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ALERT! Genuine Telephone Scam
Picture the scene You are sitting at home and there is a knock at the door. On answering it, you meet a respectable looking woman in suit who is visibly worried. She explains her car is broken down further down the road, and requests if she can use your phone to contact her husband for help.
You allow her to use the phone, and definitely you stand with her as she makes the call. She dials the number, and asks to be put through to Mr Smith / Brown / Stevens (Whatever). She holds the line for about thirty seconds. She continues, "In that case, can you ask him to leave the meeting for a minute because I need to speak to him quite urgently".
She apologises again to you and explains they are getting him out of a meeting. A couple of minutes go by and she starts to speak to her supposed husband. She explains what has happened to the car, and complains that she is annoyed because she now can't get to her meeting, and asks what she should do.
She listens for a few seconds to the husband and then says, "Well as soon as the meeting finishes can you come to Cardiff Road / Leicester Road / Surrey Street (Whatever), where the car is broken down.
After some few seconds, she says "OK, I'll see you in about twenty minutes then." She puts the phone down, and thanks you so much for your kind assistance, even offering you a pound for your trouble, but of course you decline, it's no trouble.
She leaves and everything is fine. But guess what! The day or week before knocking on your door, she sets up her own Premium Rate Line with a telephone company at the cost of about £150, and she has directed that calls to that number should be charged at £50 per minute. So when she dialled from your home, it was that Premium Rate number that she called. The conversation she has had with her "husband" is completely untrue. There is a pre-recorded voice message on the other end to give you the impression she is talking to someone. She has
been on the phone for about five minutes, and that call alone costs you £250, which goes into her pocket.
Most likely, the time you will know about this scam is when you get your bill a month later. To rub a bit of salt into the wound, she hasn't even committed a criminal offence, because you've permitted her to use your phone. In Luton, this has been reported on five (5) occasions in the last couple of weeks. Possibly, this scam is coming to your door and you need to be careful not to be a victim. The reason this is working so well is, that it plays on your good will!
Courtesy PC Paul Toseland
Corby Business Anti-Crime Network Administrator
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