I received an automated telephone call today claiming that £600 had been charged to my Visa credit card.
I telephoned my credit card company (using the telephone number on my credit card) and was informed that no such payment had been made. I think the purpose of the call was to get my credit card details.
Glad they didn’t catch you out. There’s quite a few phone scams out there at the moment, knowing what I’ve had and my work colleagues have spoken about.
Just in the last month, I’ve had a similar call about a Visa credit card, my broadband connection needing someone to connect to my computer so they can optimise the speed and HMRC who apparently after me for some fine or other. So far, my credit card is still allowing me to spend, my video calls are still going through and I’ve had no nasty brown envelopes in the post.
One thing to watch out for on phone calls is that apparently scammers sometimes stay on the line but play a dial tone so you think it’s cleared - then you call your bank but are actually speaking to the scammers. So try dialling from your mobile or another line, or phone a family friend first who they can’t imitate so that the line is cleared.
I had the same call yesterday morning at 7.30, and traced the number 0208996488, not a bank phone number. Obviously targeting Forest Hill telephone numbers
I think they can spoof numbers to make it seem like they are local and therefore increase the chance you will answer and engage. I’m not certain about this in the UK, but it’s definitely possible in America.
Sadly yes, number spoofing is very easy and spoofing a local number / ‘area code’ is a common traffic.
It would also be easy for the telcos to block most of it as calls are carried into and out of their networks, but for some reason they don’t appear to do this - possibly because there is some money to be made carrying calls.
Apparently the law is that cold callers have to display their phone number for caller ID in the UK, and Ofcom can fine companies that don’t do this. Obviously fraudulent scammers don’t care much for the law though 
In the last month or so I’ve had 2 calls from “HMRC”; one telling me that a warrant would be issued for my arrest unless I immediately paid them arrears of £693 and another telling me they needed my bank account details to process a refund of £437. I just put the phone down on both and, surprisingly (haha), there has been no follow up!
A new one today - I got one from Amazon allegedly about billing for my Prime account. 
Amazon, that company well known for it’s use of the telephone.
I had one earlier in the week from ‘Amazon’ about my Prime account payment and own just now from ‘Visa’ about a 600 quid payment. Both robots, both slightly grammatically incorrect “if you don’t have made this payment’, but weirdly showing up as a local 0208 699 phone number
Interestingly I have read that these are made this way on purpose - the error alerts the more suspicious targets resulting in a pool of less suspicious targets making their way through to the next stage of the scam, which then results in a higher success rate when the more costly non-automated processes take over.
Interesting and I could see it being true. Although there are so many genuine errors out there that seem to go unnoticed, I wonder if it’s a pretty small subsection that spot these clues.
Amazon fake has stepped up this week - I had two yesterday. It feels like I’ve had more since moving my landline from BT to Virgin. I wonder if lost in the murk of what I was paying for on BT, there was some sort of spam filter.
I got a new, at least to me, one about 8 this morning from the National Crime Agency when a pseudo posh voice told me that they would be cancelling my NI number and freezing all my assets unless I tapped 1 to contact them! It came from a bog standard mobile number 07551 924407.
I remain suspicious my details with BT were given out by someone there, as I started getting classic BT scams the day after my contract with them was agreed to be cancelled (your broadband will be cancelled today unless you press 1 etc, but more worrying a code generated to my mobile and knowing some details of my account - I then changed some of those details also which stopped that), and then some other calls also. I did contact them about it, but they just basically told me I couldn’t prove it and they didn;t investigate it. So we changed our landline number when we moved to a new provider and it’s been much better since.
I had a text message a couple of days ago saying a payment had been set up on my Lloyds account MRS A JOHNSON!
That is the 2nd ‘bank scam’ I have received recently.
We have a call blocking phone that screens all calls, that really does help.