I had one of the nastier scam calls the other Sunday evening, quite late.
The caller purported to be a policeman from Paddington Green Station who was holding two foreigners who had tried to use my wifes cloned credit card to buy something in one of the big stores in London. When I said that my wife ( who barely ever uses a credit card) wasn't available, he then tried to change the story round to it being my card. When I asked which one, said it was difficult as the card the two had presented was plain with no markings ( as if a store would accept such a thing!) . The voice ,which was a young british asian by the sound of it, then said that I was to contact my card provider IMMEDIATELY!! and then get back to him so he could charge the two once the attempted fraud had been reported to the provider. He gave me the 101 general police number to use rather than a specific number.
One of the advantages of having worked for the local police force as a civvi for 15 years, before retirement, is that you know how a policeman talks . This guy had never spent any time with the police except as a client !! Also I had heard of this scam, somewhere.
It is based on the fact that you are urged to phone your bank straight away after talking to the "police". When you put the phone down they DON'T so when you ring the bank or card provider, you are still talking to the scammers. Depending on which particular version of the scam they are running you are;
1) Asked to provide info to the "bank" to confirm who you are, which of course includes all card numbers and PIN numbers. This allows them to create a clone card.
2) The nastier version is that they ("the bank") say that they need the card for evidence and they will send someone round to collect it . If you give them the address, lo and behold someone turns up and collects the card.
3) As a variant of 2) they try and persuade you to withdraw all the cash from your bank account which they offer to collect from you and hold securely until your account is made secure.
While it sounds a bit outlandish, they do target the elderly in particular ( perhaps I should be aggrieved!) and it does work.
I did ring my local police on my mobile rather than the landline that received the call and reported it. The scammers usually hang on to the phone for up to 10 minutes waiting for outgoing calls , so you need to either use a mobile or wait for a while or they end up pretending to be the local police
My local force were well aware of the scam took details and gave me a NFRC number which pertains to such offences and then got me to call the national body that advises and co-ordinates action on scams like this . They are very helpful and you can call them to report anything iffy or for advice. They are Action Fraud on (in UK) 0300 123 2040 or
www.actionfraud.police.uk.
The scam is known as the Paddington Green scam if you want to google it, though God only knows why they always use that station rather than any other. The real police at that location must be thoroughly sick of getting calls there!