I've just had an email from a close relative saying they've tried, but failed, to buy an Amazon e-gift voucher as a present for someone's birthday today. Of course it's a scam which I confirmed when I called my relative in Chopwell. These people used his e-address and mine so, at first glance, looked genuine. Anyway, I'm just posting this as a reminder to people that it's a minefield out there. I've just reported it, to the police, and told 'my relative' that I'm driving and will do it at 8pm. I doubt anything can be done but here's their email address just in case anyone messages you ... ... [email protected]
I called the police who said someone, in that field, would call me straight back ... of course they didn't. I had a follow up email, from the scammer, asking me if I'd had any luck sending the £300 Amazon voucher. I sent a reply, the start of which I've posted below ... ... no doubt the police will be straight round to question me if they see it "Yes I've had some luck, I'm lucky not to be you. I hope your mother dies a horrible agonising death and your children grow up to despise you as they should. The police were sent your messages, as soon as you sent them, and I've instructed my IT manager to do a thorough search on you ... ... etc etc etc."
I had one from an ex work colleague who I still keep in touch with. She was often in Spain with her partner (he works the rigs so was loaded and liked to spend most of his two weeks off the rigs on her at either the Ramside (Fnar Fnar) or in Spain. The scammer must have known all this as I got an email from her asking to buy a gift voucher for her, as she’d forgotten her niece’s birthday and it was really important she got it, as her niece had cancer and she was on holiday in Spain. The sick scammer scrote had realised her niece (girl of 11) had cancer and would play on my heart strings. What they hadn’t done was enough homework, as they’d have known her niece had died :-( I knew it was a scam at that point, but also knew she had other nieces, but due to the nature of the messages I had to discuss it with a mutual friend who is closer to her than me to make sure there wasn’t another niece with cancer. I reported it to the national agency who deals with these Amazon voucher scammers as it is very sophisticated and very sick. My friend still doesn’t know what happened. Why does she need to know about sick fcks like that?
To be honest mate the police won’t do anything and I’ll be surprised if they do. You’ve identified the scam. You didn’t act upon the information provided within the email other than call your relative to ensure it was a scam. Basically other than wasting a bit of time calling your relative nothing has happened to make the transfer of cash take place. As I understand the state of the UK at the moment if the police don’t turn up for a burglary then it’s highly unlikely that they will do anything about something that realistically amounts to a minor imbuggerance. They’re more concerned with arresting people for hurty words. Scammers rely on playing on emotions and giving a sense of urgency to their emails. They send out thousands of these emails a day in the hope that someone will bite. We have to accept that there are people out there who are intrinsically dishonest so we have to be on our guard against them. In an ideal world the police would investigate but as we all know, this isn’t an ideal world.
c**nts nearly got us last week. Called Amazon straight away and got the money back. The family friend in question they were impersonating is an elderly, very well educated and articulated man. The email was exactly as he would send. I can only assume he has been hacked and they have ran an email of his through AI and asked it to generate one using his style, grammar etc. I thought it odd at the time and kicked myself for after for not being on the ball more to question it at the time. Normally id have told my lot to hold off while we atleast called the gent in person to confirm. But at the time I was suffering from a heavy cold and not thinking straight. Lucky the daft c**ts had only redeemed the voucher but didn't have the brain to spend it, so a very helpful person at Amazon was able to freeze the voucher and refund us. I dread to think how many others have fallen for this. These f**kers need stringing up.
The one we were got with user the caner string aswell mate. No cancer here, I just think they take a shot in the dark and see where it hits.
