Police Warning
 

Below are details of a scam currently going the rounds. The police have requested that as many people are alerted as possible.

Unfortunately it is a genuine scam.


Police Report.

The reason this is working so well is it plays on your good will!

Picture the scene:-

You are sitting at home and there is a knock at the door. On answering it
you are confronted by a respectable looking woman in a suit, who is slightly
distressed. She explains that her car has broken down further
down the road and she needs to contact her husband to come to her aid.
Is it at all possible to use your phone to call him?

You allow her to use the phone, but being the suspicious type you stand
with her as she makes the call. She dials the number, and asks to be put
through to Mr Smith / Brown / Stevens (Whatever). She holds the line for
about thirty seconds. She continues, "In that case can you ask him to
leave the meeting for a minute I need to speak to him quite urgently."
She apologies again and explains they are getting him out of a meeting.

A couple of minutes goes by and she starts to speak to her husband. She
explains the situation to him, tells him what has happened to the car,
is annoyed because she now can't get to her meeting, and asks what she
should do now. She listens for a few seconds and then says, "Well as
soon as the meeting finishes can you come to Cardiff Road / Leicester
Road / Surrey Street (Whatever), where the car has broken down. Another
few seconds go by, "OK, I'll see you in about twenty minutes then."

She put the phone down, and thanks you ever so much for your kind
assistance, even offering you a pound for your trouble, but of course
you decline, it's no trouble.

She leaves and everything is fine.

Or is it?

The day or week before knocking on your door she set up her own premium
rate line with a telephone company at the cost of about £150, and she
has dictated that calls to that number should be charged at £50 per
minute. She has dialled that number. The conversation she has had with
her "husband" is entirely fictitious, there is a pre-recorded voice
message on the other end to give you the impression she is talking to
someone. She has been on the phone for about five minutes, that call
just cost you £250, the majority of which goes into her
pocket, and the first you know about it is when you get your bill a month
later.

To rub a bit of salt into the wound,she hasn't even committed a criminal
offence. You've given her permission to use your phone. 5 occasions in
Luton where this has been reported in the last couple of weeks.

Would anyone reading this please pass it on to friends and colleagues etc?

Otherwise it could cost someone a lot of money.

PC Paul Toseland
Corby Business Anti-Crime Network Administrator

Re: Police Warning
 

Last time this was posted didn't someone say it was a hoax?

Re: Police Warning
 

So its still good to know

Re: Police Warning
 

Can you let me know if it WAS a hoax. It was circulated to everyone where I work by the security section!

Re: Police Warning
 

I've had this e mail twice this year and once last year. It has been doing the rounds for ages. I hope it's a hoax, but I wouldn't put this sort of thing past some people.

Re: Police Warning
 

Someone may just have seen it and thought it's a good idea and decide to give it a try so it still pays to be on your guard because you never know.

Re: Police Warning
 

Its a hoax. There is a limit to the 'rate' that can be charged for a premium rate call and its no where near £50/minute. IIRC its around £2.50.

At this rate they don't get that much from the call so say she's on for 5 minutes its only going to ge ~a tenner. Not really worth all the hassle it IMHO. You could always ask her for the number and dial it yourself if it was to happen to you. IIRC All premium rate no's are 090

Re: Police Warning
 

I got the trusty calculator out and pressed a few buttons and came up with this...

5 minutes @ £2.50 per minute =£12.50

which gives a possible average of £150.00 per hour

Which in turn gives an average of £1,200 assuming an eight hour day

Which in turn will yield a possible average of £7,200 for a six day week.

Of course you would have to be at it constantly, but I suppose that call times could be adjusted to accomodate the set up time of each separate call.

Re: Police Warning
 

I think she'd be better off getting a proper job.

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I don't know... I wouldn't sniff at seven grand a week!

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It's not the best of long-term careers though, is it?

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Well of course not, Harrumph Harrumph. Quite naturally I in no way would wish to condone such dreadful criminal behaviour. Still, it makes you wonder though...

Re: Police Warning
 

more than anything

its probably urban legend

Re: Police Warning
 

You mean like the alligators in the sewers?

Re: Police Warning
 

And bonsai cats

Re: Police Warning
 

Bonsai Cats???? I haven't heard that one.

Re: Police Warning
 

Oh. I have now.

http://www.bonsaikitten.com

Re: Police Warning
 

It may also help to check this out after reading it:

A web site is selling merchandise to help people create 'bonsai kittens.'


Status: False.

Examples:

[Collected on the Internet, 2001]

To anyone with love and respect for life: In New York there is a Japanese who sells bonsai-kittens". Sounds like fun huh? NOT! These animals are squeezed into a bottle. Their urine and feces are removed through probes. They feed them with a kind of tube. They feed them chemicals to keep their bones soft and flexible so the kittens grow into the shape of the bottle. The animals will stay their as long as they live. They can't walk or move or wash themselves. Bonsai-kittens are becoming a fashion in New York and Asia.

See this horror at: http://www.bonsaikitten.com

Please sign this email in protest against these tortures. If you receive an email with over 500 names, please send a copy to: [email protected] From there this protest will be sent to USA and Mexican animal protection organizations.


[Collected on the Internet, 2002]

FOR EVERYONE WHO LOVES ANIMALS

A site that we were able to shut last year has returned. We have to try to shut it down again! A Japanese man in New York breeds and sells kittens that are called BONSAI CATS.

That would sound cute, if it weren't kittens that were put in to little bottles after being given a muscle relaxant and then locked up for the rest of their lives!! The cats are fed through a straw and have a small tube for their faeces. The skeleton of the cat will take on the form of the bottle as the kitten grows. The The cats never get the opportunity to move.

They are used as original and exclusive souvenirs. These are the latest trends in New York, China, Indonesia and New Zealand . If you think you can handle it, view http://www.bonsaikitten.com and have a look at the methods being used to put these little kittens into bottles. This petition needs 500 names, so please put your one name on it!!! Copy the text into a new email and put your name on the bottom, then send it to everyone you know. If you notice that there are 500 names on the list, please send it to: [email protected]

Origins: Bonsai kittens are not real. Nobody is making bonsai kittens. Nobody is selling equipment to help people make bonsai kittens. The Bonsai Kitten web site is a joke, not an actual promotion for the making of bonsai kittens. Investigations by law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, have already determined no real cats were harmed in the creation of the pictures used on the Bonsai Kitten web site. Signing a petition to shut down the Bonsai Kitten web site will not prevent any kittens from being harmed, because no kittens were harmed in the first place.

It was all a joke, one which some say was in terribly poor taste. If that was your reaction, take comfort in the knowledge that many others thought the same.

How could you have known the Bonsai Kitten site was a satire despite its lack of "This is a joke!" banners emblazoned across it? Satire doesn't always announce itself as such (some feel that would ruin its humor), so in cases like this, one dusts off the common sense and aims it at the problem:

• The process described is impossible -- animals so treated would die long before they could be "molded."
  
• The web site offers no way to purchase the materials advertised -- a real commercial enterprise wouldn't build consumer interest through a flashy web site then fail to offer anything for sale.
  
• "Bonsai Kitten" displays no actual pictures of the finished product -- there are no molded kittens on display.

Re: Police Warning
 

There is a very real and horrible possibility that some idiot on seeing the website might actually decide to try it though.

Re: Police Warning
 

Simple answer - hoax or not. If it happens to you, and you have a distressed lady on your doorstep, ask her in and say you will make the call for her. That way, if she is genuine, no problem. If she isn't, she will just make her excuses and leave.

Re: Police Warning
 

Got this from a website:

As urban-legends website Snopes confirms, these are spoof emails, designed to play on our fears of being ripped off. ICSTIS, which regulates premium-rate telephone lines in the UK, has confirmed that these rumours are untrue. The most expensive premium-rate (090) numbers charge £1.50 a minute.

Thus, these scams are nothing more than hoaxes – it's the emails themselves that are the trick! By forwarding them to everyone in your address book, you are wasting your time and that of hundreds of other people. So, the next time that you receive a weird email of this type, check Snopes first - or just delete it. Otherwise, you join the growing list of gullible hoaxers

Re: Police Warning
 

well one way to solve that one is to ask bt to put a barr on all premium rate numbers like i have that way of course u can use my phone.
That also helps if you were to get a dialer on your pc.

Re: Police Warning
 

There is an easier way to stop dialers being downloaded - just be vigilant. I know a lot of people who just click on 'Yes' or 'OK' without actually checking what they are accepting.

If you are not online and just installing a game then that's generally pretty safe, but if you are online, look out for them, because they are becoming more common

Re: Police Warning
 

Or use an Operating system that has security built in. ;)

Re: Police Warning
 

I take it you are not talking about Windows here...

Re: Police Warning
 

Who, me?

Would I ever.....

*cough*

Re: Police Warning
 

What do you use then?

(PS like the penguin!)