Episode 15 X-Ray

Tonight - tricked out of thousands of pounds.

Tonight - tricked out of thousands of pounds.

The heartless online scams targeting pensioners like Clifford.

You do feel as though you've been hypnotised by them

and you are completely out of control of yourself.

We set our own trap for one dodgy company!

So it says be cautious, do you trust this call?

Don't worry about that, just click on yes, ma'am!

Just click on yes!

And we all want traders we can trust - we investigate

a new scheme on Anglesey, helping locals 'Buy

With Confidence!' Tonight, we're bringing you two special

reports into online fraud and some of the latest clever scams tricking

people across Wales into handing over huge sums of cash.

Rachel has the details.

Online - it's a battle.

We change our passwords and update our security,

but the cyber criminals never stop.

They bombard us with emails and viruses, always looking

for new ways to trick us..

One of the latest scams on our radar is so sneaky,

the victims actually think that the fraudsters

are helping them.

Clifford from Swansea is in his 70s and admits he's no expert

when it comes to computers.

I book holidays and you buy stuff occasionally on there,

but I'm not computer literate at all.

One day last September, he was online when a pop up window

filled the screen of his laptop.

All of a sudden this big message took over most of the screen to say

there had been warnings or something or a virus or something or the other

and to ring this number which is shown below.

In a panic, Clifford called the number.

Convinced he had a virus, he allowed the person he'd

called to gain access to his computer, remotely.

He was then charged ?220 for anti-virus software

he probably didn't need.

And that wasn't the end of the story.

Shockingly, just a few months later Clifford was hit again

in exactly the same way.

In January, he spoke to a different company.

They convinced him to pay ?350 for more virus protection!

Then a fortnight later, another call - this time though,

instead of asking for money, the caller told Clifford

they were transferring money back into his account.

Clifford was confused and the thieves took full advantage

to deliver the really clever twist in their nasty scam.

He said, "Oh my goodnesss.

What we've done is over paid you by ?3000.

What the hell am I going to do?" he said, "I'm going to lose my job."

He seemed a nice guy and I thought gosh, if he was going to lose

his job what can I do, can I help him at all?

The conman begged Clifford to pay back the ?3,000 -

half by money transfer from a post office, the rest, bizarrely,

through iTunes vouchers.

He was pestering me to get the iTunes cards

quite urgently really.

He actually found a Tescos quite nearby that sells ITunes cards.

I said to the youngish staff on there, you're not

going to believe this but I have ?1300 to spend on iTunes cards.

Late into the night, Clifford was scanning the 52 iTunes

vouchers for the scammers.

They stayed on the line throughout to 'help' him with the process.

What Clifford didn't know, was that the supermarket where he'd

bought the iTunes cards had raised the alarm.

A knock on the window as the doorbell doesn't work, bang,

bang, went to the door and there is two police constables.

He said you're probably are involved in a scam,

put the phone down don't do anything shut it down completely.

You do feel as though you've been hypnotised by them

and you are completely out of control of yourself.

Clifford's case is now being investigated by the police.

Scams like these are also becoming a big focus

for Swansea Trading Standards.

These things are an everyday part of life and you need to be

on your guard all the time.

We've recently set up a friends against scams hub which is designed

to take advantage of modern technology so that you can circulate

messages on a regular basis about the latest scam

that we are aware of.

Many of the scammers are based overseas, but may use

UK Freephone numbers.

They tend to run on a call centre model where the people in the call

centre will be working on commissions of the amounts of

money they can extract from people.

We're going to try a little experiment.

We've had this laptop cleaned by IT experts,

so we know there are no viruses.

With Andrew's help, we're going to contact the first company

Clifford dealt with and pretend a pop up virus warning has

appeared on our screen.

Hello.

Hi, ma'am, this is Stephen calling you from the technical

team right now...

The man claims he works for Windows and is based in London.

He asks us to let him have remote access to our laptop.

So it says, be cautious if you receive request

to access your computer.

Don't worry about that, that's why I am checking

the problem to see what's going wrong into your computer

so you don't have to worry with that.

Click on yes or OK.

Oh, so you're Stephen Harris, are you?

Yeah, yep that's me.

OK, and there's like tick boxes there - allow to hear sound,

allow to take control, allow to use clipboard.

Yes, click on yes, click on yes, ma'am.

And allow?

Just click on yes.

Yeah, allow me a moment,

After a lot of typing his end - it's time for him

to apply some pressure.

Can you see it says as infections on PC?

There are some kind of infections going on into your computer

and unfortunately your email has been hacked, your network has been

infected and your computer firewall has been corrupted.

Then, some serious scare tactics.

That means, ma'am, that anyone from any part of the world

can use your computer, can use your identity to use it

as a proxy even they can use your images or anything

like that to post it on any kind of wrong things like on porn

websites or anything like that.

What?!

Someone is trying to send emails from your account to the other

people account asking for money or for ransom on behalf of you.

For his next trick, he reboots our computer,

so we think it's crashed and is badly infected.

Can you see something on the screen?

It's just black.

And if you're getting the black screen it is not a good sign.

Your computer has been very badly corrupted.

Finally, the punchline to the scam.

Don't worry, ma'am.

I'll help you out, I can go and fix it now but there will be technical

fee to install the security and to make it safe

and secure for you.

It's ?150.

?150?!

You will lose all of the data you have onto your computer

because if the windows crash you will be not able

to use the computer.

I don't think I can pay ?150, I'll have to speak to my husband

about that because that's quite a lot of money there and then.

What number can I ring you back on?

So, what does Andrew make of all that?

He was social engineering you.

So when he said he was running a virus scam he was actually listing

all the files on his computer.

If you listened you could hear him typing.

Then when he says and he's showing you your PC's been hacked

and things like that, that's obviously things

that he's typed.

Because if you can see them he's typed them at the command line.

Because it actually came up with PC is hacked, PC is infected.

In fact there was a type-o, in infected, but yeah it

said PC in infected.

And then he's saying this is terrible, you've been corrupted

and that's where they hit you with you now have to pay ?150.

Yeah.

So he was bamboozling me.

He was bamboozling you.

We asked Technomart 365 Ltd, the firm we called,

to explain themselves.

But they haven't replied!

And the other company Clifford dealt with told us they had given him

genuine IT support and denied asking him to send

any iTunes vouchers.

For Clifford, it's been a bitter lesson -

in total he was duped out of ?3,000.

It is a lot of money.

We are not wealthy people we are pensioners,

so it is a lot of money.

And we'll have more on this later.

We'll be looking into a shocking scam which has seen people all over

Wales held to ransom by cyber criminals.

Remember, if there's anything you'd like us

to look into, please do get in touch:

Still to come tonight: Chaos at Carphone Warehouse -

why is Debbie paying a packet for a phone she doesn't even own?

It was very, very stressful.

In the end I was just having palpitations every time I rung them!

Now, when you're looking to hire a gardener, builder or plumber

to do some work for you, it can be tricky to know

who to choose and whether they'll do a good job.

Let's see how people here in Beaumaris go about it.

You've got to shop around, haven't you?

Look in local paper.

Recommendations from people who've had work done and maybe go and see

the houses and see what we think.

My brother in law, he's a builder, he's built a an extension

on our house in Talwn just outside Llangefni.

I hope that went well, if he's her brother in law or that

could have been awkward!

Yes!

You've got to have a good price and a good job.

How do you go about that?

Are you a haggler?

Yeah, yeah.

You've got to haggle!

What about review sites?

Do you trust those?

Hm, yeah I read them and go by them - and you believe them.

Not all of them to be honest Have you ever had any issues?

I've just had a fence down in Storm Doris, thanks Doris.

Gone on Facebook and asked a friend on Facebook,

and then you can go to the friend who recommended them

and say thanks a lot, that was a load of rubbish.

Well, people here in Beaumaris seem to have been pretty lucky,

but Anglesey like the rest of the UK has seen its fair share

of rogue traders.

And Trading Standards here are leading the way,

launching a scheme to help protect people from the cowboys.

When Rene Rhiando, from Holyhead, was moving house, he didn't

want to take any chances with his belongings.

I had some stuff that was quite precious to me and also valuable.

There was sewing machines and delicate things that needed

to be brought over with care.

Having it moved by a professional company, from A to B,

without any damage or hiccups was really very important to me.

Luckily for Rene, the company he chose, M Removals,

belongs to Anglesey's Buy With Confidence scheme.

Members must agree to let Trading Standards check

out their business practices and pay between ?250 and ?500

a year for the privilege.

But boss Gerry Maguire feels it's a price worth paying.

We have had elderly people that have been ripped off by rogue traders,

I absolutely hate that when that is done

to vulnerable people.

If they have a Buy With Confidence trader they know that that

logo on their vehicles, and on their paperwork

and everything is in place to make sure that things are done

properly for them.

There are plenty of review sites out there, full of ratings

and glowing recommendations, but there's always a risk

that some may be fake.

Under this scheme though, customer feedback is collected and checked

by Trading standards themselves.

And for customers like Rene, that's reassuring.

I was very pleased to use somebody who was reliable and responsible.

It also made me feel very secure in the way that if anything did go

wrong I had something to go back to.

Another local business which jumped at the chance to join up

is Gwynedd Garage Doors Limited run by Carys Owen.

They came and audited everything and they gave us really good tips

and hints on how to improve things even further.

To meet the strict standards, Carys was told that staff who deal

with customers would need to have criminal record checks.

We've since had DBS checks, so again to our customers we can

demonstrate that we are safe, people have been checked

and they get the peace of mind knowing that our team

are exceptional people.

Alison Farrar from Anglesey Trading Standards is here.

Alison, the Buy With Confidence scheme has been rolled out

across a number of areas in North Wales, hasn't it?

Was there a particular need for it here?

Well, we started it here in Anglesey because we found that a lot

of people come and retire here, We were finding more and rogue

traders knocking on the doors, so we needed a solution

to this problem.

And you have heard some horrendous cases, haven't you?

Yes, we had one example where the next door neighbour phoned

into the police saying that he could see a builder

on the roof deliberately breaking tiles and he went and knocked

on the door afterwards saying I can see you have broken tiles,

do you want me to repair them?

We've had another lady who paid almost ?50,000 to one builder

and it's three years on, she still hasn't had her house

built, she's having to live in a caravan on the site,

she's in her 80s and she's really distressed.

So this scheme was desperately needed.

So how thorough are the checks you're doing on the businesses

who wanting to sign up to this scheme?

Our checks are really thorough we look at all their insurances,

we look at do they belong to the correct trade associations,

are they properly qualified when they need to be.

We also look at their credit history, are they one of those

businesses that opens and closes and disappears without paying

their bills and everything.

Would you take firm action against any of your members

who don't come up to scratch?

Very much so because we wouldn't them to bring the scheme

into disrepute, they're using the Trading Standards name

and this is a brand that they have on all of their work.

We used to get phone calls in our office saying

who do you recommend, do you have anybody on your

list that is a plumber or an electrician or a builder?

Everybody wants to support somebody around their own area.

And we're really confident that once consumers start using this scheme

it'll be a huge help to them.

Great, Alison, thank you, well let's hope the scheme helps

people.

We'll put the details of it on our website for you.

Next, if you want to upgrade your mobile,

you'd expect your phone shop to know which deals you're entitled to.

But as Omar's been finding out, it's not always that straightforward.

They say, never sign anything until you've read it.

In reality, we've probably all agreed to things without reading

all the small print.

But last August, Debbie Morris of Pentyrch in Cardiff found herself

tied into a contract which she'd never signed -

and knew nothing about!

Debbie's nightmare began when her son Lewis went

to the Carphone Warehouse store in Llantrisant, looking

for an upgrade on his EE mobile phone account.

My son came home and had an upgraded phone from Carphone Warehouse.

I went to use my phone and my phone wasn't working.

So I thought right, I'll take a trip over to Carphone Warehouse

to see what's happened.

And what did they say?

The store were really helpful, the store were admitting it,

were saying there was an error, they were blaming it on an IT error.

Lewis hadn't been eligible for an upgrade at all, but somehow,

the shop assistant had processed a new two year contract

through Debbie's EE account, not Lewis's.

So they've got your numbers mixed up, and given your 20-year-old son

an upgrade under your number.

Yeah.

So I said right, what are you going to do to resolve this,

I need my contract back to as it was, and my son's contract

back to what it was.

Debbie says the store manager told her they'd cancel the contract,

if she returned the new iPhone to Carphone Warehouse.

So she did, but the contract kept on going, and was charging

her double the amount she was paying before!

Six months later, numerous, numerous emails, at least

a dozen phone calls, visits back and fore

to the store - no resolution.

All this time, Debbie was paying ?23 a month for a contract she'd never

agreed to and a phone she no longer had.

And when she called the customer services team to complain,

they refused to speak to her.

They say you can't talk to them about the contract

that's in your name.

No because they said the contract was in Lewis name because they'd

swapped the contracts over.

In the end, I was just having palpitations every time I rung them.

Because I knew the first thing they were going to say to me

is you're not Lewis.

Debbie was then told that before Carphone Warehouse could even

investigate her case, she'd have to fork

out even more money.

You've got to pay ?500 disconnection fee, to EE,

to be able to revert your contract back to what it was!

It's just so unfair that a company as big as Carphone Warehouse can put

an individual through so much without getting it resolved.

You know, this should have been done from my first email and my contract

should have been back to as it was.

What a mess!

We asked our consumer law expert what she made of this.

This really is basic contract law, that you should not be liable on any

contract to which you have not agreed and she has

not agreed to this.

She's perfectly happy presumably to go ahead with the original

contract that she had agreed to, but to expect her to pay

for the privilege of getting out of a contract to which she had never

agreed, is just ridiculous.

Carphone Warehouse made the mistake, it's up to them to sort it out,

without her having to pay over ?500.

Six months down the line, Debbie's at the end of her tether,

but sadly not at the end of her contract.

They need to get their customer service sorted straight away -

that's why I came to X-Ray, it was my last hope,

I didn't know what else to do.

So what's going on?

Well, Carphone Warehouse told us they believe Debbie's son Lewis gave

them his mother's 'details' in error, although the

family denies this.

But that doesn't explain why, when the contract was set up,

no-one in the Carphone Warehouse store spotted that 20-year-old Lewis

wasn't a woman called Debbie and it doesn't explain why it's

taken six months to sort out this mess.

Now Carphone Warehouse have now cancelled the contract

and they've apologised.

They also say they're working with EE to improve

processes in the future.

And 'as a gesture of goodwill' they're going to pay EE's early

termination charge of ?500, they're also going to refund six

months worth of phone bills and pay Debbie ?300 in compensation,

which is fantastic news.

Next, it's time for a news update.

If you're a cat lover, listen up.

Pets at Home has recalled its AVA range of dry cat food aimed

at senior and neutered cats, after several animals collapsed

and started fitting.

The food has been taken off shelves - if you've bought some,

take it back for a full refund.

If you've ever had a loan, credit card or car finance,

you've got a bit more time to check whether you were mis-sold payment

protection insurance.

The Financial Conduct Authority has extended the final deadline to claim

PPI compensation to the end of August 2019.

And tough new penalties which came into force last week mean

that new drivers caught using their mobiles within two years

of passing their test could now lose their licence and face

a ?200 fine!

More experienced drivers will get a fine plus six points -

double the previous penalty.

So it's really not worth the risk!

Now back to the second part of our report into cyber crime.

And Rachel's been investigating the growing number of ordinary

families who are, quite literally, being held to ransom.

Last year, 4,000 people in the UK were blackmailed

by computer criminals.

Their weapon is called ransomware, a malicious programme

which invades your computer and encrypts your data.

To get it back, victims must pay up, using an electronic

currency called Bitcoin.

In January, one of the targets was Apton - a new music streaming

service in Caernarfon.

I couldn't see any of the tracks and I couldn't see my

own playlist any more.

Somebody had hacked the server and had left a ransom note there.

If we wanted our software back or our content from the server back

we were to transfer .2 of a bitcoin to their computer.

Dafydd and his customers were locked out.

And to get the encrypted data back, Dafydd was told he'd have to pay

the equivalent of ?200.

Initially we thought we might pay the ransom in order

to get the content back, but the police advised

us not to do that.

Fortunately, the firm's data was backed up, and this time,

the thieves didn't get the payout they were hoping for.

But often, victims feel they have no choice.

Imagine if you'd spent years running your own business -

then someone told you that if you didn't pay up,

your valuable work and customer details would be gone.

That's what happened a few weeks ago, to Liz Gibbs Murray

and her husband Paul.

They were on holiday when they received a worrying

text message from staff at their small accountancy firm.

They discovered they couldn't access the data on the server

and it was disappearing before their eyes.

It was literally disappearing off the screen as they

were trying to work.

The server in their office had been attacked by ransomware.

They contacted the police, but the couple felt they had no

choice but to negotiate with the criminals to get

their precious files back.

Initially they were asking for 5 bit coins.

The first day and 10 bit coins the second day to be honest

with you a bit coin was something I had never even heard of.

You have to weigh up the decision between how much that

data is worth to you.

In total, Elizabeth and Paul spent ?3,500 buying bitcoins -

then watched as the hackers emptied the account.

We sat all weekend waiting for some sort of response.

We were expecting to receive an un-encryption key that

would release the data.

By Monday we realised we had paid the money and we were going to get

absolutely nothing at all.

Although their data was backed up, the attack has caused

a lot of heartache.

The stress has been enormous, absolutely dreadful.

Very angry.

We are a victim of crime.

It is the same as someone burgling you through the front door

and taking your physical assets because that is what they do.

Across the country, police are investigating a worrying

spate of similar attacks.

Small businesses are a particular target, but it could happen

to anyone who clicks on the wrong email.

If you come through, this is our imaging laboratory.

This is South Wales Police's Digital Forensic and Cyber Crime Unit.

So what exactly happens in here?

We remove the hard drive from the computer.

The hard drives will be connected.

We'll use forensic software to make an exact copy of the original,

so we can later analyse depending on the enquiries or the needs

of the investigating officer.

So what's Richie's advice for anyone hit by ransomware?

We're encouraging everyone who is subject to such an attack

to report it to either ourselves South Wales Police at telephone

101 or Action Fraud, and we'll come out and we'll find

out if there's any lines of enquiry that we can establish

who are the suspects.

We can then put you in touch with companies which may be able

to un-encrypt that data.

Ultimately, police say simple precautions can

greatly reduce the risks.

The advice is always to back up your data.

If you've got anything valuable on there, whether it be business

documents or customer details, or even your family photographs.

There's nothing more valuable than your wedding,

or photos of your first child.

Back them up, save them to a secure location,

totally separate to your computer.

Such a horrible experience.

And if you've been affected by online scams, or if you'd

like tips on how to protect yourself from cyber criminals,

we've put some useful links on our website for you.

That's it for this week, but if you need our help

with anything at all, we want to hear from you -

are details are on your screen now.

Next week: These new homeowners were promised grand gardens,

but the developers have left them in a muddy mess!

It's just soul destroying, what should have been our dream home

and this is what we're left with.

And because of the football we're on at 7.30 on Friday next

week, instead of Monday.

We'll see you then - bye!

Hello, I'm Riz Lateef with your 90 second update.

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