Yesterday I was nearly conned out of £5000 so today I thought I
would blog about it to see if anyone else has come across this scam.
While I was walking my dog I received a phone call on my
mobile from a so called David Thorne (the number was 07552483964). He
explaining to me that he works for an agency which supplies content for
the newspapers The Sun and The Times. He explained that he could offer
me a FREE A4 editorial space in a magazine supplement called 'Look a
little closer' which would be inserted into every copy of The Sun and
The Times tomorrow (or today now). He explained if I agreed he would
get Carol Vorderman to phone me up and conduct a sort of interview over
the phone and this content would get added to this magazine. Apparently
there was to be a feature on 'unusual things' and Carol had interviewed
5 other people, but one artist had a car accident and wanted to pull
out of the editorial, hence there being a space. He said normally they
would fill the space with advertising but wanted to see if he could
offer this slot to someone like myself. Saying I was top of his list of
people to contact. He went on about how much an editorial like this
would normally cost and it was my lucky day! How my art work is
amazing and totally unique and ideal for this supplement. I then asked
if it was really free and he said that I just have to pay for the
interview with Carol for 'about £5000', said he would need to check, but
then that money would be reimbursed by the company he works for as an
expense. At this stage I realised he was trying to con me and told him
that it sounds too good to be true so must be a con. He denied this and
went on about how if I send him my logo and images today it would be
going to print tonight, it would change my life, blah blah. I then
said to email me confirmation that I will get this £5000 back in an
email. He said I would be paying either Carol Vordermon direct or her
agents.
This is the email he sent me from exclusive@the-sun.co.uk
Good Afternoon Carolyn,
Just
a brief written confirmation regarding the editorial opportunity we
discussed on the phone for you. Confirming that we have offered you a
free of charge full page A4 editorial space in the ‘ Look a little
closer ’ magazine supplement, featuring Carol Vorderman, which will be
printing this evening and will be a pull out insertion inside every copy
of both tomorrows The Sun and Times newspapers equating to a print run
of nearly 23 million copies – looking as businesses and individuals that
provide something slightly different. Further guaranteeing for you that
although you will have to hire Carol yourself on a freelance
journalistic basis to produce the content of the space at your own
expense (£5,000 – VAT nil ), that you can claim this cost back from us
as an expense you have incurred towards producing content that we then
print. You will be liable for your reimbursement immediately after the
article goes to print, or after you physical ly confirm in writing that
we are legally allowed to run the article when our production send you
the final copy of proof before print. Images will be need to be provided
by yourselves – It would be easiest if you could reply to this email
with the images/logos you would like to incorporate into the piece.
Please include your space reference as the emails subject when replying
with the imagery you would like us to use ( Space ref: sun608 ). The
entire supplement will be also be available for digital download and
viewing on The Sun and The Times websites for between 6-12 months. You
will retain all copyrights to the article for further use prior to
print. Please reply with a short confirmation – I will call you back
shortly!
Warmest Regards
- -
David Thorne
Supplements Manager
Direct: 07552483964
Switchboard: 020 7782 6000
Email: advertising@newsint.co.uk
Paper: exclusive@the-sun.co.uk
News UK & Ireland Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London
SE1 9GF
www.dailymail.co.uk
United Kingdom
020 7782 6000
www.news.co.uk
Copyright
© 2015 News Corp UK & Ireland Limited. All rights reserved.
This website is published by News Corp UK & Ireland Limited, 1
London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF. Registered in England No 81701.
VAT number GB 243 8054 69.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Back
at home he phoned me again from this number: 020 7782 6000 which
happens to be the same number for News UK
www.news.co.uk which is a trading name of News Corp UK & Ireland
Limited. And according to this wiki page a key person is Rupert Murdoch. The news.co.uk website says on its home page that they publish for The Sun and The Times. So it all looked quite legitimate.
I
was still skeptical and told him this and he said "but I have emailed
you from The Sun (exclusive@the-sun.co.uk) and I am calling you from the
company I work for... You can see the number on the website". This was
all true. I then said to him that if this was legitimate and Carol has
already done some of these interviews then get her to call me to
confirm. If its worth £5K to her she wont mind speaking to me briefly
before I confirm to have this interview done by her. He then said it
shouldn't be a problem and I hung up, assuming I would get a call from
Carol. Obviously I didn't hear from Carol or him again.
This
email exclusive@the-sun.co.uk is listed on the contact page of The
Sun's website so it is a real email.
This and the fact that he called
me from a number which is listed on news.co.uk made me worry that I was
rude to this chap and I had missed out. But my instinct told me this
was a scam. One thing that I found odd was why there was the daily mail
url in the signature of the email.
So I decided to find
out who Carol Vordermans agent is and get in touch. Her agent is
John Miles MBE and he confirmed it was not a genuine proposal. He
actually called the mobile without a reply and he called the 020 7782
6000 which is the switchboard at news.co.uk and they confirmed they
dont know a David Thorne. So obviously fraud. I have since had a conversation with John
and he agreed when I suggested reporting it to the police. He wasn't happy as they are using his clients name. What worries me is if this chap has done this many times and conned many people. I do hope I am the first.. So I contacted Action Fraud and they decided it was serious enough to file a report. I am now waiting on someone from the police in London to phone me.
I
assume that this person works at www.news.co.uk. He was very
convincing and had I not been exposed to unscrupulous journalists in the
past I may well have fell for this.
So if you have had a similar experience, maybe using a different celebrity or different story please get in touch.