Some scammers fooled my 80-year-old dad into getting 3 phones through his phone contract. They had the phones sent to his house, then arranged for Royal Mail to pick them up (saying the ‘new SIM card’ they sent needed to be returned). Now I’ve got their home address from the Royal Mail label… and it’s listed on Companies House with names. After a quick search, it looks like they run a security company.
What can I do with this info? Will any fraud squads or the police actually do anything about it? Is it worth even trying? The frustrating part is, they already got the phones picked up, and I can’t get through to Royal Mail to stop the shipment (and I doubt they’ll help anyway). Feeling lost, but I want to report this to someone, besides the phone company, who’s slow to respond.
Edit: The address the phones were sent to has a security company registered there called ‘Unmatched Security Services and Training Excellence.’ Seems like they’re mocking us. I’ve already reported it to the phone company, the bank, and Action Fraud, but it doesn’t seem like much else can be done!
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Scammers aren’t dumb. The address you got likely isn’t theirs. It’s probably the address of someone they scammed into being a parcel mule. Scammers never use their real info when pulling a job, so no, these aren’t ‘amateur scammers.’
@LORE
You’re probably right. I figured that at first, too… but I called them ‘amateur’ because their WhatsApp profile pictures and the way they communicated made it so obvious to me that they were scammers. I guess that’s how they weed out people who might catch on. It’s frustrating… I wish there was something more we could do! If the person at the address has been scammed, wouldn’t stopping the parcel help them too?
You need to call the police right away. If the phones haven’t been shipped out yet, they might try to help. But don’t go to that address yourself—just let the police handle it.
Why haven’t you reported this to the police yet? Call 101 and tell them what happened. The address you have is probably just a decoy, either it’s an unwitting parcel mule, or they’ll reroute the mail during delivery. Get a crime reference number now.
Call the phone company too. They can blacklist the IMEI numbers of the phones. And go to CIFAS (the anti-fraud organization in the UK) and pay for a protective registration for your dad. It’s £30 for 2 years, and it’ll stop anyone from taking out credit in his name without extra checks.
@Hushpappident
Honestly, I thought the police wouldn’t care. I’ve already called Action Fraud, but I’ll try the police now… Thanks for the tip about CIFAS. I’ll do that too.
FraudBlockersD said: @Hushpappident
Honestly, I thought the police wouldn’t care. I’ve already called Action Fraud, but I’ll try the police now… Thanks for the tip about CIFAS. I’ll do that too.
Yeah, the police probably won’t do much (most crimes in the UK don’t get solved), but having a crime reference number helps. If the phone company tries to give you a hard time about it, you can use that as proof if you ever need to go to the Financial Ombudsman. This scam is happening more and more these days.
@Hushpappident
Action Fraud told me not to bother with the police because they’ll just refer me back to them. But they did give me a crime reference number.