ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Phone scam in UK

I dont normaly foward things but this came from "Security department" at headquaters. This ia all I have been told so do not know if it an international scam or not but worth being aware about.
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Can you circulate this around especially as Christmas 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 0306 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 £15 for the phone call.

If you do receive a card with these details then please contact Royal Mail Fraud on 02072396655 or ICSTIS (the premium rate service regulator) at:-
www.icstis.org.uk

or your local trading standards office. This is a genuine scan and is under investigation by ICSTIS.

Kenny

I had this one passed on to me as well.

Although it's undoubtedly a scam, a couple of things have been corrupted or misinterpreted somewhere as is often the case with these e-mail warnings.

For a start, this version gives the number to call as 0306 6611911. There are no 03 numbers in use at present. The version I received gave the number as 0906 6611911, which is indeed a premium-rate number.

Assuming it's valid (I'm not calling it to find out!), the standard BT billing rate for that number would be £1.50 per minute. So it's not quite the case that you'd be charged £15 as soon as you're connected, but of course if they can keep you believing the scam and hanging on for 10 minutes........

Thanks, well warned. But if its acknowledged that this scam exists, with time for cascaded warnings, and Trading Standards on the trail, how come Bt can't simply trace and block the number ? (Or better still pursue or help with prosecution).

What, and divert valuable time that the Crown Prosecution Service could be using to pursue real criminals, like those who put a piece of paper in the wrong bin?

Seriously though, it's a good question. Surely it would take only a few reports to Trading Standards for something to be done?