A Black Friday fraudster posed as a postman and spent all my money! - Your rights when it all goes wrong

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 04 Dec 2016, 09:26

On the eve of Black Friday, a delivery man knocked on Martin's door claiming to collect his post - next thing his credit card was in the red

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Last week I wrote about Black Friday and as part of this I warned of various scams doing the rounds connected to it.

This week I received a letter from Martin in Chelmsford who has fallen victim to a Black Friday scam that I not heard of before so I wanted to include it in my column.

On Thursday November 24, Martin had a knock at the door at 8pm. The man was wearing a suit and a high visibility jacket.

He also had an ID card around his neck. The man explained that he was from Royal Mail’s online delivery team who do deliveries for not only the Royal Mail but all of the other courier services as well.

He said that there been a computer glitch which had caused addresses to be muddled and that as a consequence of this they were expecting people to receive parcels over the next few days by mistake.

He then produced a large red plastic box with a Royal Mail logo on the side and instructed Martin to leave any incorrect deliveries in the box outside his door.

Martin thought this was totally genuine. In fact, Martin explained to me on the phone: "He looked and sounded official and completely genuine. He even had an official looking ID badge."

On Monday November 28, four parcels arrived and sure enough they were not goods that Martin had ordered.

As instructed he placed them in the red Royal Mail box outside his front door. At 9m that day Martin stopped for petrol on the way back from shopping.

His credit card was refused at the till which caused him to call the help line to see what the problem was.

He was then told that he had reached his limit and taken through the purchases over the previous seven days.

Four of these were incurred on Black Friday and amounted to £2,949.99. When he got home the parcels had gone and Martin immediately knew he'd been scammed.

Post by **saddlerposty** » 04 Dec 2016, 12:36

it will never cease to amaze me how stupid some people can be.

Post by **PHARRY** » 04 Dec 2016, 18:17

Yep bloody idiot

Post by **Lounge Lizard** » 04 Dec 2016, 19:19

saddlerposty wrote:it will never cease to amaze me how stupid some people can be.

That he resides in Essex is presumably just a coincidence.

Newbie001 · Post by **Newbie001** » 06 Dec 2016, 17:12

Credit where credits due. These scammers are getting quite clever. If only they applied the same effort into getting a real job, they could go quite far.

Spedley · Post by **Spedley** » 06 Dec 2016, 21:44

So presumably the scam is that they stole his credit card and got him to leave the goods ordered with it on his doorstep.
They could have just left a note on his door after he'd gone to work saying leave at neighbour (several doors away, someone who might not know him well). Then call in after the postman has been and collect your packages from the neighbour.

Post by **Lounge Lizard** » 07 Dec 2016, 19:30

Spedley wrote:So presumably the scam is that they stole his credit card and got him to leave the goods ordered with it on his doorstep.
They could have just left a note on his door after he'd gone to work saying leave at neighbour (several doors away, someone who might not know him well). Then call in after the postman has been and collect your packages from the neighbour.

No, why involve a third party, a neighbour, that might have some common sense and become suspicious ?