by BeWary
Wed Aug 23, 2017 12:49 pm
Hi there,
I hope this is the right place to post to warn others. My friend's Facebook was hacked this morning and I received a message from her via Messenger asking if I had online banking, and if could help her by accepting money for a sale she'd made online and forwarding it to her. Straight away I tried to call her mobile and got no answer (she was at work), and I replied to the FB message asking her to call me rather than share financial information over Messenger. I got a message saying she was working on her desktop and couldn't use her mobile and could I call her via WhatsApp - they gave a new phone number and told me to block all others. At this point I was certain it was a scammer. Her account was then deactivated or deleted. (I later got talking to her - she had indeed been scammed and I sent her the Action Fraud website link for reporting it.)
I Googled the UK mobile number they provided (07487201098) to see if it had been listed on any website, and sure enough it was - people talked of a British girl asking for money. Here's an example website showing it - first page has some dodgy comments but second page shows the same scam - FB message asking for help with money transfer: http://who-called.co.uk/Number/2,07487201098
Another friend rang the number and said an English woman answered. I don't know if the people who run this site (thank-you for that!) do any kind of professional scambaiting or have expertise in finding scammers behind phone numbers; am sharing it here in case you do. And to warn others to be particularly wary of this number. (Hopefully, anyone reading this site should already know not to be sharing financial info over social media!
) My friend told me one other friend of hers did unfortunately provide bank details to the scammer. :/
Found this site after Googling and it looks like a great awareness-raising tool; will be sure to share it - keep up the great work!
I hope this is the right place to post to warn others. My friend's Facebook was hacked this morning and I received a message from her via Messenger asking if I had online banking, and if could help her by accepting money for a sale she'd made online and forwarding it to her. Straight away I tried to call her mobile and got no answer (she was at work), and I replied to the FB message asking her to call me rather than share financial information over Messenger. I got a message saying she was working on her desktop and couldn't use her mobile and could I call her via WhatsApp - they gave a new phone number and told me to block all others. At this point I was certain it was a scammer. Her account was then deactivated or deleted. (I later got talking to her - she had indeed been scammed and I sent her the Action Fraud website link for reporting it.)
I Googled the UK mobile number they provided (07487201098) to see if it had been listed on any website, and sure enough it was - people talked of a British girl asking for money. Here's an example website showing it - first page has some dodgy comments but second page shows the same scam - FB message asking for help with money transfer: http://who-called.co.uk/Number/2,07487201098
Another friend rang the number and said an English woman answered. I don't know if the people who run this site (thank-you for that!) do any kind of professional scambaiting or have expertise in finding scammers behind phone numbers; am sharing it here in case you do. And to warn others to be particularly wary of this number. (Hopefully, anyone reading this site should already know not to be sharing financial info over social media!
) My friend told me one other friend of hers did unfortunately provide bank details to the scammer. :/Found this site after Googling and it looks like a great awareness-raising tool; will be sure to share it - keep up the great work!