spam tags

Then? you? will? LOVE? "infomercials" from sellers? of get-rich? stock? / bond? / option? schemes?

Yeah. Got a "conversational" call something like "Greetings, i am John Jones, how are you?". I responded "I think not, i think that i am talking to a robot caller". *CLICK*

Is that a "he" or a "she"?

In the UK the default is a push system so that the recipient will necessarily know your bank account and sort code from the card transaction or a physical cheque but you do not know his.

A lot of businesses have to pay for a cheque transaction and so prefer to be paid directly and publish their bank details on invoices now. There is no charge for receiving a point to point electronic transfer.

The example done to Clarkson relied on some charities where a signature is not required to sign up for a donation. A proper fraudster would have a series of fake ID bank accounts ready and waiting. Most frauds these days are actually social engineering scams based on persuading some poor sucker to move their own money to a scammers account from where it vanishes.

Guaranteed cheques went out some while ago in the UK too. US still has a lot of them floating around and Chip&PIN is new there.

Yes. You don't keep it a secret. It is toast once it has been used this way. You then move the money through a series of other confusing accounts set up for the purpose and then into some place offshore where they have strict banking secrecy. Prosecutions for fraud lag enormously behind the times. UK's InactionFraud are hopeless. When they set out they asked the great unwashed to send them any fraud spams but had their spam filter enabled so that everything sent to them bounced as *SPAM*.

Or the Google equivalent. Great idea installing a listening device connected to GCHQ or the NSA in your own home! Still, I'm sure they're completely trustworthy and value your privacy greatly. ;-D

H: 253-802-3054 H: +1 (253) 802-3054

It was in the fact-based motion picture "Catch me if you can" the book probably has more detail.