By Bernie Bell
In the last few days, I’ve picked up three calls – I’ll tell the tale….
We mostly have our phone on answerphone, because of nuisance calls. So, I picked up a message, which was obviously a recorded message, telling me that my credit card had been used in the last 15 minutes, to transfer money to another country, and, if I wanted to cancel the transaction, I had to press a number.
Well, I don’t have a credit card, for starters.
The first two times, I just put the phone down, the third time, I thought I should do something about it. I never understand how people fall for these scams, but they do – so, I rang 101 which is the non emergency Police number.
The man I spoke with, was very helpful, but said it is very difficult indeed for them to take action, which I can completely understand.
I very much felt that I should do something to warn people that this is happening, right now, on Orkney, so, I thought I’d send this to TON, our local, community ‘paper’.
Simple message is – don’t do any kind of transaction like this, over the phone. A recorded message is always a bad sign. If it is your bank, and it’s genuine, you can check with them, before taking any action.
I’m trying to think of sound advice, but I suppose what it comes down to is – beware of anything like this, on the phone. Put the phone down, and report it to the police. Though it’s hard for them to catch these fraudsters, it does help them to know what’s happening on their ‘patch’
So, I’ll just say it again…..
Beware of Scammers!!!
