Types of Telemarketing Scams

Telemarketing basically involves cold calling people from a telephone number database, and there are a number of common scams used to try and trick the target into revealing personal information or paying for fake goods, services or investments.  You should be wary of any call that involves ‘too good to be true’ offers or claims such as:

• Calls claiming you have won an amazing prize – these will often be automated recordings that instruct you to dial a number in order to claim your prize (could be cash, a holiday or a free gift), which will take you through to a high premium rate line that will charge you lots of money before you hang up, and you may also be asked to provide your personal details in order to collect the prize or have it delivered to you.
• Calls from investment dealers – these dealers will often claim they have a ‘no risk, high profit’ investment opportunity for you, and that you will need to pay them a small initial investment in order to get the project off the ground or cover admin fees.
• Calls asking for charitable donations – although genuine charities do use telemarketing in order to bring in new donations, thieves and fraudsters can also pretend to be calling you on behalf of a charity.  If you want to give to a charity avoid doing it over the phone from a telemarketer, as you just cannot guarantee they are who they say they are, and you could try phoning the charity using the official number listed in the phone book, or visiting their official website.

Remember that if something sounds too good to be true then unfortunately it normally is, and don’t let high pressure tactics used over the phone force you into agreeing to something before you have had a chance to think it through carefully.

Skimming is quite a high tech crime and involves some quite specialised equipment and technology, and in reality it is far easier for thieves just to steal your credit cards.  However this has the drawback of alerting you to the fact your cards may be misused, and you could cancel them before the thieves have a chance to use them.  With skimming methods, the victim will in most cases not find out their details have been stolen until charges appear on the credit card statement, and this provides thieves with a more opportunity to run up as many fraudulent charges as they can.

How does skimming work?

Skimming involves attaching a false card reader to an ATM machine, so that you when you insert your card to take out money you are actually inserting into a recording machine, which will take down your card details and PIN number and transmit it to a nearby wireless source such as a laptop.  These details are then used to clone cards, which thieves can use to take out cash and pay for goods and services using your details.  These false card readers are usually very sophisticated, and most victims will still be able take money out of the ATM as normal and so will not realise that anything is wrong until too late.  Other skimming techniques can include false card readers that retain your card after have input your details making it seem as if the ATM has swallowed it, but in reality it is simply trapped at the front of the reader so that criminals can retrieve your card and use it after you have gone, and also completely fake stand alone ATM machines that are set up temporarily by criminals in public places, that have no cash inside and are simple designed to record your card details.