Here are this week’s top three callers:
1. 01254368742 from Blackburn with a tellows score of 7
2. 0166886633 from Bamburgh with a tellows score of 8
3. 01412582118 from Glasgow with a tellows score of 8
We have a new top spam candidate this week: 01254368742 from Blackburn. Citizens of the UK beware, this is a new phone scam method that is about to strike not only Great Britain, but also other English-speaking parts of the world.
There were more than 2000 search requests for this number on Tellows since several cases of PPI fraud attempts have been reported. Fraudsters have been contacting people, saying that they won a PPI claim for the loan somebody apparently had. What loan? Never had one? No matter, cold callers hope to catch people in desperate financial situations to fall for their scam.
Main principle of the scam: the caller is trying to convince people that they are owed money for an unclaimed PPI insurance. The method of the fraudulant calls is simple: assuming the called person has a loan, stating exactly how much money the person is owed by the unclaimed insurance and offering their service of getting the client’s money back – after prior payment, of course.
After other scams, such as the so-called “PC doctor”, lotteries or surveys, fraudsters are now trying to be paid for gaining money back for clients who had an unclaimed payment protection insurance (PPI). PPI, also known as credit insurance, insures consumers that they will be able to pay off their debt in the case of losing their income source or in case of illness or death. The difference between serious insurance agencies and fraudsters is that the latter will ask consumers to pay for the service in advance and/or give out their bank details on the phone.
As many Tellows users reported, the number followed the classical scheme of sending out ping calls first in order to check whether phone numbers are active. babs reported:
This number rings my mobile every day. I do not answer. I looked up number is Accrington Lancs,. I always leave it to go to voicemail. never leave a message. Have now reported it to my network provider. I withheld number and rang it. A machine picked it up, said Elsworth Associates.
First complaints about PPI matters from this number were lodged since the end of June. User scott wrote:
they are a ppi company that can claim cash back on loans etc, it is possible on mobiles to block a certain phone number like this one. hassling us peeps ive blocked the number so good luck.
User Carol is not impressed at all:
Called asking to help me “claw back PPI” when I said I didn’t require their services they said they would remove me from their database. Yeah, right!
Beware and don not fall for this. In order to prevent other scam methods to flourish, do not hesitate to report spam/scam numbers and their ways to Tellows. Thank you for your cooperation!
Yours,
Team Tellows
