New Visa Debit Card Fraud Call Scam

[stuart]

Well new to me - though it looks like a copy of an US scam:
http://www.guidestar.org/rxa/news/artic ... -scam.aspx

"Is this Mr xxxxxx"
"Who is calling? " (being careful not to admit anything to number witheld calls)
"Hello I am from the Visa Debit Card Fraud department. We are checking on two suspicious withdrawals this morning. Did you withdraw £300 from a cashpoint"
"Just a minute I will check - which Bank is this?"
"We are not the bank, we are the Visa Debit Card Fraud department. Is your postcode SE26 xxx?"
(I didn't answer).

The guy obviously realised I was on to him and rang off. But for a moment I was almost taken in - my bank regularly makes this type of call, except they use robots not people and give you enough information about a transaction so you can be sure of its authenticity.

But if it had been first time, or I had been in a hurry or whatever - he (London accent) could have gleaned some useful info. I post this as Googling didn't turn anything up beyond the US link suggesting it is indeed new to the UK. Hopefully this will go into the Google archives as a warning to others.

(Yes I did check by a/c and there were no transactions this morning).

Stuart

[Rachael]

This has been going on for a while and there was another thread about this recently. If you had stayed on the line, they would have tried to get you to hand over the card - they send a courier to pick it up! Also, to convince you they are genuine, they tell you to hang up and call the customer care number on the back of your card. They do not hang up so the call is never disconnected, so when you dial nothing happens, but you don't know that. They then put on a different voice and pretend to be the bank you think you are calling.