h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There used to be a thread on this topic, but it vanished when the great data breach occurred.

I don't know if anyone wants to see this thread resurrected, but I have a couple of items to add

I've been getting text messages on my cell phone of the following sort:

Two texts telling me that my Amazon account has been closed. (It has not)

One text telling me that one of my bank accounts has been locked. (I got money out of the account with no trouble after that.)

I know better than to call whatever phone number they give.

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from '148907|Ask h2g2' to 'Ask h2g2'.

Thanks. I thought this *was* Ask H2G2.

More scams. I got a telephone call telling me that an apple iphone was ordered from my Amazon account. I checked my account, and no such thing had happened

I just got a phone call claiming that an iphone had been ordered form my amazon account. I checked, and no such order was made

Thanks for restarting this thread

Glad you were able to check your account and confirm the telephone call was a scam

I received a telephone call today - a computer voice saying they were calling from 'Bank security', so I knew that one was a scam.

My mum had been receiving a lot of e-mails (10 a day) with photos of a package claiming it was unable to be delivered and asking for details so that it could be sent again. We sent some to the National Cyber Security Centre and that stopped the spamming

I keep getting text messages about my bank account being frozen.

Here's an interesting case:

Yesterday, I received a call from someone asking me to confirm if I owned my house - I said I didn't like the sound of the call, so the person said, 'No problem' and put the phone down.

Today I received a call from the exact same person saying the exact same thing. I said, 'Are you a robot?' and the person said, 'No problem' and put the phone down. I said, 'Yes, you are a robot!'

My robot has had an upgrade!

I received a telephone call just now, from the same person 'Chris', but the quality of the call was less clear. 'Chris' said the usual spiel about loft insulation, then said, 'Can I confirm you own your house?' I said, 'Are you a robot?' and 'Chris' said, 'I can assure you that I am not a robot. What makes you think that?'

Unfortunately, that question wrote a proverbial 'cheque that the robot couldn't cash' - I said, 'Lots of things make me think you're a robot' and 'Chris' said, 'Can you hear me? Hello? hellohellohellohello tsx hellohellohellohello' and then the line was disconnected. I said, 'That's another thing that makes me think you're a robot!'

Another robot call about loft insulation today.

After the usual spiel, the person (not Chris) said 'What loft insulation do you have?' I said 'You're a robot' and it said 'No'. There was a pause and it asked 'What loft insulation do you have?' so I said 'You're a robot' and it said 'No'. Then the voice cleared 'her' throat and said, 'The thing is, old loft insulation can be inefficient, so we're just looking to...' *call cut off*

A friend of mine was called by the 'bank fraud emergency line'. After she lost 1200 euros from her account, she contacted her real bank. They told her under which conditions the bank would really call you and the scammers appeared to have copied that protocol exactly.

Yikes, that is a nasty one - these scammers can be very sophisticated...

I "won" $3,000 in a contest on facebook, run by someone claiming to be Ellen Degeneres. When I tried to arrange to collect the money, I was told I'd have to submit an Apple gift card. When I submitted that, I was told there would be $500.00 more in fees for delivery, insurance etc. I told them no way last Tuesday. Six days later they are still trying to get more from me. I no longer respond to their messages