WE HAVE all encountered the telephone scam, commencing ‘I am speaking from the technical department for your computer’, and many people have lost large sums of money to this fraud. But it seems that the perpetrators have played that one out; that people are now wise to the trick, and they are trying a new variation on this theme.
This afternoon I received a telephone call in very poor accented English purporting to be from BT, informing me that my router is faulty, will damage my computer, and needs to be replaced with a new one, which BT will be sending me.
All well and good, so I thanked him and asked if he could tell me the address he had on record for me. That floored him, as did my next request for his name, which he seemed at first not to know.
But he eventually decided on the name Thomas Ashcroft, and claimed that he would need to install new software on my computer, and could I please log on. At that point I provided him with a few choice words to add to his limited English vocabulary, and rang off.
I have informed the police, who have entered a log number 172 for today’s date, and Action Fraud on 0300 123040, and amwriting this as would be grateful if The Wiltshire Times could publish this letter as a warning to local people.
David Maunder
Church Street
Semington