Free phones? Or is this a scam?

Mr Paul said:
That the standard credit check by the mobile company. twice as two handsets I guess
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Close - EE owns Orange & T-Mobile and you had phones from both. We use the same credit check company because we got a better deal :D

Honestly, despite what mr police officer has said I would call both companies to confirm that the fraud has taken place and they confirm they will not bill you otherwise this might drag on a bit. Top marks if you get them to send you this in writing (as in, they confirm you owe them nothing, the incident is covered by crime number XXXX etc...). Writing is king in the land of fraud recovery.

Did you check if you had any DD's on your account from either ora/t-m/EE?

The address thing is probably co-incidence, their targetting is more about details of the person rather than address as that's easy to get (hello electoral roll).
 
Police Officer just stopped by again to give us a receipts to say that they had taken possession of the phones.

He said the car is registered to a London address and the ANPR hits for it showed that it's the first time it's been found to be making a trip out to Herts (where my folks live). If it's picked up they will pull it over, but will make enquiries at the address and let us know more tomorrow.

I've checked my bank accounts and there are no new direct debits or standing orders, nor was there any money which appeared to be missing, that hadn't come through on the statement yet so to speak. I'm obviously going to keep a very close eye on it.

As for speaking to the phone companies, the Officer did say he would take care of all that. I tried to phone T-Mobile, but when I got through to somebody they were very vague... no idea where their call centre is, but said they would call me back on the number I was calling from. Been a good few hours and they haven't.

I also tried Orange, but wasn't getting anywhere until I found one of the purchased numbers on the packing list and entered that. I was sat in a queue waiting but then the Police showed up, so I hung up.

It seems impossible with these companies to just get through to a general operator without having to press loads of menu options which aren't what you want and then getting put through to somebody who is of no use.

So I'm kind of tempted to hang fire on calling any of the phone companies for now. The Officer made out that they were in Police custody and if they want them back, they will need to send a courier for them.

Maybe I'll have another go later. Don't suppose you know a number Myshra for somebody I can call to discuss such things?
 
Nexus said:
Police Officer just stopped by again to give us a receipts to say that they had taken possession of the phones.

He said the car is registered to a London address and the ANPR hits for it showed that it's the first time it's been found to be making a trip out to Herts (where my folks live). If it's picked up they will pull it over, but will make enquiries at the address and let us know more tomorrow.

I've checked my bank accounts and there are no new direct debits or standing orders, nor was there any money which appeared to be missing, that hadn't come through on the statement yet so to speak. I'm obviously going to keep a very close eye on it.

As for speaking to the phone companies, the Officer did say he would take care of all that. I tried to phone T-Mobile, but when I got through to somebody they were very vague... no idea where their call centre is, but said they would call me back on the number I was calling from. Been a good few hours and they haven't.

I also tried Orange, but wasn't getting anywhere until I found one of the purchased numbers on the packing list and entered that. I was sat in a queue waiting but then the Police showed up, so I hung up.

It seems impossible with these companies to just get through to a general operator without having to press loads of menu options which aren't what you want and then getting put through to somebody who is of no use.

So I'm kind of tempted to hang fire on calling any of the phone companies for now. The Officer made out that they were in Police custody and if they want them back, they will need to send a courier for them.

Maybe I'll have another go later. Don't suppose you know a number Myshra for somebody I can call to discuss such things?
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Probably very little help, but with Orange, if you get the Indian call centre, demand that they put you through to someone in the UK, from what I've been told by the UK call centre they can't refuse, you'll also get a lot more help.
 
Finally got through to somebody at T-Mobile who was British and very helpful.

She basically told me that the order was made over the phone and the person was able to answer security checks relating to my details. The sort code and account number though don't match the bank account that I cancelled the card for. she ensured everything is cancelled, but I am likely to receive a couple of bills in the post which I can ignore.
 
Wow, read all of this as i found it extremely interesting.

Glad to hear it seems to be sorted, kind of.

Anything heard from the police about that blokes car?
 
Not yet.

The Officer said that the suspect was from London, at least that's where the car is registered to and all the hits for it on ANPR usually are. That's quite interesting in itself that cameras on motorways and such are actually recording where cars have been. The first delivery of phones was actually not long after 7am this morning, so was clearly earlier than the guy expected, as I don't think he was here then. The T-Mobile operator did tell me that there had been a call to ask what time the delivery would be, but that looks like he was too late on it.

Anyways, the Officer said they would stop the car if it pinged up on ANPR again, as it's now on national circulation to look for it.

I'd assume they will make an enquiry at the actual registered address, but then it will be part of the Met, rather than Hertfordshire constabulary that will have to do that. Although we are essentially the victim, I don't think the Police like to give all their cards away until they've full investigated.

Either way, he said he would update us tomorrow.
 
Nexus said:
Not yet.

The Officer said that the suspect was from London, at least that's where the car is registered to and all the hits for it on ANPR usually are. That's quite interesting in itself that cameras on motorways and such are actually recording where cars have been. The first delivery of phones was actually not long after 7am this morning, so was clearly earlier than the guy expected, as I don't think he was here then. The T-Mobile operator did tell me that there had been a call to ask what time the delivery would be, but that looks like he was too late on it.

Anyways, the Officer said they would stop the car if it pinged up on ANPR again, as it's now on national circulation to look for it.

I'd assume they will make an enquiry at the actual registered address, but then it will be part of the Met, rather than Hertfordshire constabulary that will have to do that. Although we are essentially the victim, I don't think the Police like to give all their cards away until they've full investigated.

Either way, he said he would update us tomorrow.
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Ah its good to hear.

This bloke might end up being recorded for Traffic Cops or some other police program :)

Hopefully he gets what's coming to him, labelled as a fraudster.
 
Streeteh said:
Indeed.

The fact you thought this wasn't a scam for even a millisecond astounds me!
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Give me a break. :roll eyes:

I didn't mean any kind of Apple fanism by my comment, I've got nothing against other phones.

It's no great secret that Apple has the top share of the smart phone market and cracking that is what all the manufacturers are trying to do.

The fact that I received two Nokias, a company which is in the headlines for having fallen from the top to barely struggling to get by, along with a packing slip that was marked as £0.00 made me wonder whether their had been some kind of promotion to get people who have had long contracts in good stead to use them. You give one to somebody else and then you spread how good they are by word of mouth.

Not being familiar with modern Nokias, I also had no idea how much what I'd received cost.
 
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wow, hope you get this sorted quickly.

One question though, these criminals wait for the courier to show up and then hopefully get it off of them? why on earth would a courier give it to someone at the end of the drive though?

surely they have rules they have to go to the door to confirm delivery to someone residing at that address .
 
Magic_x_uk said:
wow, hope you get this sorted quickly.

One question though, these criminals wait for the courier to show up and then hopefully get it off of them? why on earth would a courier give it to someone at the end of the drive though?

surely they have rules they have to go to the door to confirm delivery to someone residing at that address .
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I'm assuming the successful ones are good at acting and pretend they were just arriving home as the courier got to the front door.

Only way i could see it being possible.

At the end of the day i've had couriers leave items on my doorstep or on one occasion in a bin (complete with rubbish) so i can't see their concern for the packages they deliver being particularly massive.
 
Magic_x_uk said:
wow, hope you get this sorted quickly.

One question though, these criminals wait for the courier to show up and then hopefully get it off of them? why on earth would a courier give it to someone at the end of the drive though?

surely they have rules they have to go to the door to confirm delivery to someone residing at that address .
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Yeah, they hope to be able to intercept the package by claiming it's for them.

The Courier told us that the guy went up to him and said "Is that for number 5? I've just come home, I'll take it."

The Courier though just said 'No chance, I'll take it to the door for a signature"


You are right though, they are supposed to take it to the door.
I suppose there is also the chance that a courier might leave it somewhere if nobody is in, in which case the fraudster might try and find it.

This guy was apparently very nervous when he asked for the phone, so sounds like he didn't have much experience doing it, which probably means he is a pawn at the bottom of the chain.

I'm sure a clever Fraudster could easily convince a Courier. For example, waiting and then driving up onto the drive to make it look like you've actually just come home. But then you need to make sure you look like the person who owns the home.

The problem is though that this guy failed because without sounding racist or anything, there is nobody of anything other than white ethnicity on the road that my parents live. So a Hispanic man with long dread locks is hardly going to look like a local. Also, we tend to have the same delivery drivers from the local depots who do deliveries, so they know what the people are like who live about.

A dodgy guy skulking at the end of the drive, as the Courier told us was clearly up to no good. He said it was actually the first time it had happened to him, but it does happen every now and again to other drivers.
 
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No phone OS crap please, come on.

Good move getting through to T-M - at least that's one sorted. This scam is honestly as old as the hills, it's just not all that well published. At least we now know a few things:

Was made against your address but not your card so you're probably in the clear regarding banks
Security questions arn't an issue as you (presumably?) never had an account with t-m & orange so he made a new account.

I can't give you any direct call numbers I'm really sorry, it's a bit against my companies rules (I'm sorta not really supposed to post here as it is) but when calling Orange to skip any message press #. Will cut down a lot on the crap. Even skips the "Orange is committed to blah blah" that appears every 3rd sentence.

Scams in telecoms tend to be pretty brave faced, one of the ones in recent times was a gang at a call centre who worked incoming sales who would note down a customers details on paper and on the system - go home - order another phone for them to be delivered to gang's HQ. It was a bit more detailed but essentially for each order they ordered 2 phones. They got through 6 figures of stock :/

Back in the early 2000s you could send SMS's for free by pointing the phone to a different SMSC (SMS centre - sorta like a controller for SMS's) to other places. That wasn't fun to try and crack down on :( Then there was the fact that a certain mobile operator couldn't work out how to charge for abroad MMS's so they charged a flat fee of 25p for all of them. For about 5 years it cost less to send an MMS than an SMS abroad (i guess that's not really a scam though :) )

The proper way to do this scam is for them to be in a suit et al and at the entrance to the housing estate and follow the delivery van in. They then pull up and run the con.etc... this guy was awful.
 
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That's right, I've never had an account with T-Mobile, Orange or Three. I used to with Vodafone and currently do with O2, so perhaps he/they would have tried them also, but they were rejected because I have accounts already and a telephone password or something.

How do they manage to pay with a card though that isn't registered to my address? As I thought that would be rejected during the payment authorisation stage.

Had the contract letter from T-Mobile this morning, the initial payments looked to be about £46, but then the monthly payment would drop a little.

I have to head back to London shortly, so will just have to hear whatever the Police say from my parents.
 
Nexus said:
How do they manage to pay with a card though that isn't registered to my address?
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Think this is because phone orders don't have the same rules as online where there are extra checks to ensure that it's not a case of card not present fraud.
 
wow, this seems interesting, My father had £4000 took off him because someone ordered a Debit card in his name and intercepted the post, and loads of direct debits didn't go through and made his life hell for a week.

So any updates?
 
Myshra said:
Then there was the fact that a certain mobile operator couldn't work out how to charge for abroad MMS's so they charged a flat fee of 25p for all of them. For about 5 years it cost less to send an MMS than an SMS abroad (i guess that's not really a scam though :) )
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T-Mobile, I found that out when I went on Holiday to Egypt last year, 40p per SMS, 25p per MMS, I'd take pictures of all kind of things just to send a message home, was fantastic :D
 
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