A warning - please read
07 August 2002, 03:18 PM
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WARNING - I just received this message - please read - this is a true scam going on at the moment.
To: everyone
Subject: Message from Northamptonshire Police
Below are details of a scam currently going the rounds. The police have requested that as many people are alerted as possible.
Unfortunately it is a genuine scam.
Police Report !
The reason this is working so well is it plays on your good will!
Picture the scene:-
You are sitting at home and there is a knock at the door. On answering it you are confronted by a respectable looking woman in a suit, who is lightly distressed. She explains that her car has broken down further down the road and she needs to contact her husband to come to her aid. Is it at all possible to use your phone to call him? You allow her to use the phone, but being the suspicious type 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 I need to speak to him quite urgently." She apologies again and explains they are getting him out of a meeting. A couple of minutes goes by and she starts to speak to her husband. She explains the situation to him, tells him what has happened to the car, is annoyed because she now can't get to her meeting, and asks what she should do now. She listens for a few seconds and then says, "Well as soon as the meeting finishes can you come to Cardiff Road / Leicester Road / Surrey Street (Whatever), where the car has broken down. Another few seconds go by, "OK, I'll see you in about twenty minutes then." She puts the phone down, and thanks you ever 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.
Or is it? The day or week before knocking on your door she set up her own premium rate line with a telephone company at the cost of about £150, and she has dictated that calls to that number should be charged at £50 per minute. She has dialled that number. The conversation she has had with her "husband" is entirely fictitious, 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, that call just cost you £250, the majority of which goes into her pocket, and the first you know about it 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. You've given her permission to use your phone. 5 occasions in Luton where this has been reported in the last couple of weeks.
Would anyone reading this please pass it on to friends and colleagues etc, otherwise it could cost someone a lot of money.
PC Paul Toseland
Corby Business Anti-Crime Network Administrator
Teri (MLR)
To: everyone
Subject: Message from Northamptonshire Police
Below are details of a scam currently going the rounds. The police have requested that as many people are alerted as possible.
Unfortunately it is a genuine scam.
Police Report !
The reason this is working so well is it plays on your good will!
Picture the scene:-
You are sitting at home and there is a knock at the door. On answering it you are confronted by a respectable looking woman in a suit, who is lightly distressed. She explains that her car has broken down further down the road and she needs to contact her husband to come to her aid. Is it at all possible to use your phone to call him? You allow her to use the phone, but being the suspicious type 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 I need to speak to him quite urgently." She apologies again and explains they are getting him out of a meeting. A couple of minutes goes by and she starts to speak to her husband. She explains the situation to him, tells him what has happened to the car, is annoyed because she now can't get to her meeting, and asks what she should do now. She listens for a few seconds and then says, "Well as soon as the meeting finishes can you come to Cardiff Road / Leicester Road / Surrey Street (Whatever), where the car has broken down. Another few seconds go by, "OK, I'll see you in about twenty minutes then." She puts the phone down, and thanks you ever 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.
Or is it? The day or week before knocking on your door she set up her own premium rate line with a telephone company at the cost of about £150, and she has dictated that calls to that number should be charged at £50 per minute. She has dialled that number. The conversation she has had with her "husband" is entirely fictitious, 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, that call just cost you £250, the majority of which goes into her pocket, and the first you know about it 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. You've given her permission to use your phone. 5 occasions in Luton where this has been reported in the last couple of weeks.
Would anyone reading this please pass it on to friends and colleagues etc, otherwise it could cost someone a lot of money.
PC Paul Toseland
Corby Business Anti-Crime Network Administrator
Teri (MLR)
07 August 2002, 03:41 PM
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doh!! wrong link
Pretty lady chatline scam baffles boys in blue
Don't let her in she's 'lightly distressed'...
Police forces are in a pickle as reports continue to surface of an old urban myth involving a well-dressed woman and a premium phone line.
The scam involves a "respectable looking woman in a suit who is lightly distressed" calling on the door and asking to use the phone as her car has broken down, according to an advisory note issued to local businesses by Northamptonshire Police.
More new technology, more new scams
She then calls a £50 per minute premium rate line which her accomplices have set up,
especially for the purpose and drives off, the note says.
The next thing the victim hears about it is when their next telephone bill is several hundred pounds larger than it should be.
The advisory claims this scam has been reported on five occasions in the Luton area. A silicon.com reader emailed us the warning and asked us to pass it on.
However, a spokeswoman for Bedfordshire police said that the scam had not been reported in the urban area, and described the email as "rubbish".
"It has been going around for about six months," she said.
However, a spokesman for ICSTIS, the independent regulator for premium rate phone lines, pointed out that the maximum tariff on a premium rate phone line was £1.50.
He added: "It is an urban myth. If she's a smart businesswoman in a suit she ought to have a mobile phone."
"But if there is any good to come out of it, it should remind people to be careful about who they allow to use their telephone."
Pretty lady chatline scam baffles boys in blue
Don't let her in she's 'lightly distressed'...
Police forces are in a pickle as reports continue to surface of an old urban myth involving a well-dressed woman and a premium phone line.
The scam involves a "respectable looking woman in a suit who is lightly distressed" calling on the door and asking to use the phone as her car has broken down, according to an advisory note issued to local businesses by Northamptonshire Police.
More new technology, more new scams
She then calls a £50 per minute premium rate line which her accomplices have set up,
especially for the purpose and drives off, the note says.
The next thing the victim hears about it is when their next telephone bill is several hundred pounds larger than it should be.
The advisory claims this scam has been reported on five occasions in the Luton area. A silicon.com reader emailed us the warning and asked us to pass it on.
However, a spokeswoman for Bedfordshire police said that the scam had not been reported in the urban area, and described the email as "rubbish".
"It has been going around for about six months," she said.
However, a spokesman for ICSTIS, the independent regulator for premium rate phone lines, pointed out that the maximum tariff on a premium rate phone line was £1.50.
He added: "It is an urban myth. If she's a smart businesswoman in a suit she ought to have a mobile phone."
"But if there is any good to come out of it, it should remind people to be careful about who they allow to use their telephone."
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08 August 2002, 07:26 AM
#8
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How about a different spin on this one..... instead of "lightly distressed", how about if she was "slightly dressed" or delightfully dressed"..., may put a different outcome to the story 
08 August 2002, 11:03 AM
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How about a different spin on this one..... instead of "lightly distressed", how about if she was "slightly dressed" or delightfully dressed"..., may put a different outcome to the story
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