Category: Scams

I usually blog about online scams, but this is an offline scam you can fall in to SO easily, it’s actually quite scary!

Smart Parking Ltd

My friend was driving in a town centre and fancied some lunch. He saw a Toby Carvery, pulled into the car park shared with sofa shops etc, and had a rather nice lunch. Usually in these car parks you have to be visiting a business or have actually bought something – but lunch at the Toby Carvery firmly ticked this box!

He came out to the vehicle to find a yellow ticket on his windscreen claiming to be a ‘PCN’ and a bloke dressed up in a traffic warden costume next to the vehicle.

It is perhaps important to digress slightly here and say that Smart Parking Ltd acted illegally in calling the ticket a PCN. Only councils and government departments are allowed to use the word PCN. In reality Smart Parking’s PCN is just a speculative invoice. 

The ‘PCN’ and the idiot dressed up as a traffic warden claimed that the vehicle was guilty of “obstructive parking”. The ‘warden’ took my friend to the front of the vehicle to reveal he had parked no more than FOUR INCHES over a crooked and broken white line that had random criss-crosses in it. “That path is for a wheelchair and you have blocked it”, said the idiot parking man in his thick Nigerian accent.

Of course, in reality this couldn’t possibly have been for wheelchairs as there was a curb and the end of the ‘path’, a flounce of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, neither was it properly marked. Nevertheless the ‘warden’ told my friend “just dispute it, they always cancel them”.

So my friend wrote to Smart Parking Ltd, and said this was clearly nonsense and he wouldn’t be paying the ‘fine’ of £90 (reduced to £45 for good behaviour – how nice of them!) and asked them to cancel it. Of course, Smart Parking Ltd wrote back saying in fact that it was valid and demanded payment.

Smart Parking Ltd even stupidly sent a picture of the terms and conditions displayed on a car park sign. However, there was a problem with this… The photo of the sign was taken in an indoor car park – yet the vehicle was parked in an outside car park. Duh!

Smart Parking Ltd’s letter droned on about how they did no wrong and how anyone who enters the car park agrees to the terms and conditions – yeah right!

Unfortunately for Smart Parking Ltd, the friend they tried to scam is a legal genius who eats scammers for breakfast and smashes spurious legal claims to pieces. Smart Parking Ltd don’t know this at this point….. but they soon will 🙂

A few weeks went past a letter arrived from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd, although of course it wasn’t a letter it was a NOTICE (lol). This letter threatened if the ‘debt’ of £136 was not paid it would be transferred to the “legal team for their consideration” – frightening!

…The letter was ignored.

Then another letter arrived from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd, this time it claimed it was the “final chance” to settle the case with Smart Parking Ltd. It even kindly reduced the amount from £90 to £136; no seriously, I have that the correct way round!

Then he received the original letter from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd again, now demanding £160.

And another…

And another….

And another…..

And another……

Then another letter from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd. This time it was a NOTICE (lol) of “intended court action”. It still demanded £160, although Debt Recovery Plus Ltd has never stated how the amount has nearly doubled from the purported ‘PCN’!

Then another NOTICE, which was back to the original letter from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd, and demanded £160.

And then another…

It’s perhaps worth stating at this point my friend, being the legal genius he is, told Smart Parking Ltd he did not wish to have his details passed on. He also said further contact from Smart Parking Ltd and/or their servants/slaves or agents would be considered harassment. 

Six months later and 12 letters later from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd, a NOTICE (lol) arrives from Zenith Collections. It claimed to be “Without Prejudice”, although unclear as to what it was without prejudice to. It said that this time Smart Parking Ltd would accept £100 for the £90 ‘debt’, which inexplicably was claimed to have increased to £160.

Laughably, this letter said at the very bottom in extremely small writing you cannot read “Zenith Collections is a trading name of Debt Recovery Plus Ltd”. No surprise there then.

Suspiciously, the following can be noted between the two letters:

• Debt Recovery Plus Ltd have a trading address of Dukinfield (Manchester).

• Zenith Collections have a trading address of Ashton Under Lyne, you guessed it, also in Manchester.

• Despite supposedly trading from two different offices in the Manchester area, both ‘registered offices’ for Debt Recovery Plus Ltd (trading as Zenith Collections) and the actual Debt Recovery Plus Ltd are in London, W1H 1DP.

• Debt Recovery Plus Ltd and Zenith Collections both use 0208 numbers to call for ‘payment’. Odd for companies clearly based in Manchester!

• A 2 second Google search of W1H 2DP has as the first hit “Virtual Office Services in London” – well, well…

Give these scammers their due, they do like a registered office in London to look big and professional.

Then he received a letter from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd being Debt Recovery Plus Ltd this time.

And then another…

And this is where it gets really exciting! A letter from Gladstones Solicitors! We all love a solicitors letter as they are a usually full of shite and overly threatening and aggressive – and usually when cases to get to Court, the Judge tells them off for it!

This time the letter claims the £160 is owed. But of course fails to explain how the claimed debt has risen from the original £90 ‘PCN’ to £160. That is, by the way, a breach of the solicitors code!

The letter claims that a payment should be made to Debt Recovery Plus. But hang on… the top of the letter says the ‘Claimant’ is Smart Parking Ltd? So how can Debt Recovery Plus Ltd instruct Gladstones Solicitors on behalf of Smart Parking Ltd? As my friend points out, they can’t.

Debt Recovery Plus are not Solicitors and have no legal right to practise litigation on behalf of Smart Parking Ltd. It should be Smart Parking Ltd instructing solicitors themselves, and of course if they should, seek the sum of £90 not the £160.

More fundamentally than that, Gladstones Solicitors should never have taken instructions from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd, as they (DR+) have no legal entitlement to work on behalf of Smart Parking Ltd.

Anyway, as to the rest of Gladstones’ letter, it was complete BS. They threaten that defending the claim their client (presumably, actually Smart Parking Ltd) may make, will increase the cost – which is basically another tactic to unjustifiably threaten and intimidate someone.

They claim that costs are likely to increase the debt, which may be: Fixed Costs, Court Fee(s), Judgement Costs and even Warrant fees and costs.

Once again this is complete rubbish to write in a pre-action letter. The costs they refer to are ONLY recoverable if they WIN the case. So these threats are simply more nonsense to make you pay a company who has no legal entitlement to act for the other company whose “debt” it actually is.

Of course what Gladstones do is try to threaten you in to paying, and make all kinds of stupid claims to stop you from defending your case. This is a breach of Solicitors Code and if you receive a letter like this you should report it to the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Basically Gladstones is yet another dodgy solicitor firm, and seem to get away with it through threatening people.

My friend is baiting Gladstones and Smart Parking a bit more, before whacking a massive injunction against them in the High Court and suing them for harassment.

However if you have received a ‘PCN’ from Smart Parking, it is advised you follow the POLPA appeal process, and ‘do it by the book’. There are plenty of websites for appealing these ‘PCNs’ on the internet.

If your appeal is refused and you are being harassed by Smart Parking Ltd, Debt Recovery Plus Ltd or Gladstones Solicitors over a debt you do not owe (or do not think you owe), contacting a solicitor is advised, as Gladstones on occasion have been known to issue vexatious claims.

Hopefully this article is of use and watch out for scammers when you park your car in retail outlets!

P.S I wonder how long before I’m threatened with defamation action again…..  

I dont know what is happening recently, but the last few scams that have been brought to my attention have been SMS scams, not the usual email scams. And the last two have been sent to me!

This PayPal Scam is 100% going to catch some folk out. I’m quite impressed by the fact they managed to get a domain with PayPal in it, and also get an SSL certificate issued as that should have been flagged up due to the URL containing a copyrighted word.

I got a text from +441252560473 (which strangely isnt a mobile number here in the UK – Google says its the area code for Aldershot) and it read;

I visited the site on an unused browser and the homepage is harmless – convincing, fully responsive and links out to the PayPal website, but harmless;

I thought I would have some fun and typed in a dodgy email and a made up password – here is me thinking that would be the scam (as if I had put my real info in, they could log in and buy stuff with my PayPal) but oh no – how wrong was I! That was just stage 1!

The next page scared the crap out of me as it has been done so well, so convincing, as you type the card details in they appear on the card, and when you click in the security code box, the picture of the card spins round using some jQuery or something. This is possibly the most professionally made scam Ive ever seen.

I thought I would have more fun by putting a load more fake info in telling the people on the other end I thought they were assholes – pressed submit and it came back saying that my card was invalid, and I needed to try again!!

What that basically means, is this PayPal Scam is trying to either confirm my details are correct by authorising them like an online shop would – or right there and then they were trying to charge my card for “an amount” of money.

Wow.

Sophisticated, well designed…. This IS going to earn some scammy a-hole a load of cash!

I visited it on Edge and it didnt say anything about it, but when I visited in Chrome and Firefox they both flagged it up as a dangerous site, which is good;

If anyone visits it on a Mac let me know what Safari says about it.

Please share this article to the people in your life that you feel may fall for this type of PayPal scam – these scumbags disappear into the night with your money if they get it so lets try and stop it happening in he first place.

It seems the scammers are turning to SMS scams, now that emails scams are not fooling anyone any more. We had the Maxwell Fund scam moving towards using SMS messages to snag people, and now there is this.

Amazingly, I actually received this SMS message myself today – normally I get sent them as these fools really are wasting their time contacting me 🙂

Text reads;

“Congratulations! Your mobile number has won the sum of $1,000,000 in our Atlantic Mobile Lotto. Contact us via email on atlanticmobiledraws@gmail.com for claim.”

The phone number is (44)07484638724 (tried calling, it went to voicemail and said mailbox was full)

1. An official lotto wouldn’t use Gmail
2. As if!

I will post the crux of the scam when they reply as it’s not clear how they would blag money from me but it is a SCAM and they will probably try to get me to buy something to become eligible for the prize.

More on this one soon…. 🙂

UPDATE: 15/08/2016

One of my awesome commenters sent me the email these goons forward to you if you reply to the text – big thanks to Nikki.

Atlantic Lottery Corporation 14th August 2016
PO Box 5500
922 Main Moncton, N.B.
E1C 8W6
CANADA

Dear Prize Winner,

Congratulations to you from the entire staff here at Atlantic Lottery, in your acquisition of One Million U.S. Dollars only ($1,000,000.00 USD) in our Mobile Promotional Draw held in New York ,U.S.A on Wednesday 10, August 2016.Your Mobile number with serial number 3422/16 drew the lucky numbers: 16-24-27-40-41-42 Bonus 23, which subsequently won you the lottery in the Atlantic 49 Category of this promotion. All Mobile numbers used for this lottery draw,were selected randomly from Worldwide Telecommunication companies.

The Atlantic Mobile Promotional program takes place weekly and the program is held to financially support individuals worldwide due to the global financial crisis, the draw process is carried out by our Computerized Ballot System and all winners were randomly selected from a series of three million mobile numbers from different continent. You should count yourself lucky that your mobile phone number was among the five(5) lucky numbers that was selected to win $1,000,000.00 USD each in the August 2016 edition of this program. Be informed that your winning prize money also comes with other consolation prizes such as a Atlantic Lotto T-Shirt, Face Cap and a Atlantic Lotto Customized Apple iPhone 6S {Courtesy of Apple}.

Following our claims procedures, a Certified Bank Check will be issued in your name after your claim information have been verified and approved by the Lottery Corporation Payment Service (L.C.P.S). Below is our WINNER CLAIM FORM which you are required to fill and return back to us for proper verification and processing of your claim.The requested information are needed for reference purpose, update of our record and to avoid any misrepresentation of fact which might lead to disqualification or double claims. You MUST be 18 years of age or older to claim this prize. To proceed with the release of your winnings to you, kindly fill up the details below and return to us via email:

WINNER CLAIM FORM:

1. Full Name:
2. Contact Address:
3. Nationality:
4. Age:
5. Winning Mobile No:
6. Sex:
7. Marital Status:
8. Occupation:
9. Amount Won:

Upon the receipt of the required information, we will immediately commence with verification and processing of your claim so as to facilitate payment to you. All winners are expected to comply with the claims procedures, as these are mere formalities that would guarantee pay out to all qualified winners in the various category. For security reasons, you are advised to keep your winning information confidential until your claim is processed and your money remitted to you, this is part of our precautionary measure to avoid unwarranted abuse to this program by some unscrupulous elements.

Congratulations once again.

Sincerely,

Alan Mitchelson (Mr)
Claim Processing Officer
Atlantic Lottery Corporation

And the email looks as follows;

I am contacting the official Atlantic Lottery people to see if they are aware of this scam – stay tuned for updates!

EDIT Nikki got sent another email with attachments, here it is – this also clears up the scam, as in this email they mention a delivery cost which they will try and get you/me/anyone to pay. This is how they make their money!

You’d pay £500 (or whatever they will try and charge) if you thought it would get you £1million!

Dear User

This is to acknowledge the receipt of your e-mail with the duly completed “Winner Claim Form”. We are delighted to inform you that you have been approved and cleared as the rightful winner of $1,000,000.00 USD which is equivalent to £781,526.65 GBP by our Winning Verification Department (WVD). Attached here is a copy of your “Winning Notification Letter” and the Lotto result. Also be informed that your Winning Certified Bank Check,Original Winning Certificate, Clear Source of Funds Certificate [C.S.F.C.] and other consolation prizes such as Atlantic Lotto T-shirt, Face-Cap and an Apple iPhone 6S has been forwarded to our affiliated courier company for delivery to you. For security reasons, your Winning Parcel has been securely sealed by us. Find below the contact details of the Courier Company:

Courier Name: Citynew Logistic Service
Contact Person: Steven Kramer [Dispatch Director]
E-MAIL: dispatch@citynew.com

You are advised to send the courier service an e-mail (dispatch@citynew.com) for their “Delivery Cost”.When contacting them,you are to include the below “Claim Reference Number” as your subject.You are also advised to write down the Claim Reference Number and save it.

Claim Reference No: AL849938110

Note: When contacting them you are to quote your Full Names,Claims Reference Number, Contact/Delivery Address and your Mobile Number so that they can honor your e-mail and attend to your Order.

Once again i say congratulations and always update me on your dealings with the courier company.

Yours Truly,
Alan Mitchelson (Mr)
Claim Processing Officer
Atlantic Lottery Corporation Inc

The two attachments were as follows;

Will post the official statement when it lands…

This lottery is not a scam, but if you are UK based and get an email or text message about a CANADIAN lottery…. think about it 🙂

EDIT – 29th 09 2016 – The official statement has landed!

Good afternoon,

Thank you for your email and bringing this to our attention. This is not be a legitimate message from Atlantic Lottery. In order to win a prize through Atlantic Lottery, you would physically have to purchase a draw lottery ticket through one of our retail locations in Atlantic Canada.

Unfortunately there are many scams out there trying to get money and personal information from people, pretending to be Atlantic Lottery and other lotteries across the world.

There is nothing we can do about this issue, however we do have a number for a company called PhoneBusters: 1-888-495-8501. Their job is to deal with these scammers. If you would like, you can give them a call to report the email you received if it does appear to be a scam.

Also, here is the anti-fraud center’s website with this exact scam listed. It looks like they are aware and are warning people of this scam. http://www.antifraudcentre-centreantifraude.ca/index-eng.htm

If we can be of further assistance please let us know.

Thanks,

I dont think ive ever had to do a 2nd follow-up on a blog post before!

My previous Maxwell Fund Scam posts (#1 #2) have grabbed the attention of many people around the world who have also received a message, apparently from the Richard and Angela Maxwell Lottery Fund.

Well it seems they are adopting a new approach to the scam, and they are reaching out to people via their mobile phones and SMS messages.

I got this email the other day;

Tuesday 2nd August 2016 8pm. I have just received a text message saying :- Your Mobile Number just won £650,000.00 pounds from Richard and Angela’s Donation For verification send email to richardangela112@gmail.com . The mobile number it was sent from is +44784202330. I expect this is still a scam. What do you think ?

I informed the lady that this was a scam and thanked her for bringing it to my attention.

She told me that she had also been in touch with the Action Fraud squad who showed an interest in the info – I have a number of people in the comments of one of the other posts who also say they have had the text message so if the Action Squad need more info – shout up!

If you have had an SMS message from the “Maxwell Fund” then it will be a scam. Comment below and post the text and phone number it came from so we can keep tabs on these asshats.

Do not reply or ring these a-holes as then you are showing your number is valid, and you’ll probably get your details sold.