I had one yesterday telling me there was a problem with my bank account.

My Barclay account, I asked. Yes they replied - I don't have a Barclay's account.

Wound them up for a few minutes, but had to go out so left them listening to nothing.

Some of the best fakes tend to be from those imitating US-based firms, such as Ebay, Amazon and the social media giants, especially as they often don't include 'change your account' requests, but fake 'updates to our Ts & Cs' and to 'click the link below to read the new terms of business.

It then could take you to a fake page which requests you login to your account, which, with Amazon, means they often have access to buying stuff because your credit card details are stored there. You'd then only find out about the crime once you either get your credit card bill or if you are very dilligent when buying an item yourself and find one you didn't buy on your list of recent purchases.

Rarely does the credit card firms bother to try and contact you to check the voracity of non-geographical purchases (i.e. on the interweb) these days during the actual purchase process - it happened to me, once, when I tried to buy some computer hardware from one of the (reputable) UK online firms about 15 or so years ago, as they temporarily blocked my purchase and phoned me on my mobile to check (it then went through second time very smoothly). Never again did this happen, despite me buying stuff directly from the States, or even when I was 250+ miles away down in Cornwall on holiday (even the first time I went).

Unless you know you've been phished, there appears to be very little done to keep an eye on account usage these days for lower level purchases. Email providers still don't seem to take much notice of phishing scams, and the 'blocking' facilities on my Outlook.com account are nigh on useless, given how easy it is for scammers to change email addresses these days.

The worst ones are when it matches something you expect. Nasty. It’s so easy to fall for. I did once have a phine call from Microsoft. I asked them if they enjoyed making a living by stealing money from honest people. Perhaps it made them question their career path.

I've had loads of calls from Microsoft that were not them, never answered them though as the number was found to be a company from India, but they left messages saying I had a virus and need to speak to me (no name mentioned) urgently

Nice one Bathtub. Made me smile. I agree with Lief. If you happen to be dealing with Joe Bloggs Bank and get a scam call or email at the same time you need to be on your toes. E mail, like social media is easily tracked and hacked so never do anything important through e mail. Just not worth the risk. Glad we all seem to fairly savvy here.

Cheers Concrete