Credit card holders should 'be careful when giving out credit card details'
Credit card holders are being warned to be careful when giving financial and other personal information over the phone.
Credit card holders should 'be careful when giving out credit card details'”
North Yorkshire Police issued the advice following an incident in Pickering, Yorkshire, when a telephone caller claimed to be from BT and alleged that customer's payment was overdue.
To prove that the bogus caller was from BT, they pretended to show that they could disconnect the line so that the victim could no longer make outgoing calls, before pretending to reconnect the line. In fact the scammer merely pressed the mute button and pretended to hang up.
Convinced of the caller's authenticity, the homeowner gave their credit card details, following which several hundred pounds were removed from their account.
PC Terry Triffit said: "This case highlights the lengths that criminals will go to invent a highly believable ploy to get you to part with your banking details. It is always better to be safe than sorry and a quick call to BT Customer Services will clear up whether or not this type of call is genuine."
According to the UK payment association Apacs, because of the success of chip and pin, there has been a 67% drop in losses on transactions on the high street due to fraud.
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