They knew what shares I’d owned – and used that to try and con me
PENSIONERS and savers whose financial information was sold by B2C have had their lives made a misery by cold calls and con artists. These are some of their stories:
The grandfather preyed on by fraudsters
Derrick Blake was shocked when he r eceived a cold call f r om somebody who knew details of his past f i nancial i nvestments.
The caller used the information to try to scam the grandfather, 75, into handing over his bank details.
Mr Blake, who is a carer for his wife Anita, now believes the scammer got his details from B2C. The caller claimed to be from a utility company Mr Blake previously had shares in, but sold seven years ago. They told him he still had 180 shares with them and offered to buy them from him.
Luckily, he consulted his son, who immediately realised it was a scam.
He said: ‘What is shocking is how they knew all this information about me. How did they know I had those shares?
‘One caller also knew I had arthritis – where did that come from? They know more about my life than I do, it seems.’
Mr Blake, a retired Thames waterman, often receives surveys asking him very specific personal information, such as how much his house is worth, his earnings and investments.
He and his wife, who has recently suffered three strokes, have also been offered willwriting and funeral services, which Mr Blake described as ‘insensitive’. He said he ‘couldn’t get over’ the fact that his private financial details were on a database.
Ex-florist who was warned to plan for a funeral
Grandfather- of- f i ve Graham Nealer receives around three cold calls a day – usually asking him to answer personal questions ranging from where he does his shopping to how big his pension pot is.
Mr Nealer and his wife, Anita, are woken up early in the morning and are bothered late in the evening with such calls.
Mr Nealer was shocked to be told his personal information was on a database held by B2C – which includes details on his investments – and were being sold on to nuisance callers.
The same details sold by B2C appear to have ended up i n the hands of prizedraw scammers Wye Valley Promotions Ltd, which was fined £120,000 last year for ‘ misleading’ customers into believing they had won large cash prizes.
Wye Valley called Mr Nealer on his home phone and sent him letters claiming he had won such a prize. Thankfully, he did not respond. ‘I can’t think where they would get these details,’ he said. ‘ The only places that know financial information about me are my banks.’
Mr Nealer, who ran a florist with his daughter before he retired, says the nuisance calls increased after he recently turned 65. ‘People want to get their hands on my pension,’ he said.
Mr Nealer said the worst nuisance call was last week, at 8pm in the evening, when his wife answered a call from someone trying to persuade her to start planning her and her husband’s own funeral for when they die.
‘It’s totally inappropriate,’ he says.
Day the conmen from China struck
Scammers have targeted Michael West on four separate occasions and he gets nuisance calls five times a day. ‘I get a lot of surveys asking me for private information,’ he said.
Like several other pensioners on B2C’s database Mr West, 68, has had conmen try to hack into his PC. On these occasions he has been telephoned by people from China or India claiming to be calling on behalf of Microsoft.
‘They start by saying that my computer needs updating or has errors and then ask me to turn it on and log in,’ he said.
Thankfully, Mr West – a chartered engineer – consulted a computer expert he knew, who told him immediately it was a scam. On Microsoft’s website it says that such cons are unfortunately common.
Couple targeted by computer scammers
Malcolm Williams and his wife, Carol, receive at least two nuisance calls a day – and almost fell victim to the same con artists as Mr West.
They suspect they were targeted because they were on the same set of data being sold by B2C.
Both couples were told, by a company falsely claiming to be Microsoft, that their computers needed fixing so they could access it remotely and steal their personal details.
The couple get cold calls both on their mobiles and landline. The nuisance calls have got worse in the past three weeks.
Mr Williams, 66, a retired cabin crew member for British Airways, said he was outraged that his details are being sold. ‘What right has anyone got to be selling these kinds of details? We are always so careful about giving information away and never answer calls when they ask for our details.’
The disabled man plagued by calls
Retired lorry driver John Edghill receives ‘ constant’ calls f rom businesses claiming to be from the Government or trying to get him to answer personal survey questions.
The 65-year-old, who lost both his legs in a road accident in 2004, said: ‘I am so careful not to give anything away about myself. I never tick boxes on forms where it says your information can be shared.’
Mr Edghill i s also getting a growing number of calls about his f i nances and pension. He said cold calls made life a misery for di s abled people who had to struggle to get to the phone, only to find it was a call about marketing or a scam.
Widower who fears answering his phone
Kenneth Longford receives around four nuisance calls a day – which he believes is as a result of once filling in a form with a clothing catalogue.
Ever since he did so, he has received a growing number of calls ranging from PPI to prize-draws.
Mr Longford, 72, who lost his wife Vicky in 2010 to motor neurone disease, said he was ‘disgusted’ to discover his details had ended up on B2C’s database.
The father- of- two and grandfather- of-five, who lives alone in a bungalow, added: ‘I barely ever answer the phone nowadays.
‘It’s worrying for people who are more vulnerable than me, and who knows who has my information now.’