This was the first text message at 11 58am yesterday (Sunday)

HSBC: Fraud Alert for Stuart Higgins. Your OneTimePasscode for your transaction of £249.99 to Western Union India is 787654. REMEMBER never share this code with anyone, not even with bank staff. If this WAS NOT requested by you please reply NO. REF:3DCXE

Followed by by:

HSBC: Thank you for confirming this was unauthorised, please contact us immediately on 0330 043 7073. REF:3DCXE

WARNING

This is a distressing experience I have been asked by HSBC to share and to ensure bank customers are well aware of the scale of sophistication that fraudsters are using on a daily basis to hack into and steal money from your personal bank accounts. I hope it is both informative and useful.

I came so close to being the victim of a HSBC scam today (Sunday) which was so sophisticated and elaborate as to be unbelievable.

It started with a text message headlined Fraud Alert asking if I had authorised a payment to the Western Union in India for £249.99 which I had not.

The text message offered a refetence number and the option of replying ‘no’ if I had not made the payment.

I texted back ‘no’ and received an immediate text response headed HSBC saying ‘thank you for confirming this was unauthorised’ and asking me to ring a number beginning with 0330 which I felt comfortable with as a number I would ring for these issues.

However, (my first mistake) I called the number from the link and the answer said the number was ‘unavailable.’

I immediately assumed it had been my blunder even though I had used the link so I redialled and reached ‘Hsbc security.’

Again in hindsight my suspicions should have been aroused.

There followed a very detailed discussion about my debit card transactions on the same morning which were accurate but he also asked about a large payment for over £1800 for an Air B&B booking which I had not made.

This was becoming more scary.

He had known my name from the start and I never provided any of the codes or my account details or sort codes or CVC number but I did provided a reference number from the first text message.

Rather bizarrely he asked me to click on a HSBC logo which somehow appeared on my mobile phone someone and then I had to click on three dots on the bottom left of my phone screen which seemed to create a ‘share screen’ option.

Here was the killer when he asked me to put my debit card on a flat surface and use my mobile phone camera option to position it over the top but NOT to take a photo of my card which I did and then felt I had been scammed.

Sure enough I checked my bank balance at the same time and the money had been debited almost immediately

At one stage he asked if I was on WhatsApp and asked if he could call me back on WhatsApp with a HSBC logo to be ‘more secure.’ I did this too.

When you read this you may feel I have been stupid and naive and it is true I am a chap of older age and not as scam-aware as others.

I subsequently called the number on the back of my HSBC debit card beginning with the four digits 0345 and spent 57 minutes trying to resolve this as well as giving a full and detailed version of my distressing experience.

The bank cancelled my card immediately and assured me the Air B & B payment will be cancelled although the payment is shown as still ‘pending’ seven hours later.

Apologies for the length of this post but it does truly reflect the level of sophistication and techy cleverness of these scam hackers and the challenges faced by the banks to keep our money safe from these faceless and disgusting fraudsters. I do hope this is helpful.

The Fraud team at HSBC recommended that I shared this experience with all my friends and through and personal social media platforms as it is such a common a problem.

Beware Scam Scum:

Stuart Higgins

 

 

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