Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Has anyone else seen the latest scam--El Gordo Loteria Primitiva. Joe had a letter this morning telling him that he had won 600,000 euros! BUT he should not tell anyone about it until the cash was safely deposited in his bank account. There's a whole lot of stuff on one of the rip-off seeking web-sites, which makes interesting reading. It may be tied up with the letter a couple of weeks ago from M&S Money, stopping his card, as there had been a suspect transaction. It didn't affect the whole account, as my card still worked. They sent him a new card and PIN quite quickly, which makes me think there must be a lot of nastiness going on ,for them to have evolved such a slick operation to restore normality.

midget wrote:Has anyone else seen the latest scam--El Gordo Loteria Primitiva. Joe had a letter this morning telling him that he had won 600,000 euros! BUT he should not tell anyone about it until the cash was safely deposited in his bank account. There's a whole lot of stuff on one of the rip-off seeking web-sites, which makes interesting reading. It may be tied up with the letter a couple of weeks ago from M&S Money, stopping his card, as there had been a suspect transaction. It didn't affect the whole account, as my card still worked. They sent him a new card and PIN quite quickly, which makes me think there must be a lot of nastiness going on ,for them to have evolved such a slick operation to restore normality.

Letters are relatively unusual for this sort of scam because of the postage costs - emails are sent out by the million. Of course, as you spotted, how could he win a lottery he has not entered. Surprisingly there actually is a pukka lottery called El Gordo (but not the primative stuff)

As for the M & S card matter I suspect it is coincidence. I had this some months back with HSBC who had the decency to phone me to warn me - and yes - they did provide more than adequate ID when they called. It seemed that there was a batch of cards one of which had been compromised and mine was in the same batch so they were taking precautions. In the event HSBC were willing to postpone cancellation of my card because I was travelling a few days later - too soon to get a replacement to me. They took details of when and where I would be going so they could allow use of the card in those locations only and when I got back the card was replaced.

My son got blotto in London a couple of weeks ago, put his card in a 'hole in the wall' (have you seen that Barclays actually call them that?) and got his PIN wrong 3 times, bye, bye card.

He was in no condition the following day to call the hotline but managed to the following day (Monday) and his new card arrived on Tuesday. HSBC by the way.

all very impressive ( I also bank with HSBC ) , but no-one can beat the service of American Express - I had my wallet stolen in Madrid, called from nearby bank to stop credit cards - Amex checked last movement on card with me, confirmed card blocked, and informed me that a new card would be ready for me in one hour maximum at the nearest office, about 10 minutes away - and it was....

The current scam hitting the Mole Valley area, (Dorking/Leatherhead), at the moment centres on two specific garages, one in Leatherhead, and one at Buckland between Dorking and Reigate and involves payment for fuel/goods via pin and chip cards.

Users are horrified to find large amounts of money disappearing from their bank accounts within days.

It seems this is a nation-wide scam with over 200 pin and chip paypoints being involved.

Our local Shell was asking for signatures a few weeks ago but then went back to chip and pin but the problem seems to have recurred.

J.R. wrote:The current scam hitting the Mole Valley area, (Dorking/Leatherhead), at the moment centres on two specific garages, one in Leatherhead, and one at Buckland between Dorking and Reigate and involves payment for fuel/goods via pin and chip cards.

Users are horrified to find large amounts of money disappearing from their bank accounts within days.

It seems this is a nation-wide scam with over 200 pin and chip paypoints being involved.

There was an article in the Mail about 10 days ago; money being used to finance Tamil Tigers. All the paypoints were garages but further info would be considered racist

sejintenej wrote:

J.R. wrote:The current scam hitting the Mole Valley area, (Dorking/Leatherhead), at the moment centres on two specific garages, one in Leatherhead, and one at Buckland between Dorking and Reigate and involves payment for fuel/goods via pin and chip cards.

Users are horrified to find large amounts of money disappearing from their bank accounts within days.

It seems this is a nation-wide scam with over 200 pin and chip paypoints being involved.

There was an article in the Mail about 10 days ago; money being used to finance Tamil Tigers. All the paypoints were garages but further info would be considered racist

I saw that David.

Local info tells me that it is thought the scam has been originally set up by Latvians, or other Easter Europeans.

Hooray for the Common Market !

Thank God Brits never commit crimes, eh?

J.R. wrote:The current scam hitting the Mole Valley area, (Dorking/Leatherhead), at the moment centres on two specific garages, one in Leatherhead, and one at Buckland between Dorking and Reigate and involves payment for fuel/goods via pin and chip cards.

Users are horrified to find large amounts of money disappearing from their bank accounts within days.

It seems this is a nation-wide scam with over 200 pin and chip paypoints being involved.

It's also been happening at the BP garage in Redhill... (running out of places we can fill up our car!)