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00:00and I'll give you a background on today's episode oh gosh she's transferring money guys
00:05crypto scammers try to clear out a woman's current account this is urgent come on come on come on
00:12take it take it leaving our ground team trying to pick up the pieces oh my god but sir calm
00:19down
00:19principal because we're not speaking i am calm okay calm down i'm completely calm i'm just
00:25telling you that that is absolute nonsense what you're saying is absolute nonsense
00:38ah you've got several accounts ah i see yeah but just stay to the primary one okay the one that
00:46you
00:46have as a primary account today in our glasgow hq we've been joined by ethical hacker jim browning
00:55okay now scroll down a bit slowly thanks to jim and fellow ethical hacker agent g9
01:03we've been able to get access to a scam group operating out of tirana albania
01:11they're pretending to be working for a cryptocurrency trading website we're looking right now at a
01:17blockchain impersonation scam so these guys they pretend that they work for blockchain.com
01:23blockchain.com is a legitimate cryptocurrency trading platform but these scammers have no links to the
01:31company they're simply pretending to work for them to trick people out of money can you see accounts on
01:37top of the screen and what do you see do you see your account okay click on the x on
01:46the top left
01:46side then the scammers claim that they can recover lost cryptocurrency wallets for people which contain
01:54a life-changing sum of money they call people and they say to them that there has been a wallet
01:59found
02:00with their name attached to it and that it's got a ton of money in it so everybody the same
02:04thing 4.7
02:05bitcoin roughly 300 400 000 pounds depending on the day obviously that's a huge amount of money to
02:11anybody people get very excited indeed from the scammer's screen we have established the woman's name
02:17is jeanette she's being told that in order to reactivate and secure access to the crypto wallet that's
02:24in her name she will have to transfer a thousand pounds to it the second step that we have to
02:31proceed
02:31to go through is that you have to make a positive transaction okay the scammer says that any money
02:37jeanette transfers to the wallet will be sent straight back to her so this positive transaction
02:43will take place between your accounts from genie to genie you understand me but it's all a lie
02:50that cash will in fact be going straight to the scammers so it's an advanced fee fraud pay a small
02:58amount up front get beautiful big thing in future and they're pretty good at it hopefully we'll be able
03:04to get enough detail of this woman to stop her from going through with it because right now she is
03:08showing this scammer the contents of her account the scammer who is calling himself alex has convinced
03:15jeanette to share her mobile phone screen meaning he can see exactly what is in her bank account
03:22the way they get people to to show their screens is very clever they don't require remote access they
03:27don't say can you download a third party app like so many scammers do they just say join this google
03:31meet with me i'll walk you through it all and you can share your screen with me we've all done
03:36it i'm
03:36sure if you're in a meeting sometimes someone needs to share a screen to show what's going on it's
03:39not unusual anymore it's perfectly normal for the people they're talking to the photograph scammer
03:44alex is using is not of him it's been stolen from elsewhere or created using artificial intelligence
03:52to make him appear more legitimate we don't currently have any other information which
03:59could help us track jeanette down but the team is on the case so we have we have this lady
04:05on facebook
04:06and also on instagram as well yeah okay that's her there yeah so there's a picture of her at the
04:13emmerdale
04:13set she may live in yorkshire okay it seems like you did it whilst we can hear the scammer loud
04:20and
04:20clear jeanette's side of the call is very distorted
04:29but from what we can pick out it sounds like jeanette is worried about losing her money
04:35as you can see as you can see i've only got 1200 pounds in my bank account at the moment
04:44that is going to pay my bill and you don't have to do that as a company we don't call
04:51our customers
04:52over the phone and ask them to pay because there's no payment required in order for you to reactivate
04:56the account okay while scammer alex tries talking jeanette around the team is making progress in
05:05the search for her um i think i found her she's in doncaster okay doncaster though the address
05:13interceptor alice has found isn't very recent nick has uncovered some more up-to-date information
05:21okay guys it's definitely doncaster is it yeah so this is her on facebook she's put a picture of
05:27her car someone underneath this comment said you're not in hull are you she replies no i'm in doncaster
05:32so she's confirmed it from her own mouth from her own mouth and what's the number that you have there
05:36madam can you read it scammer alex is desperately trying to convince jeanette that any cash she transfers
05:43to him won't be at risk oh my dear one more time you're not going to pay anything all right
05:49yeah
05:50but do you understand that you are going to send it back to your regular account at the end of
05:54procedure
05:54madam because nobody is going to hold your money of course i can guarantee you madam because i have
06:01this phone call recorded i cannot do something that is against the rules because every phone call
06:06recorded by the fca the financial conduct authority of uk the scammer is claiming that his work is
06:12monitored by the uk's financial regulator the fca but it is a straight-up lie designed to make jeanette
06:20believe that her money is protected we've got a decent amount of info on this person pretty quickly
06:26and it was enough that because our team are brilliant they managed to work out what we're
06:31pretty confident at a reasonably high level is where she lives so we're getting our ground team from
06:36the north of england on the way there now they're going to be at least an hour i would guess
06:40to get
06:40there but they might be our best shot of getting in touch with her at the moment
06:47nick updates ground interceptors chris and nathan so we've got something for you it's a blockchain
06:55impersonation scam of a woman uh in the doncaster area okay she thinks that she's going to be in line
07:02for a massive windfall of about 300 000 pounds in cryptocurrency that she believes is stored online
07:08in her name we don't have a number for us and we can't even get in touch the scammer can
07:12see her
07:13screen so even if we did have a number phoning her would be a really noisy way to get in
07:19contact
07:19just over an hour away nick tunes back into the scammer who seems to have gone very quiet i think
07:27she
07:27might be talking to somebody else in the same room as her because he's not talking to her right now
07:32and the reason why becomes clear
07:42oh she i saw on her facebook profile that she's a barber yes that's right so let's try and find
07:48out
07:48where she's a barber because i bet she's there and not at home she just said something about
07:51didn't she i wonder if she said to him i've just got to finish a haircut and then we can
07:57pick this
07:57up yeah that could definitely be it shall we try and see if we can find maybe where she works
08:06hello yes you're back you finished yes okay you had the client
08:13all right you're finished with your client hopefully all right oh she's back she's back
08:21that's crazy we've never seen that before never seen a scammer just go i'll just patiently wait
08:25while you finish doing what you're doing and then we can continue to scam but it's it's interesting
08:29because i think normally in that situation a scammer would go no you can't possibly do that now this is
08:33urgent you must attend to this right this second actually quite slick of him to go sure take your
08:38time this 1200 that you're telling me is in revolute bank or into a regular bank account by the way
08:44all right now bear for a second place because normally this amount of money has to be into your
08:50revolute account all right the scammer is talking janet through transferring cash from her current
08:56account into her revolute account now going revolute one more time janet are you in the revolute bank
09:04yes the scammer says that if her money is in her revolute account it will make it easier to reactivate
09:11her lost crypto wallet as revolute is a crypto friendly bank and after that you have to select
09:18the account and you have to approve it yes all right so the thousand pounds it has been added
09:24your revolute account directly oh here we go she's just sent money submitted oh no she's just added
09:32just transferred a thousand pounds into her revolute account yeah oh no now select the option with this
09:39script us we need to act and fast what are our options for disrupting this group they're virtually none
09:48whatever we could do to slow him down won't slow him down very much at all and it's very obvious
09:51he's the
09:52bear in mind this is the guy who was watching episodes of our show yes this is specifically him
09:57so it would have to be of all people to get this far yeah you know he's obviously one of
10:01the more
10:01skilled ones yeah totally yeah but now it means that if we make any kind of obvious move he's going
10:07to know exactly what's going on and refresh your mail because you're going to receive a new email to make
10:13the connection with your crypto wallet scammer alex is now in the closing stages of his scam
10:21he sent janet an email which includes a link to a crypto wallet where she needs to send the
10:27reactivation payment of nearly 1000 pounds which scammer alex insists she'll get back
10:34this one that has your own details inside if it was not from your side the system of blockchain will
10:41decline all the transactions all right but if she sends the cash she'll never see it again
10:49what's the eti of the guarantee so they're slightly further away than they initially thought
10:53they're now 46 minutes away okay but it may be too late janet is on the verge of transferring cash
11:00to the crypto wallet oh gosh she's transferring money guys the gi's are too far out to stop this
11:05guys we need to find another way to warn janet an interceptor harleen has a lead
11:11kind of a janet's hair salon in doncaster yeah it's like a four minute drive from the home address
11:18is there a number yes there is
11:23meanwhile the scammer is continuing to talk janet through the transfer of her money
11:30receiving 0.013 underneath that clients to receive
11:38so that's crossed out of the list do we think it's shut down or is it i think it's shut
11:43down
11:45it's a dead end but nick has found another possible business on janet's social media profile
11:56oh hi my name's nick stapleton i work for a program called scam interceptors at the bbc i'm
12:02trying to get in touch with a lady called janet who is currently in the process of being scammed
12:07do you have a janet who works there by any chance you don't okay don't worry thank you very much
12:13bye
12:13bye we are running out of time but then we see janet entering more of her personal details on the
12:21scammer's screen there's a number there's a number there's a mobile okay oh seven
12:30i've seen a mobile number and we've now got a full address for this woman so nick's going to try
12:35and
12:35contact her she's literally about to transfer we know it's the right number we can see the call going
12:39through janet's not picking up and it sounds like scammer alex is taking advantage of the call claiming
12:47that it could be from someone who had scammed janet in the past have these guys that took the 3
12:53000
12:53pounds bothered you again janet they have i see that's terrible nick keeps calling janet
13:05uh-huh oh this is absolutely killing me we're so close
13:14turning off private number so it appears on a screen that's calling from a uk mobile
13:18come on janet take the call oh it's only the people my dear that you've been in deal in
13:23touch with okay because maybe they know that they are you're trying to take the money out now they want
13:27to stop you all right so i don't suggest you answering right now
13:33it's just scammer what i want and now another person is trying to get through to janet work
13:45i think it's the woman it's the woman that you just found no way the incoming call is from the
13:52same
13:52barber shop that we called earlier the one who said they hadn't heard of janet the woman that answered
14:00essentially said she didn't know who it was that we were talking about we then saw that number that
14:07exact number come up on that woman's phone so obviously the person is trying to protect the
14:12woman's identity she's very very wary of us understandably so scroll down down down down go
14:19down again to the bottom and click on continue he's speeding up and speeding up knowing this is
14:26that there's something happening here i agree you can hear it in his voice it looks like janet is
14:32now adding her bank card details which are needed to send the huge payment to the scammer's crypto
14:38wallet and scroll down slowly to the bottom and you see by the light one take it take it take
14:48it
14:48janet doesn't pick up the call they can confirm on the very bottom right but there's a problem oh they
14:57block the payment but she can unblock it herself that's the thing that's what we have to stop happening
15:02now janet's bank's fraud detection system has blocked payments to the crypto wallet it's buying us some
15:09time but scammer alex isn't deterred and you see something that says uh be careful that you have
15:17some warning sense from our company to that well this is the school law prevention system that we sent
15:22to our customers okay what do you see now in the screen do you see continue with the questionnaire
15:28click on it he's telling janet how to unblock the payment from her bank to him
15:36meanwhile the other barber who we spoke to earlier is still trying to get through to janet
15:42she's calling her again she's calling her again come on take the call come on come on come on take
15:48it take it take it no click on no i'm doing this myself the second option okay the barber colleague
15:55also text janet to try and get her attention this is urgent come on come on colleague i told you
16:04before those people are calling because they know that they won't have any access to your funds anymore
16:11she's getting really frustrated yeah i understand it all right you can speak with your friend later
16:15because it's very important what do you see now the head come on the scammer has talked janet through
16:21unblocking her bank's security checks and he's going in for the kill put the card number again
16:28the one that you put before the original card but then janet gets another call
16:40she left the meeting she's gone
16:44but scammer alex is quickly back on the line hello yes but janet what happened why do you hang
16:51up the phone back on the call oh bbc inspector's calling you oh that's not good
17:07janet has hung up the call and seems to be ignoring the scammers but it looks like we may have
17:13been
17:14rumbled this is uh extremely sub-ideal for us because now a guy who we've literally watched watching
17:24episodes of our show has just been told that this woman was contacted by us to stop the scam and
17:32at
17:32this point if he doesn't realize that we're in his computer that'll be a maze but scammer alex hasn't
17:38joined the dots he's sending janet an email asking her to get back in touch he's very much just
17:47continuing the scam and he's not realized that we can see everything that he's doing i really don't think
17:51he has someone's ringing me someone's ringing me it's janet's colleague hello hello i thought you
18:01was a scammer i look i i completely get it i totally understand it happens a lot believe me
18:11the colleague explains that janet is working in a different branch
18:15uh she's got your number so hopefully she will get in contact thank you so much i really really
18:20really appreciate it and look there's absolutely no problem from my side that you thought i was a
18:24scammer i would rather people were suspicious of these things all right thank you so much for the call
18:29all right thank you see you bye-bye bye bye oh oh oh gosh
18:45all right came janet on the phone hello hi is that janet it is hello janet this is nick from
18:53scam
18:53interceptor's calling oh hi how are you um i'm all right thank you just uh to explain that that man
19:01that you were on the phone to he is not trying to help you claim lost cryptocurrency he was very
19:06much
19:06trying to steal your money um and i hope it was it was it your colleague who managed to get
19:13you on the
19:13phone to say yes brilliant okay i'm really glad to hear it because yeah we were worried about you it
19:19was getting very close indeed how did you find out about how do you find out about it that i
19:23was
19:23doing that then we monitor the activity of scam call centers and we can see some of the numbers
19:28that they're calling and sometimes we can see the scammers computer screens as well and today one of
19:35the guy who was on the phone to you we can see his screen so we could see also that
19:40when you were in
19:41this google meeting with him i don't know if you realized but you were sharing your screen with him
19:46when you were in the call so he could see everything that was on your phone screen yeah and what
19:53that
19:53means is when you went into things like uh banking accounts he could he could see all of that okay
20:00and and janet do you mind if asked whereabouts are you now are you at work or are you at
20:04home i'm at work
20:05yes so just so you know we we sent two of our bbc journalists to doncaster because we were worried
20:12about you and we wanted to get you some help um they are in the area they've both got bbc
20:16ids they're
20:17very nice they're called nathan and chris they're more than happy to come and give you a hand if you
20:21want some help um sorting this out because there was quite i keep getting getting these people doing
20:28this because i i had some crypto in i've got some crypto in um in lockdown sure i bought 1500
20:37pounds
20:37worth of crypto and this is the problem where they're saying that it's worth this and they want to
20:42that help me to get it into english money to put into my bank sure now this is the problem
20:47that i'm having
20:48so what i would say about what that man called you up and told you today it's it's it's total
20:54rubbish
20:54janet he says the same thing to every single person who he rings and the idea that there's 300 grand
21:00for
21:00you out there in cyberspace i'm afraid it's just not true and if you did invest 50 in a recording
21:06cryptocurrency at some point you would need to try and remember where you bought it and go back to
21:10there to try and get it back again um but if someone's calling you up out the blue saying hey
21:15we're
21:16going to help you reclaim your lost crypto just put the phone down okay it's a hundred percent going
21:19to be a scam okay yeah all right i'm really glad that we were able to speak and that your
21:24colleague
21:24was so good to get you on the phone when she did yes thank you all right thanks janet thank
21:30you bye
21:30bye see you oh well done that wow janet was one heck of a chase we didn't have her phone
21:43number
21:43of her desk and her actual location no but thanks to getting someone nearby here it works it really
21:49works lucky for her yes because there was a thousand pounds on the line there and just still where it
21:55belongs in her wallet a couple of hours later our ground interceptors nathan and chris meet janet
22:03at her home hi is it janet my name's nathan i work for scam interceptors on bbc one
22:10is that all right my colleague chris is here as well is that okay have you just got back from
22:14work
22:15have you yeah and while nathan and chris are setting up to film the phone rings
22:26hello hello hello hello this is janet yeah
22:45in order to maintain our cover we asked janet to tell the scammer that nathan is a friend who has
22:52raised the alarm the reason why i put the phone down because my friend said it was a scam
22:59your friend told you that this is a scam yes so you're telling us that your friend that has nothing
23:05to do with cryptos has told you that this is a scam but right here how you can believe a
23:11friend all
23:12right that has nothing to do with cryptocurrencies they don't know about crypto they don't even know
23:17how the crypto works that this is a scam that's not something correct okay so if somebody tells you
23:24this is that we are a scam there should be there's some facts and proofs not only in words hello
23:30there
23:31hello there i'm janet's friend um and i'm the one that told her that this is a scam
23:37what would you like her to do now right now why are you calling her now
23:42why we are calling her now yes i don't know if you're aware but she has a constant balance of
23:47money
23:47of 4.7 bitcoins that's complete rubbish oh my god oh my god but sir calm down first of all
23:55because
23:55i am calm okay calm down i'm completely calm i'm just telling you that that is absolute nonsense what
24:02you're saying is absolute nonsense who are you to make decisions on her behalf what's your job what's
24:08your profession i'm not making any decisions on her behalf at all i'm just i'm janet's asked me to
24:14for some advice you're stopping you're stopping her to make decisions so who are you i'm not
24:19stopping her to make any decisions i'm janet's friend i've come to help her and i know 100 that
24:26you are a scammer you're giving her the wrong advice obviously because a real fan first of all
24:33we do the act like that because i don't believe my friends stopped me to make this kind of prove
24:41oh
24:41yeah prove can you prove can you prove that you are from a legitimate company i prove it to her
24:49i
24:49don't have to prove it to you sir right we know that you're a scammer please do not call this
24:54number
24:54to anybody all right do not call this number ever again we know that this is a scam goodbye
25:02this is what i keep getting all the time it's ridiculous so how often are you getting these calls
25:07at least once a week and i just say i'm not interested i'm not interested but the pressure
25:12even just me speaking to him then yeah i could feel him just pressuring me into sort of yeah you
25:19know
25:19what what right have you got to make decisions on janet's behalf and all that sort of thing it's
25:24terrible isn't it oh it really is yeah to know how to prey on you janet confirms that she did
25:33indeed
25:33lose 3 000 pounds to a scammer just months earlier how are you feeling now after what's happened over
25:41the last few months you know having lost what you have oh don't trust anybody i won't be trusting
25:47anybody whatsoever again well i just feel because that money i was saving up to buy a motorbike and i
25:56haven't been able to do that now the three grand that i had so that's actually all the savings you
26:02had yeah going towards a motorbike yeah yeah so sorry it's my own fault isn't it really for trusting
26:12people you know it's not your fault this is it happens it can happen to anybody do you know nathan
26:19and chris helped janet contact her bank to alert it to the scam attempt and to triple check she
26:26didn't send any money to the scammer this time and um you know just don't be afraid to just hang
26:33the
26:33phone up in the future or just if you don't recognize the number just don't accept the call
26:37just put the phone down so anyway thank you so much anyway take care thank you all the best yeah
26:45we put all our allegations to these tirana based scammers who initially closed their operation
26:51and went underground however the criminals have since re-emerged running the same scam
26:59targeting people across europe and canada we will continue to monitor their activity
27:05and have passed all our information about this scam call center onto the authorities in albania
27:16so if you think you've been scammed then there are some steps you need to take straight away
27:22firstly and most importantly call your bank the number is usually on the back of your bank card
27:28then remove any software that scammers asked you to install on your phone or laptop if you're not
27:33sure how to do this then ask a friend or family member change your passwords on as many online accounts
27:39as you can and then keep a close eye on them over the coming days to see if there's any
27:44unusual
27:44activity tell your friends and families so that if they receive any online approaches claiming to be
27:50from you that they could be fake contact report fraud go to reportfraud.police.uk or call 0300 123 2040
28:00if you're in scotland report the crime to the police on 101.
28:03one and if you've had a scam text report that to 7726 that's spam as it's written on your phone's
28:11keypad the more that you report the more that can be done to stop them
28:16so
28:41so
28:44you
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