Mike's Blog

My landline phone rang showing the number 0345 203040 (which I found out afterwards is Halifax’s customer service number). The lady on the phone with a strong Scottish accent said her name was Angela and that she was calling from Visa about some suspicious transactions on my bank Visa Debit card.

Would I confirm they were mine, and then they’d release them for payment? I asked how I knew she was from Visa. She said she wouldn’t ask me for any account details but didn’t give me any further verification.

She said one transaction was for £400 with Argos, and the other was £700 with Tesco. No, they weren’t mine. I wanted to find out which bank’s card this was (I have several with different banks). She wouldn’t tell me which bank, but asked me to list the banks. Which I did. She picked one and said it was that one.

She was very clever and credible. She knew my name and address. She asked what else I’d used that card for recently, if I’d put it into a cashpoint where it might have been compromised. (Possible but unlikely, I generally use it for contactless transactions). Did I actually have the card? Yes. Had it been damaged? No. What was the current balance? Hmm, I was dubious but I did tell her approximately.

Then she raised my suspicions further by saying she’d now like three pieces of security information, the first being my mobile phone number. I said I’d give her the last four digits, but she wanted the whole number. She said this was to demonstrate their security – she’d call my mobile and the number displayed would match the customer service number on the back of my debit card.

When I pointed out that it’s very easy to spoof any phone number you like on a phone call she hung up.

I presume if I’d been convinced by the phone number spoofing, she’d have gone on to ask for other details like my account number, sort code and so on.

I did call my bank afterwards who confirmed there were no such transactions, and that even in the event of a suspicious transaction on my card it would be them that contacted me, not Visa.

This is a new one on me – so watch out for Angela, or whatever name she uses next time!