'McDonalds' burger-lers making millions
Greater Manchester Police are warning that scammers claiming to be ordering computer kit for burger chain McDonalds have already tricked £2m in hardware from sales departments at "high-profile electronic companies across the UK." GMP say the fraudsters use various 0845 phone numbers and email addresses to persuade gullible sales …
Never heard of the hamburgler? Pun fail!
Ha ! Yes they have a very good rep...
I can only imagine there have been similar scams before, but question:
"After starting out with computers, TVs and laptops the scammers are now also ordering food, wine and spirits."
McDonalds stocks wine and spirits? (and a more cynical one, food?)
While this is very unfortunate for the suppliers involved, they could have used a little bit of common sense.
If you receive a large order from a free email address, asking for expensive goods to be delivered to nondescript rented warehouse space, with 30 days credit, and that doesn't ring any alarm bells in your head, maybe you need it checked.
Then again these are salesmen we're talking about, they probably thought they were being clever by sweet talking the scammers into ordering more stuff than they actually asked for.
Anyone who accepted an order from "McDonalds@Aol.com" must *really* be gulliable..
You think people might stop and think when they saw "mcdonalds@aol.com".
Guess they're the same ones falling for the 'facebook login' article.
McDonalds have been well and truly burgered.....
Surely the phone numbers and email addresses and with some of the domain names have an audit trail, or were they set up with false info too.
Dear <hi-tech supplier>
I can assist in recovering the goods fraudulently taken from you. Please forward £4000 towards my costs..
Uve Been-Had
Abuja
... then some company has taken those calls and passed them on to another number, which ought to be traceable.
If the companies operating the 0845 redirection are too stupid to have permanently recorded the numbers they have forwarded the calls to, or have forwarded to a mobile without positively verifying the identity of their customer, then those companies really ought to be prosecuted for aiding and abetting -- because that's exactly what they have done.
If they did record the transactions you'd be squealing about privacy issues.
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"tarnish the good reputation of McDonalds"
You owe me a new keyboard... Good reputation my ar*e!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!! Good one DI Colburn - you're wasted in the police, a careers in stand-up beckons!
PS any sales department OKing 90-day credit to "someone at McDonalds" who's using an @yahoo.co.uk email address to place the order deserves all they get....
I presume the whois details on these domains are faked?
...the Hamburgler has bottomed out after his career high in the 80s.
Maybe we'll see an assassination attempt on Ronald, next?
Robble Robble!
McDonalds? Good reputation? Who are they kidding? The only time I ate one of their burgers was when caught on a very late night delivery on an industrial estate and one of their drive through stores were the only ones open. The container, literally, tasted better than the burger!
Their sign also said, "Doughnuts, 99p" (or some similar price) but when I ordered doughnuts, I was given two and charged £1.98. Apparently they were priced individually but advertised pluraly.
I've never treated my stomach and taste buds to such horrific torture since.
"The container, literally, tasted better than the burger!" Literally eh ? So u actually ate the container ?? Are u what they call "Special"
"Doughnuts, 99p" "Apparently they were priced individually but advertised pluraly." That is the CORRECT way to advertise them. If u saw a sign that said "Lottery tickets £1.00" U wouldn't expect to get 2 for a quid would you ?
""Lottery tickets £1.00" U wouldn't expect to get 2 for a quid would you ?"
Yes I would, unless it said LT £1.00 *each*, or LT @ £1
"Doughnuts, 99p" - Wrong
"Doughnuts, 99p each" - Correct
In the same vein as, "Everything £1" outside Poundland is wrong, it should either be "Everything £1 each" or "Anything £1", what is correct and what you expect isn't always the same thing.
"Lottery tickets £1.00" - How many do I get for £1.00? without the magical "each" it should be multiple, it should read "Lottery ticket £1.00", while your mind logically adds the "each" it doesn't actually mean it's there, yes, logically they mean each, but that's not what it says.
If I see "doughnuts, 99p" I expect more than one doughnut. If I see "doughnuts, 99p each" then I expect to pay 99p for each one.
Do you work in IT Brian? Do you deliver what is expected of you? Or do you wallow in ambiguity?
The "each" is implied. Yes your mind logically adds it. Any one who doesnt understand that should not be let out on there own. And its plural because there IS more than one of them. You wouldn't ask "How much do lottery ticket cost" well unless you were Chinese :) Its "How much do lottery tickets cost"
So your not bright enough to buy stuff from MD's never mind work there. Yes I deliver what is expected of me. If the client implies something then that is fine, I'm bright enough to work out what they mean I wont just blindly follow what they said.
To register a phone number in the UK? I know that to get a mobile number required me to show ID, and provide credit card details when i did it in the UK 6 years ago. Have things really changed to be that much easier?
Additionally, if the goods are being delivered to an address, even if that address changes each time - how difficult can it be for the cops to track down who's behind those addresses? Laptops and such would never be shipped without needing to be signed for (one would certainly hope!), so whoever signed at the other end must have some connection or be able to point the finger...
And finally lets face it, anyone stupid enough to accept an order from a yahoo, aol, hotmail, etc account for any company bigger then a dozen staff is a moron. They should have all access to the internet (both corporate and private) removed because they're the sort of idiot who would answer spam or fall for a 419er email...
FFS, some people just _deserve_ to be conned!
was based on the Franchise, the fact that MacD University had required identical layout on each McPatty outlet created in the UK. Once a particular gang had worked out where the overnight cash safe was located then cue many identical 'take-away' attacks with a big yellow digger and forklift and, lo', soon the layout was randomised.
Have the police questioned Hamburgler yet?
they don't need to pay using credit card when ordering? What kind of stupid sales people are those?
Domain name:
mcds-ops.co.uk
Registrant:
Sharon Norton
Registrant type:
UK Individual
Registrant's address:
1-17 Robshaw Close
March
PE15 9ET
United Kingdom
Can we have the names of these companies please? I would like to call them and ask for some free stuff before they go out of business (as they surely will)
Anyone selling anything to anyone with an AOL email address should be fired.
Since the police have now made it public that they are using the McDonalds name in the scam and to be wary of anyone ordering goods using that name I suspect the scammers will just start using another high profile company name instead. It so easy to set up a 'landline' number for free using a VOIP provider and then all you need to do is hire some office space and storage in a fake name to get all the goods deliveried too. Don't these people watch the real hustle?
.... in the context of the article.. should be .. " do you want chips with that?"
...hat .. coat ... i'm here all week!
"McDonalds@aol.com"
Seriously. Why would you ever think this is a legit McDonalds rep?
"The email and phone details used by the clown-conners include... @yahoo.co.uk... @aol.co.uk"
Those sneaky bastards! I think I've had emails off of these people too. I haven't shipped any high-value computer equipment to them yet though.
...."tried to tarnish the good reputation of McDonalds" best laugh I've had all day.
"they have also tried to tarnish the good reputation of McDonalds. "
Yeah. Not that hard really.
"they have also tried to tarnish the good reputation of McDonalds."
"Good reputation" - that'll be right.
We're a forklift dealer, and some clown pulled the "order from $ReputableCompany for the hire of x_forklifts, delivered to $AnotherLocation". We contacted the supposed ordering company via their published phone number and they'd never heard of the order.
We then got in touch with the Met Police (the delivery address was in London) who told us to call our local force (in the Midlands). The clown who intended to nick the forklifts was still expecting them to be delivered on monday morning, where he or his associates would be stood there waiting to be cuffed.
The police were singularly uninterested in arresting anyone or following it up in any way. The company whose name the scammers used reckoned it'd happened before and would again, still nothing.
Do I suspect that the Law are only bothered if a high profile company is involved?
Anyone who sells even a newspaper to someone on credit using an AOL or Yahoo! address deserves to lose their money. This is nature's way of weeding out the stupid.
Seriously? I understand the other ones, they kind of make sense. But who would fall for a global corporation using free webmail accounts to do hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales?
Can't you spoof an @mcdonalds.co.uk origin anyways? (it sounds like the receivers aren't the type to check headers)
"Not only have they left these businesses seriously out of pocket, but they have also tried to tarnish the good reputation of McDonalds."
Did he say that bit with a straight face?
"...but they have also tried to tarnish the good reputation of McDonalds."
Bwahahahahahahahahahaha... *cough* *sputter*
So when I, not living in the land of the Britards, want to pay for things remotely using a genuine European top table credit card with all the codes and digits, the average Webshop of the Britards tells me that they only take UK cards with UK cardholder addresses. Yet UK-resident scammers can have people turn up with gear at some random address, all ordered on credit, having just dropped a name and presumably shown some paper with a nice letterhead?
Way to go: we finally have "security" puppet theatre with maximum inconvenience for all legitimate parties and with a loophole bigger than a big truck carrying not-paid-for gear!
... to impersonate a multinational corporation (didn't they need some kind of, I dunno, ID? "Hello, I'm calling from Mcdonalds, I'd like loads of pricey shit for our restaurants" - is that really all it took!?) and the companies are stupid enough to allow this kind of thing to happen then what can you say!?
my girlfriend works for a spirits company and these fuckers tried to get a large amount of popular spirits delivered to a warehouse in london. it looked very credible apart from the domain used for the emails which were registered to some woman in norfolk...a simple netnames check......needless to say, the police did fuck all....
Would love to know who these companies are as presumably no one bothered with the usual set up a credit account, credit checks and all that gubbins. Yeah it's a big company, but you don't know that the person asking for the stuff is actually authorised to make those purchases....even if it had come from within.
Other question being - no CCTV around this warehouse...?
