I'm entitled to £4,489 plus £249

[Richard Owen]

Wow! Just had a phone call from the delightful Kathleen.

She works for the Ministry of Justice and Finance (which obviously means that George Osborne and Kenneth Clarke are really the same person. Who knew?)

Apparently, the Ministry of Justice and Finance have been beavering away on all our behalves recovering unfair banking and credit card fees. They've recovered £4,489 plus £249 for me.

All I need to do is pop down my local shop with a PayPoint and deposit £249 into something called UKASH. This will give me a unique 19 digit code. All I need to do is call Kathleen with the last 10 digits of this code and a Mr. Gregory Harding will call on me this afternoon with a cheque for £4,489 plus £249.

Marvellous.

I'm off to the local PayPoint, although Kathleen warns me that I can't tell the people at the PayPoint that the money is for verification purposes because if I do they will charge me an extra £179.

Mum's the word.

[Richard Owen]

Actually, I am off to the local PayPoint but only to let them know that there's an Advanced Fee Fraud operating in the area and that they should probably make people aware of it.

Pity, £4,489 would have come in handy.

[Eleanor]

Ah, so Ken's George. Until a couple of days ago I thought he was Theresa 

[M]

Guess they've let the cat out the bag now!

[Eleanor]

 

[Richard Owen]

I am an evil person.

Kathleen called back to see if I'd got the payment record.

I'm afraid I told her that I'd had a call from Sarah who also worked for the Ministry of Justice and Finance and she'd offered me £4,847 plus £249.

Amazingly, they rustled up a Sarah who apologised for misleading me in her phone call to me this morning and the amount really was £4,487. I was transferred back to Kathleen who again apologised that I had been called multiple times and given the wrong amount.

I told her it was a different Sarah. Kathleen asked me for her contact details. I gave another scam number which had shown up on my phone this morning.

Even more amazingly, I got a call back within two minutes from this other number confirming the amount I'd made up and the phone call with the Sarah I'd also made up. Jessica Williams who is the fictitious Sarah's supervisor even gave me her direct line.

I told her I couldn't go to the shop to do the payment because I'd been barred for fighting.

So I now have to go to the Post Office and get a MoneyGram.

Unfortunately, there isn't a bus until Tuesday.

You'll have to wait until then for an update, scam fans.

[Ted]

I've applied to the Bank of England for £75 billion. I promised them that I would spend it all and not use any of it to either pay off any existing debts or put in to any savings accounts in order that all of it would increase UK GDP and create jobs. Waiting for a reply.

[Stuart]

[noah]

Ted, you don`t get nowhere by thinking small. £75bn probably won`t even buy you Greece. How do you expect the Bank to take you seriously?

[petertc]

all joking aside, my missus had a call from tucan claims simular sort of thing back in febuary of this year.
but this was to look to see if we had a claim against anyone.
what did she do gave them the credit card number before asking me.
Now october still can get the money back even the credit card people will not reclaim the money for us. even though we have a letter from the company saying we would get a refund.
We have emailed phoned , next thing will be a letter copied to BBC watch dog to see if that gets us anywhere.very very ****** off about it

[Richard Owen]

all joking aside, my missus had a call from tucan claims simular sort of thing back in febuary of this year.
but this was to look to see if we had a claim against anyone.
what did she do gave them the credit card number before asking me.
Now october still can get the money back even the credit card people will not reclaim the money for us. even though we have a letter from the company saying we would get a refund.
We have emailed phoned , next thing will be a letter copied to BBC watch dog to see if that gets us anywhere.very very ****** off about it

Pop over to Money Saving Forum. Lots of advice for things like this.

Since you have a letter from them you will have an official address. I'd be tempted to go the, ask for the money, letter before action, small claims online, route.

The claims company should be doing the refunding, not the credit card company.

[tange179]

....If anybody phones you, or sends you a text or a letter trying to offer you something for free, ask yourself, why did they not just send you the money or a cheque in the first place?

Scratch cards promising an instant win of holidays abroad, cars, cash (yes some are lucky and win the car), but more often than not you get a tour of a timeshare on that free weekend break instead......

Food for thought....

[clivejo]

I am an evil person.

Kathleen called back to see if I'd got the payment record.

I'm afraid I told her that I'd had a call from Sarah who also worked for the Ministry of Justice and Finance and she'd offered me £4,847 plus £249.

Amazingly, they rustled up a Sarah who apologised for misleading me in her phone call to me this morning and the amount really was £4,487. I was transferred back to Kathleen who again apologised that I had been called multiple times and given the wrong amount.

I told her it was a different Sarah. Kathleen asked me for her contact details. I gave another scam number which had shown up on my phone this morning.

Even more amazingly, I got a call back within two minutes from this other number confirming the amount I'd made up and the phone call with the Sarah I'd also made up. Jessica Williams who is the fictitious Sarah's supervisor even gave me her direct line.

I told her I couldn't go to the shop to do the payment because I'd been barred for fighting.

So I now have to go to the Post Office and get a MoneyGram.

Unfortunately, there isn't a bus until Tuesday.

You'll have to wait until then for an update, scam fans.

Id be slightly curious as to what happens when you get this long number she wants.  What would happen if you transferred a penny, and got the number?  Then pass the details on to the police of the account they are using to operate the scam and get it closed down. 

[Ivan]

I wouldn't bother wasting your time with the Police. I strongly feel that all fraud should be reported, investigated and fraudsters prosecuted. However, the UK's policy on this is that there is so much of it going on, that they can't investigate more than a small fraction, so they go for the highest value fraud (stealing £millions or brand new cars etc). The small stuff - a few hundred pounds here and there goes ignored...which is why so much goes on. I reported a fraud recently - police didn't want to know, Trading Standards didn't want to know, but eventually discovered that fraud must be reported to 'Action Fraud' to avoid wasting police officers' time on investigating real fraud. This organisation can even give you crime reference numbers over the phone. They're very helpful, but they do point out that they only use their database to work out who is operating big fraud, and they just go after a small percentage of those reported - oh, and they won't update you on their actions or lack thereof (infringing the criminals' rights under the data protection act, I guess).