I've helped several exiled African dignitaries spirit their funds out from under the noses of an oppressive regime, and am now a multi-millionaire international playboy off the back of it; don't be so cynical.

The demographic of people that fall for this sheeite is big. You'd think it would just be the elderly or the stupid but it isn't. I work for a bank and I get doctors phoning up because they received a call from someone alleging to be from BT/TalkTalk/Microsoft etc who get's them to give remote access to their PC, log into Internet banking and then empty their accounts. Another common one is emails involving solicitors, they'll intercept the real solicitor emails and get them to wire funds to different accounts when house purchases are going through. The victim won't contact the solicitor to verify the details, they see a genuine looking email and have at it.



There's no big pay off these days for a fraudster to simply obtain someone's banking details. What can they really do? they set up a DD and it will be cancelled soon enough when the real person doesn't recognize it. Any sizable purchase will be blocked or held up for additional checks. They get into into Internet banking and they'll only be able to transfer to accounts the victim has already paid as most if not all banks have a secure key service.



Now they need real input from the victim to make hay, they need them to open the door which is why we are seeing such a huge increase in these emails and phone calls.



There are companies in china that will employ hundreds of people as part of complex elaborate scams. Now that is bad!

Doesn't surprise me one bit. I know plenty of professionals who are all brains and no common sense.

Quote Doom&Gloom Merchant="Doom&Gloom Merchant"My girlfriend got an email yesterday from 'HMRC' saying she had a rebate that was owed to her. Sometimes the email pops up with the name of the person at the top, rather than displaying the email address, but when you open up the email address is was something like hmrc.pst@btopenworld.com. Obviously she didn't fall for it, but the email looked pretty legit, so unfortunately I imagine some people do. Always report/block is the way to go.'" I got that one as well. Ignored it as any rebates are usual paid back when/if your tax code changes.

Quote Doom&Gloom Merchant="Doom&Gloom Merchant"My girlfriend got an email yesterday from 'HMRC' saying she had a rebate that was owed to her. Sometimes the email pops up with the name of the person at the top, rather than displaying the email address, but when you open up the email address is was something like hmrc.pst@btopenworld.com. Obviously she didn't fall for it, but the email looked pretty legit, so unfortunately I imagine some people do. Always report/block is the way to go.'" I got that one as well. Ignored it as any rebates are usual paid back when/if your tax code changes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsYoeoEE3ww

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsYoeoEE3ww

I work for one of the major banks and over the last couple of years have sent tens of thousands of customers refunds by cheque (closed accounts) and many thousands remain uncashed over a long period. Now a refund for a few pence you could argue is not worth cashing, but a good proportion is for hundreds to thousands of pounds. Using a tracing company we found 60% were still at the address on the system so have no doubt received the cheque and ignored it. Maybe some people don't believe they are entitled to free cash, thinking there is a catch even though there was a letter included explaining why.