On Wednesday 10th Feb 2010 at around 4.30pm a telephone call was received. The call
came from a company called Wilkins Fairbrother attempting to sell a
financial product. The callers name was given as James Holloway. The police are having a purge on drivers who use their mobile phones while driving.
Unauthorised overseas firms
operating in the UK (Feb 2010)
On checking it appears this company could be a boiler room scam and is
listed on the FSA site. (Link below)
http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/Doing/Regulated/Law/Alerts/overseas.shtmlUsing Mobiles while Driving (Dec 2009)
Recently, a lady in West Yorkshire received a letter from India stating that they had found her name and address on a piece of paper at a land fill site in India.
This piece of paper had been put in a green recycle bin "unshredded". Shred all names and addresses because you never know where it will go or who will find it.
We all know that we should not throw personal details into the bin – but how many people have a paper shredder? If you are one of the people who doesn’t, simply tear your details into rough pieces, put them into a bowl of warm water for a few minutes and then screw the resulting pulp up into a ball. It will then be safe to throw away in the bin. (Or use it instead of crocks in the bottom of a plant pot in the greenhouse) where it will eventually rot down.
I was in a store when the cashier asked a customer to read her credit card number out, which she did. The cashier then asked for the expiry date and security number from the back of the card. How stupid can people be, reading out their card details in a loud voice in a crowded area. And more to the point what security training has the cashier had ? Clearly not enough.
Scam emails have been sent to thousands of Web users, which attempt to fool the bank customers of Barclays, Halifax, Natwest Bank and others, into handing over sensitive account information. NB: They send emails to anybody regardless if you are a customer of the bank or not.
The phishing emails (as they are termed), appear to have been spammed to users at random, purporting to be part of a security check. e.g. Barclays customers receiving the emails are been encouraged to enter their details to fraudulent sites. As is common with such scams, the source address used in the emails is cleverly encoded to disguise the true location of the sites. The destination pages are designed to look like the genuine site. Only tell-tale signs can easily be overlooked, like the title of the destination page "BarcIays Bank" give the game away.
One of the funniest words used is 'defrost' which deserves a mention:
We indicate suspect activity at your bank account. Your account has been frozen, for fraud prevention.
We strongly recommend you to follow instructions how to defrost your bank account.
Click to the following link for future information. UK Banks Association.
These particular scams actually direct you to a web site that attempts to place a worm/trojan on your PC so never click on the link just in case .
Because the scammers have not done well at school (judging by the grammar), they need your money (or, should we say, you're money, for further education):
This is just one example.
We are contacting you to inform you that on monday, 27, February 2006 our account review team identified some unusual transactions on you're account. In accordance with Barclays user agreement and to ensure that you're account has not been compromised, For you're protection, we have disabled access to you're online account until additional security measures can be completed. We encourage you to perform the steps Below to restore you're Barclays Online access as soon as possible.
(That's a lot of you're's...)
You can also expect to receive emails telling you your bank transaction has been declined (again, do not visit the web site)
Remember, reputable companies will NEVER ask you to provide security details via such means - if in doubt, be safe and telephone your bank first.
Plans to store the telephone and internet communications of the entire population are a "step too far for the British way of life", according to the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas. He said speculation that the government is considering such a database has been reinforced by its Draft Legislative Programme. (Click the latter to view the programme)
He continued "I am absolutely clear that the targeted and duly authoried interception of communications of suspects can be invaluable in the fight against terrorism and other serious crime. But there needs to be the fullest public debate about the justification for, and the implications of, a specially created database holding the details of everyone's telephone and internet communications."