Lady Barbara |Founder & Data Scientist

Attempted Crypto scam! Bit of a long post (sorry about that) So, I had a phone call on Friday from DCI Thomas Gray at the North Yorkshire Police, he proceeded to tell me that I had been part of a huge Identity fraud scheme and my ID etc had been cloned along with 1000’s of others He gave me a crime reference number and said this would be emailed to me along with his warrant number etc, this email came through but had Met police branding on it (image below) He went on to tell me that they had arrested one of the individuals involved but said I was still at a huge financial risk as apparently, they had peoples account details etc including details of crypto exchanges He started to read off a list of crypto exchanges they had listed (all the main usual ones) but pronounced some of them wrong (slightly concerning as he told me he deals with Crypto fraud and scams often) He then told me the individuals name that had been arrested. It was the name of an individual I has worked with 5+ years ago (clearly random chance). I told him this as it may have been some use etc, but he glossed over the fact and seemed shocked I would even mention it He told me he would transfer me to his superior officer as there was some details of the case he wanted to go through with me. I then get transferred to this new Police officer, who goes over these same details again and goes through ways to help improve personal protection with your accounts etc. Then he starts asking if I have any Crypto accounts and which ones, and what level of account balance I have as this will determine the level of financial risk I may be exposed to. I wasn’t going to give this information as it was nothing to do with them and it wouldn’t affect their case. He said if I have any further questions they could arrange an appointment at my local station. I declined and that’s how it was left, they would call me back if anything further had happened (His job was clearly there to reassure me and to make this feel legitimate) Within 5 mins of this call, I then get a call from a man saying he is part of the Security Team at Crypto . com Well, this is when it started going downhill for them, Crypto . com aren’t going to call me. He told me the crime reference number to prove he had just spoken to the police, after a bit of his waffle, I asked him for my anti phishing code. He was completely thrown and had no clue what it was (you would think the security team would know what this term meant) I then get an email with a verification code (as if someone was trying to access my account) and he told me to verify the email was real by going to Crypto . com’s verify page. This would prove the email was real, what I’m guessing he failed to realise was, you can also check phone numbers! Lo and behold his number was not one of theirs! I kept him on the call for a few more minutes to waste his time before hanging up. I then phoned North Yorkshire police to find out about the original number as after a quick look online it was coming up as one of theirs. Turns out they were spoofing an actual police officers’ number, and the front desk were dealing with lots of the same calls! They have no record of any Thomas Gray working there and the crime reference number and warrant number were a load of crap Scams aren’t always easy to spot! So please be careful People do want to try and steal your money! We all work hard enough to earn it and want to do what’s best to maximise it, so always do your best to protect it! Always use 2FA! Do NOT give anyone details about your account! You can always verify it’s the actual police by calling 101 and going through to their station. Always go through the official website to get the contact number, do not call them back! Here’s a link about how to protect yourself from online scams: takefive-stopfraud.org.uk/pr…