Scam!

Just 5 mins. ago on the phone had this man (couldn't make out whether he was Indian, Chinese as he was shouting his pitch) telling me that my computer has been giving out "error messages" online, whatever that means, and when I said there was nothing wrong he said "Oh, so you're a technician are you?" and I said yes, which I am but not in IT - at which point he put the phone down on me.

So, if you get one of these calls - tell them that you are an IT techie.

Trouble now is that I wish I had led him on just to see where he was going with it, and how the F did he get my unlisted number?

I had one the other day purporting to be from British Gas. An 0800 number too which they use.
He told me as I use a portion of my business from home I qualify for a 40% reduction in my gas bill that can even be back dated.

I was interested until we got to the 'for a one off payment' section of the spiel. A little more probing revealed they were not actually from British Gas but 'working on their behalf' whatever that means.
End of chat!

Quote: Stephen Goodlad @ 11th March 2014, 10:25 AM GMT

...little more probing revealed they were not actually from British Gas but 'working on their behalf' whatever that means.
End of chat!

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At least once a week I'm getting a phone call from policy brokers who want to sell insurances...or: "improve" your current contract. Same spiel. They allegedly work for your current insurance company, but if you ask more precise questions you realize they work for a completely different firm, but...bla bla...bargain...blabla...once in a lifetime golden opportunity...blabla.
How on earth can they look in the mirror in the morning, I do not understand.

If you recognise the same number, answer the phone "Trading Standards, Bob speaking...".

Trouble is they usually come up 'withheld/unavailable/international'.

Quote: Lee @ 11th March 2014, 10:47 AM GMT

If you recognise the same number, answer the phone "Trading Standards, Bob speaking...".

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Or, "Sun Hill police station, Detective Sergeant Lee..."

There is one of these where you ring back and it costs you a bomb.

The irony is clearly missed by this caller................

My wife who is disabled has to field a lot of junk calls, so was interested in this one as it claimed to have a "program" that will block all cold calls, which my wife was very interested in; but then she proceeds to tell me that it is £99..........and I said that at that point you should have put the phone down on him, BUT she said it was for a year's subscription! What a bargain! After slapping her wrist, I then realised how easy it is for people to get sucked into these money making scams.

To be fair ya have to be pretty gormless to fall for this sort of stuff

Surely if you don't recognise the number you simply don't answer it. As someone else has stated by simply answering your phone to one of these scammers you can get billed a hefty amount.

Quote: alan1967 @ 19th April 2016, 8:09 PM BST

Surely if you don't recognise the number you simply don't answer it. As someone else has stated by simply answering your phone to one of these scammers you can get billed a hefty amount.

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Often no number comes up. Now if it says 'unavailable' or 'international' you can bet your boots it's a pest, but not if it says 'withheld' - a lot of valid organisations appear as withheld. In fact I once nearly hurled abuse at one of our local councillors because she was phoning from the Council Offices and it appeared as 'withheld'. And not so long ago I answered such a number in a funny voice and it turned out to be the doctor's surgery. Yes, it's laugh a day here.

If you get a lot of such calls one way to deal with them is to use an answerphone.

Most cold callers won't bother to leave a message, if it is a genuine call you will be monitoring the start of the voice message and if it is a friend/family/genuine you can pick up the phone then and talk.

Quote: lofthouse @ 19th April 2016, 7:52 PM BST

To be fair ya have to be pretty gormless to fall for this sort of stuff

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Well yes, but since my wife had her brain haemorrhage 5 years ago she doesn't always think straight and these people are counting on someone like her or a dementia sufferer say - some of the big scams where people have lost thousands are those afflicted like that sadly.

Quote: alan1967 @ 19th April 2016, 8:09 PM BST

Surely if you don't recognise the number you simply don't answer it. As someone else has stated by simply answering your phone to one of these scammers you can get billed a hefty amount.

View original

Some service providers and/or phones do not have caller recognition (we don't) so it is not possible to do what you suggest. Also as keewik rightly points out if the call is withheld you are stuffed.

Quote: billwill @ 20th April 2016, 12:36 AM BST

If you get a lot of such calls one way to deal with them is to use an answerphone.

Most cold callers won't bother to leave a message, if it is a genuine call you will be monitoring the start of the voice message and if it is a friend/family/genuine you can pick up the phone then and talk.

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My wife does this sometimes...........when she remembers

The cold calls we were getting got worse and sometimes we got 2 or 3 in one hour from the same people although they were using different phone numbers each time.

No matter what you said to them and/or how insulting you were they would ring back time and time again.

I thought I would try the Telephone Preference Service, even though I had no faith in it and it said it would take up to 28 days to become effective...........the phone calls stopped immediately!!
I was gobsmacked at how effective it was, and now we have complete peace.

Here's the link if anyone is being plagued:-

http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/index.html

Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 30th June 2016, 10:26 AM BST

The cold calls we were getting got worse and sometimes we got 2 or 3 in one hour from the same people although they were using different phone numbers each time.

No matter what you said to them and/or how insulting you were they would ring back time and time again.

I thought I would try the Telephone Preference Service, even though I had no faith in it and it said it would take up to 28 days to become effective...........the phone calls stopped immediately!!
I was gobsmacked at how effective it was, and now we have complete peace.

Here's the link if anyone is being plagued:-

http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/index.html

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We signed up years ago and it was fine at first but now it makes not one whit of difference, to the extent Mr. K had to check about 2 years ago to see if we were still registered. We are. We're just back from holiday and every single call while we were away was unsolicited.