Category: Life: Personal

I’ve just received the following scam post by Royal Mail and I would be very very much interested in hearing back from anybody else who has received one. Please retain the envelope and any other correspondence! If you do receive a letter regarding a “relative” you have never heard of being involved in an accident and leaving you with millions of pounds/dollars, then it is a scam! Do not reply!

Posted in a white envelope with a Royal Mail SmartStamp 1st Class “£0.60 72AC 582U Post by 21.05.12” (I’m very much interested in scam emails from the sender code ’72AC 582U’: please contact me if you’ve got one). I received it on the 25th of May, but it had been forwarded from an old addres

Contact details in the letter include:
Dated: 4th April 2012
Email: lipei@yahoo.com
Tel: +852 8170 3961 (This appears to be a Hong Kong Skype number: at the very least a Hong Kong “forwarding” service with a number range very close to Skype’s)
Sender claims to be: “Lei Pei, Business Relations Manager for Chiyu Banking Corporation Limited in Hong Kong”

So if you’e received a scam email with either RoyalMail Smart Stamp code 72AC 582U (72AC582U) or referencing email address lipei77@yahoo.com or telephone number 852 8170 3961 (85281703961), please leave a comment – if you can include details of what details are the same and different and when you received the scam post, it would be appreciated.

This scam else where on the net:
* Earlswood Forshaweath – Email address taichan7@yahoo.com . Name “Mr Tai Chan”. Telephone number 852 8710 3961. Dated early May
* Who calls me – Number 852 8170 3961. Dates starting 14th August 2011. All regarding the same telephone number +852-8170-3961. Names “Cai Cheng”, “Jim Lu”, “Jin Chu”, Teddy Lung”, “David Chu”, “Lei Hu”, “Pete Zu” (also uses the number +852 8191 3202 and +852 3017 7332 and email address zu8872@ymail.com), “Kia Wu” (also uses the number +852 812 09 204), “Teo Cheng”, “McCallum Ma”, “Shun Zen”, “Boa Dishi” (also uses the email address bao.dishi@yahoo.com), “Jin Wang” (also uses email address jinwang54@ymail.com), “Leo Chan”, “Lee Shun” (also uses the number +852 8124 5797: also using SmartStamp 62AC 282U), unknown name (also uses email address xuxiao7@yahoo.com and phone number +852 8124 5797),

Due to a card fraud incident (CNP), MBNA have had to reissue my Miles and More credit cards (I have a Visa card and American Express card on the same account). They’ve also issued me with new PIN codes. However, I received one letter today that read:

“Your American Express credit card PIN is here

Please be aware:

• The PIN for your VISA credit card has been sent to you separately
• The PIN for your American Express and Visa credit cards will be the same.

“

and another letter reading:

“Your Visa credit card PIN is here

Please be aware:

• The PIN for your American Express credit card has been sent to you separately
• The PIN for your Visa and American credit cards will be the same.

“

Yep – both PINs were the same: so why did they have to send two letters (doubling the chances of interception of the letters?) giving the same details? Why not just one letter saying “Here’s your new PIN code – it’s applicable to your Visa card (ending XXXX) and your American Express card (ending YYYY) which you’ll be receiving in the next few days. The PIN is the same for both cards, and you can can the PIN on either card via most high street cash machines.”

Dammit, I’ve had an idea for a really good service/website, but I haven’t got the time (nor the money) to invest in it to get it built: which is a shame as I think it’ll be brilliant and a godsend to many people. Why can’t I win the lottery so I can help make the world a better place?

I’ve done a breakdown on my income and expenditure and it’s scary how much of my money (39.72% or 39.72p per pound) is going directly to the Government in Taxes.

Here’s the full breakdown (in pence per pound) of where my money goes.

I’ve bolded the money which goes to one government department or another.

• 26.01p Income Tax: yes, I’m a “higher rate” tax payer, but I am working in Central London so costs are higher: see rent!. Don’t forget, that to pay me my employer needs to collect money from their customers which they have to pay VAT on to the government along with business rates etc
• 20.83p rent: don’t forget that the people I’m renting this house from will need to then pay income tax on this
• 14.17p savings
• 6.22p National Insurance
• 4.17p food shopping
• 3.69p takeouts/evening meals/other hot meals
• 3.33p Personal pension contributions (as the pension I’m supposedly paying for through National Insurance will be minimal)
• 3.15p lunches (ouch – I’ll have to reduce this!)
• 2.54p Council Tax
• 2.50p web hosting server rental
• 2.40p Oyster (London Underground) Card
• 2.06p Gas and electricity (the property we are living in is currently poorly insulated, but we are moving soon)
• 1.77p on VAT including:
• 0.72p (17.5%) on my mobile phone bill
• 0.65p (17.5%) on takeouts/evening meals/other hot meals
• 0.10p (5% VAT) on gas and electricity
• 0.09p (17.5%) on Internet access
• 0.06p (17.5%) on Sky television subscription
• 0.06p (17.5%) on £20 worth of VATable shopping each month (mainly cat food)
• 0.05p (17.5%) on clothing
• 0.02p (5% VAT) on Insurance Premium on Car insurance
• 0.01p (17.5%) on Car MOT
• 0.01p (5% VAT) on Insurance Premium on Life Insurance
• 0.60p Mobile phone bill
• 0.50p Internet access
• 0.43p Fuel tax and VAT on Fuel
• 0.40p car insurance
• 0.33p Sky TV subscription
• 0.28p domain name registrations
• 0.28p clothing
• 0.27p Water bill
• 0.24p Petrol costs (excludes fuel tax and VAT – see 0.43p above: yep, we pay nearly double the amount of the fuel in taxes here in the UK!)
• 0.24p life insurance
• 0.20p TV Licence
• 0.17p Car Tax
• 0.06p MOT
• 0.04p Car breakdown cover

Yes, I’ve included the following as “government contributions” – but that’s because the money goes either directly to a government department (such as TfL) or goes to a subsidiary wholly owned by the government. It’s up to you if you want to include these figures in your own “breakdown”:
* 0.20p per pound TV Licence: Should go towards funding the BBC – but £1.01 of that goes towards “Digital Switchover” costs and that 5.2% of it goes towards collecting the licence fee – and the current Labour government has made mention that they want to use the money to fund other causes. I actually think the BBC does a quite good job (and an excellent job for news), but I do disagree with the way the licence fee is managed by the government (who sets amount the licence fee is charged at and then routes the money to the BBC which is wholly owned by the government…).
* 6.22p per pound National Insurance contributions: These are not, technically, a tax (you can recognise the taxes by the word “Tax”)- but you can’t get away from not paying it and the money goes into the general government pot – I’m actually ignoring the fact here that my employer, to employ me, has to pay the same again in Employers National Insurance contributions.
* 2.40p per pound Oyster Card: This money goes towards me travelling on the “good to really bad depending on the day/time” London Underground system. This money actually goes to Transport For London – which is a government department controlling transport across the London area. Yes, I know it falls under the remit of the Mayor of London – but note the .gov.uk part of TfL’s web address: .gov.uk domain names are only available for the government to register…

Assumptions made:
* Out of the 260 Monday-Friday days, we have 13 bank holidays and I take 20 days holiday – leaving 227 working days that I’ve got to travel each way on the ‘Tube and have lunch.
* I travel 4,500 miles per year (currently not possible due to a broken car – but it’s roughly what we managed last year) and petrol costs at the pump 114.9p per litre and I get 49mpg – giving me 417.87 litres of fuel used per year.