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Reader strings along bank impersonators for hours
The caller claimed urgency to cancel the reader’s credit card, asked whether they wanted to keep the same PIN, and sought PIN details during the call.
A Guardian Money reader described a long phone scam in which fraudsters impersonated a bank and claimed there was a bogus payment to Argos of more than £1,000. The reader said they never made the payment and do not bank with Barclays, but decided this time to keep the scammers on the line rather than end the call immediately.
According to the account, the initial automated call was followed by a man who later called back as “Adam,” with the number showing as “No caller ID.” The fraudsters used a series of security-like questions, culminating in asking how much was in the reader’s current account, which the reader said was “around £80,000.”
The caller then urged immediate action, including cancelling the credit card and issuing a new one. The reader said Adam asked whether they would like to keep the same PIN and requested the PIN, and later insisted the reader look for a credit card, while the reader said they could not find it and claimed it was with their wife.
The story says the interaction lasted about three hours, with the scammers disconnecting and calling back multiple times, and then pressing for the reader to provide sensitive payment information. The Guardian Business account also frames the scam as part of a broader pattern of bank impersonation calls.