Heads up - Advertising scam on here.

[MARK.B.]

Ok guys just a quick heads up about a scam on here ,if you answer a few questions and if you pick the right box you get a phone if you pay a quid for postage. Well folks there is no fool like an old fools and like a plonker i fell for it and needless to say there was no phone.The scammers will however attempt to take an amount close to but not quite £50.00 from your account each month.Fortunately my bank's fraud department picked it up and stopped payment they also refunded me almost £49.95 taken in December that i had not noticed in amongst all the other xmas purchases that i had made.
I know that all you guy's are to clever to get caught out but maybe this might just stop it happening to someone you know.
Please guys don't give me hard time for being a "*******" as nothing you can say by way of insult can or will even come close to the Ear Bashing i had this morning from my Mrs , maybe by next xmas she will relent just a little lol

 

[artie]

Thanks for the tip off, Don't feel too bad I got caught once after a PC purchase at PC world.
Because it was through them I had confidence, but ended up with a monthly subscription for some pretty useless software disks.
Complaining did no good but my bank finally sorted it out.
They asked me if I wanted them to try to recover the few months I had paid but couldn't guarantee success.
I told them to forget it, I would consider it a stupid tax and hopefully learn from my mistake.

 

[selectortone]

Yes, this was reported in an earlier thread: Phone thread

Glad to hear you got your money back. What a world eh...

 

[Doug B]

You can only put it down to a life experience @MARK.B. & hope these shysters get some bad karma somewhere along the line.

 

[kevinlightfoot]

Got caught myself by the Bit coin scam ,took me for £500 and I am usually very careful,if you have got a few pounds someone out there is trying to take it off you and they are very convincing.

 

[Robbo3]

Thanks for the heads up but you haven't told us how the scam took place eg was it on a website, a link on a forum, an email, a text etc. Neither have you told us who the scammers were. Both would make the scam much easier to avoid.

 

[Owd Jockey]

Mark, hopefully the Mrs has calmed down a little.

It makes me very angry when these scammers, whichever guise they appear in, seek to steal other peoples money; particularly those who are elderly and vulnerable. They cause distress with their lies, deceit and threats. So when someone has the ability, skill and humanity to turn the table on this scum, which predominantly operate openly from Kolkata (Calcutta) in India, it makes me feel a lot better. I watch Jim's YouTube Channel and it is really great to see him, logging onto the scammers PC, downloading their names and proof of their scams, sometimes intervening in real-time scams as they are happening by warning the intended victims. Jim passes all his findings onto the Kolkata Police and the relevant bank. Because of corruption within the local Police force, little ever becomes of his submitted evidence. Its certainly worth watching some of his videos, as a usual pattern emerges. Jims YouTube site is here.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBNG0osIBAprVcZZ3ic84vw
Personally, I think our Government should be challenging the Indian government for greater action in dealing with these bogus 'call centres' operating freely in India.

 

[MARK.B.]

Sorry Robbo,i should have been clearer, the scam is right here on UKW ,that advert that pops up in the top left corner (probably many other places as well ).As to who the scammers are there was only so much information that the Lloyds fraud investigator would share with me.All i can tell you is that the payments were taken by VITAOKMALL7, other than that i do not know anymore about who or where these scum operate.
Thanks for the replies on this,hopefully Admin on here will pull these Adverts,this was for me a trusted site but not so sure about that anymore.
I was lucky it was only a small amount of money and was spotted and stopped so i did not lose out financially,but i wonder how many have lost out and perhaps are unaware that they have become victim's.

 

[llangatwgnedd]

With the amount of advertising in here, no doubt it will happen again.
Bring back the good ol' days

 

[MikeK]

Sorry Robbo,i should have been clearer, the scam is right here on UKW ,that advert that pops up in the top left corner (probably many other places as well ).

As a registered member, you can opt out of seeing all advertisements while logged in. To do this, click on your avatar in the upper right corner of the screen. Then click on "Preferences". A new screen will appear that shows your preferences for UKW. If you scroll down, you will see "Disable Advertising". Check the "Yes" box and click on "Save" at the bottom of the screen.

 

[Terrytpot]

As a registered member, you can opt out of seeing all advertisements while logged in...

Strikes me as a shame that ukworkshop actually tolerate and actually permit organisations to "phish" on here because of the revenue they get from them..and if you care to respond with that you aren't generating revenue from them why on earth do you allow it?

 

[MikeK]

Strikes me as a shame that ukworkshop actually tolerate and actually permit organisations to "phish" on here because of the revenue they get from them..and if you care to respond with that you aren't generating revenue from them why on earth do you allow it?

MikeK only pawn in game of life.

 

[AJB Temple]

As a registered member, you can opt out of seeing all advertisements while logged in. To do this, click on your avatar in the upper right corner of the screen. Then click on "Preferences". A new screen will appear that shows your preferences for UKW. If you scroll down, you will see "Disable Advertising". Check the "Yes" box and click on "Save" at the bottom of the screen.

I understood the point to be Mike that the advertisements were scams and the these scams were being delivered among ads on UKW. The issue as I understood it was that UKW was not filtering out scam ads. Members wanted to feel safe here perhaps.

 

[MikeK]

I understood the point to be Mike that the advertisements were scams and the these scams were being delivered among ads on UKW. The issue as I understood it was that UKW was not filtering out scam ads. Members wanted to feel safe here perhaps.

I can't answer any of the questions about how the adverts are selected for display. When I view the UKW on a different browser without being logged in or using an adblocker, all of the adverts are from German vendors and appear to be randomly selected with no relation to my past browsing history.

Edit: I've elevated this issue to management.

 

[Blackswanwood]

I very much doubt that any site operator can weed this sort of thing out.

Part of what I do is run the anti-fraud operations for a large financial services group and what has been described here is not uncommon.

Coincidentally this has come up on the BBC news site today

Fraud epidemic 'is now national security threat' Fraud epidemic 'is now national security threat'

Unfortunately fraud is a low risk criminal activity. Often it is intertwined with other criminal activity - modern slavery, people trafficking and drugs. It will take a far more coordinated approach than Is available from law enforcement agencies today to make a difference.

Edit @MARK.B. you aren’t a *******. Some people fall for the same scam more than once!

 

[Danieljw]

A cell phone for a quid.
My daughter saw that... "you know that's not real right".
She is 12 years old...

 

[MARK.B.]

Thank you MikeK i have done as you suggested and now the adds are gone.
Appreciate that Blackswanwood ,my Mrs still think's i'am a ******* and will i'am sure take great delight in reminding me of that.
Daniel, i know i know -what can i say , i had a brainfart lol.

 

[rafezetter]

A cell phone for a quid.
My daughter saw that... "you know that's not real right".
She is 12 years old...

Maybe - but I came within seconds of getting scammed myself just 2 days ago, I had just plugged my satnav to my pc after 4 years ownership to update the maps (it had tried to take me to a roundabout that no longer existed) and almost immediately I got a popup on "A tomtom website" saying my software drivers were out of date and needed updating, give us your phone details and we'll call you to walk you through it - considering I had bought an expensive package with lifetime expansions I thought it might be legit support and knowing my father had to pay £80 to VW to get his satnav updated after about 5 years.

All seemed to be legit until I was told I had to PAY for these updated drivers "or else your satnav can't talk to our servers for day to day updates / traffic etc etc"

I then had a quite heated conversation stating I've never had to pay for new drivers for any hardware I've ever owned in 20 years of making PC's - and he went on to say that this wa simply "for access" - the satnav will still work as normal, but won't update day to day, as I need accurate satnav for work and this wasn't the first issue I'd had with wrong maps I felt I had no choice but to pay the additional cost.

I had my card in my hand and was about to give the details when the niggling feeling just wouldn't go away, so I said I'd contact them (tomtom) direct and hung up - they called again and said they would "lock my satnav out of the system if I didn't pay" - at which point I KNEW it was a scam and told them to "f off".

I contacted tomtom and told them everything in detail who seemed to absolutely not care this was happening.

Oh I didn't mention they wanted £120 for 5 years service, £180 for 7 years service or £300 for "lifetime updates regardless of satnav model" and said the service was for the persons account, not the satnav and was transferrable to a new satnav.

He was extremely convincing - and yes indian.

 

[Dovetail]

Strikes me as a shame that ukworkshop actually tolerate and actually permit organisations to "phish" on here because of the revenue they get from them..and if you care to respond with that you aren't generating revenue from them why on earth do you allow it?

As soon as the actual ad and not just a general description can be given THEN something can be done to block it. So far the information is like saying it was a brown dog that bit me, and 12 brown dogs live in the area. If anyone sees it and can get me a name or screen capture I can get rid of it. Also, anyone expecting something for next to nothing does need to check it out very well.
And it even happens to me occasionally. I just purchased a sewing machine for a small amount from an ad on Facebook. I received a tracking number and it even showed delivered. But never came and when I checked with our post master he told me the address that tracking number went to, and that it was an Amazon tracking number, but I had not ordered from Amazon. So, fortunately I used a card and can get my small funds back.

 

[Dovetail]

If you have more information please provide it. Especially the actual ad name, or a image capture of it.