a minimum duty of care these days to make sure people don't actually make the payments to fraudsters, i.e. flagging involved account numbers and dodgy/unusual activity?
Probably easier/cheaper to take the hit than update automated systems.
