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Scams and fraud

What’s App message

(12 Posts)
Lovetopaint037 Sun 18-Sep-22 21:07:55

The other night and quite late I had what appeared to me to be a message from my daughter who lives quite a distance away. It said Mum I’ve dropped my phone so had to get another and I have a new number. Can you put it in your contacts.Now my daughter has had some problems of late and I thought “Oh! No. She has a new iPhone which is costing her a lot on contract. Of course I replied “How the hell did you do that?” I also said you don’t need a new number just swap the SIM card. I can’t was the reply it is smashed and I can’t get it out. I then said she would have to take it into her contract provider and get it sorted etc etc. I even accused her of not telling the truth and had she paid the bill. No I dropped it was the reply. I will get it fixed at the weekend…maybe. Because of the late hour and feeling cross I went to bed. Next day I get a phone call. So I asked her how she had done so much damage to her phone. Whereas she says what are you talking about? I am using it now. In fact I haven’t even got it out of its box as I still haven’t had time to set it up. I blocked the number and removed the contact number. I presume the next step would be to ask for money for a phone repair. When I read the conversation back it seemed ridiculous but I fell for it because I was worried about my daughter and I was tired.

Grannybags Sun 18-Sep-22 21:24:38

Sorry to hear you fell for the scam Lovetopaint I'm glad you didn't lose any money.

Unfortunately this one has been around for some but it's good to remind people

icanhandthemback Sun 18-Sep-22 21:30:58

I was nearly got by this scam. Lesson learned!

aggie Thu 20-Oct-22 20:09:18

I got this scam txt today , because I’m never off this site I knew it was a scam ! It wanted me to reply on what’s ap , I went into daft Mum note and told them they knew I never used WhatsApp and who on earth were they ! I shouldn’t have answered though!

Yperite Mon 22-Apr-24 03:57:48

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

Grandmabatty Mon 22-Apr-24 05:42:51

Reported

Curtaintwitcher Mon 22-Apr-24 06:52:56

It's amazing the ways people are thinking up to trick people.

fiorentina51 Mon 22-Apr-24 07:14:15

A friend of mine fell for this type of scam and lost over £1000. She's no fool but got caught out at a vulnerable time.

aggie Mon 22-Apr-24 07:53:44

Old thread resurected

Elegran Mon 22-Apr-24 08:00:42

Relevant to current concerns on other GN threads, here is a little note on getting caught out by scams and advertising spam.

There is even a post on this very thread which contains a link that would take you to a gamimg website. That site may or may not be a "clean" one - but I for one would rather make my own choice on which sites I want to visit, not be sent to one unawares because a marketer cons me into it.

The post may well be gone by now, or soon will be, but it does demonstrate how careful we have to be about following links from strangers.

BlueBelle Mon 22-Apr-24 08:03:26

This is a very old scam and although still doing the rounds there are more sophisticated ones around now unfirtunatelyb

Elegran Mon 22-Apr-24 08:14:48

I've put the poster's username into the search engine. No previous posts. That doesn't automatically mean that they are not genuine, but coupled with a link to a completely irrrelevant website, it does raise a doubt in my mind after my twelve years on Gransnet.

There are posters on other threads saying it would be wrong to run each new joiner through a very short checking system, that we should trust everyone. However, these days there are a lot of professional spammers and scammers who make a living from their commission on luring people to sites or directly scamming them into revealing details about themselves. The alternative is to be very careful about our online relationships!