By Richard Dyson
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The phone rings and the caller asks for you by name. ‘I’m calling from the fraud department of Barclays Bank,’ he says. ‘Can I confirm that you are one of our customers?’
You say yes. ‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘I am contacting you because we believe there has been some fraudulent use of your account, with several very large withdrawals in recent hours.
‘But before I can say anything further, we need to go through security. I’m going to ask you a few standard questions.’
Taken in: 'Jane Pelham' handed over her card after a cold call from someone who said he was from Barclays' fraud team
So goes the introductory patter to one of the fastest-growing forms of card fraud. Criminals start by identifying groups of likely victims, using data easily available from phone directories, the electoral roll or pilfered mail.
Police say the Bangladeshi community in London was targeted for some months, but that now criminals have moved on to other groups such as elderly homeowners.
The ruse is simple. Articulate, plausible fraudsters pretend they are working for banks or major financial institutions. They win their unsuspecting victim’s confidence and then, bit by bit, elicit security information, including passwords, card numbers and even PINs.
In some cases they even persuade victims to hand over their cards to a courier who has been sent round by the crooks.
The success of the fraud hinges largely on the criminals’ intimate knowledge of genuine banking security procedures, which they mimic perfectly.
Consultant oncologist Jane Pelham â€" not her real name â€" is in her 60s and lives in north London. Early one evening, three weeks ago, her telephone rang.
‘This is the Visa theft department,’ said the caller. ‘We’re wanting to check a suspect transaction. Have you just spent £1,000 at Argos in Camden Town?’
Fraud alert: Sandra Quinn
Jane was suspicious. She asked which card he was referring to. Back came the reply: ‘What Visa cards do you have?’
Jane let slip that she had a Barclays Visa debit card. At this point another voice came on the line, giving the impression that Jane had been connected to another division.
‘This is Barclays fraud department,’ the new voice announced. ‘We are querying certain transactions on your Barclays Visa card. At the moment we have no way of knowing whether this is fraud, or whether you have given the card to someone else.’
Jane says the caller was clearly implying that she might have to pay. ‘His use of language and nuance was extremely good,’ she recalls. ‘It was mildly threatening. Even so, I was suspicious, and I said, “I’m not sure I trust you.†At that point the caller replied, “Let’s go through the usual security procedures.â€â€‰â€™
And so Jane was drawn in. During the next 90 minutes she was persuaded to divulge her mother’s maiden name, confirm her address and date of birth and give her card numbers. She also gave her online banking password. At times Jane felt suspicious and questioned the caller. ‘But he simply replied that he was my fraud manager and he said everything he was doing on behalf of Barclays was for my protection,’ she says. In the end I actually apologised for suspecting him.’
Based on the information Jane had given, the fraudsters were able to access her Barclays current account online while they were talking to her.
They were then able to recite legitimate transactions she had made â€" something that reassured her that this was a genuine call.
Then the fraudster moved in for the kill. ‘Do not tell us your PINs for the cards,’ he told Jane. ‘Instead, simply key the numbers into your phone’s keypad.’ Jane did this.
‘Thank you,’ the caller said. ‘Now, Mrs Pelham, we need to analyse the chips on your cards. I am going to send a courier to fetch them from you within the next half-hour.’
Jane was not happy. ‘I said no,’ she recalls. ‘I said I would rather take them to the bank the next day and asked whether they couldn’t simply be cancelled?’
But the caller insisted, politely but firmly. Eventually, Jane relented. ‘A car was at my door within five minutes,’ she says. ‘A man appeared. I handed him the cards in a sealed envelope, as instructed, and then he left.’
Although Jane did not know it at the time, within 30 minutes attempts were made to withdraw £500 and then £800 from her Barclays current account, and £10,000 was switched from a linked savings account into the current account, presumably to fund more fraudulent spending.
Jane phoned Barclays later that evening on the advice of her son. ‘I had to go through security procedures that were almost identical to those I’d been through with the fraudster,’ she says.
‘But Barclays were good. They helped me record my details on a fraud register to prevent criminals using my details to apply for further credit.
‘Of course I keep kicking myself, asking how could I have been so stupid? But ultimately I think I was trusting rather than stupid.’
Sandra Quinn, spokeswoman for the Payments Council, the body responsible for making sure payment services work, says: ‘No one should feel embarrassed.
‘This is an extremely sophisticated type of crime in which these callers win the confidence of the victims in the most perfidious way.
‘The police do not like it to be referred to as a scam because they
think it is far more serious than that, and there is evidence that it is linked to serious and organised crime. If you lose money through this fraud, and others, your bank will refund you.’
Barclays says it is aware of this type of fraud and asks customers to be vigilant. ‘Staff will never ask customers for their online pass codes, PINs or for their cards to be collected,’ it says.
Barclays is revising the way its staff ask customers for certain security information, such as a mother’s maiden name.
Barclays says: ‘In future, we will be asking only for certain letters from this type of information.’ However, the system has yet to be finalised and introduced.
Police and the banking industry warn there are ‘variations on a theme’ of the fraud that caught Jane. In one common ploy, a conman calls a potential customer and pretends to be from a big utilities firm such as EDF.
The fraudster starts by apologising to the customer and claiming that EDF owes them money, saying something along the lines of: ‘We’re sorry to say we have been billing you incorrectly and have now found that we owe you £1,200.’
The fraudster then asks whether the ‘customer’ wants the money paid by a cheque in the post, or as an immediate money transfer straight into their account. If customers opt for the latter, they are swiftly asked to provide all the information the fraudster needs to plunder the account.
Quinn at the Payments Council says: ‘These fraudsters have done their homework. They know how companies operate and it gives them the ring of authenticity.’
Five ways to foil the cheats
Sophisticated phone fraud â€" where conmen pose as bank staff to elicit customers’ security details â€" resulted in losses of almost £1million in the first four months of this year.
So stay safe by always following these five pieces of advice:
Real bank staff will never ask for PINs, nor will they ask for them to be keyed into a phone.
PINs are only ever used at cash machines or in shops at chip-and-PIN machines. More rarely, with some banks (including Barclays), PINs are entered into ‘PIN sentry’ devices in your own home for shopping online. These are the only ways in which PINs are used.
You will never be asked for online banking passwords. They are for you alone to use to access your account.
Cards will never be collected from you or your home. The most banks might ask is for you to destr oy cards in your possession.
If in any doubt about a caller’s identity, politely end the call, check the line is clear (some crooks keep the call open to make victims think they have called their bank) and dial the bank phone number on your card or statement.
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