A scam phone calls and emails discussion.

kevin_roche · 3 Mar 2021

SteveM70 said:
Had the well-spoken English gentleman recorded message call again this morning. This time he’s telling me my national insurance number has been compromised and I need to talk to them by pressing 1 immediately otherwise they’ll take legal action against me.

He was good enough to tell me where this compromising of my NI number had taken place - it was “on the northern border of Wales”

Do people really fall for this nonsense?

Unfortunately, some do. In fact, I read a while ago that the scammers actually put spelling mistakes in the messages they send by email so that only people with poor spelling will reply as they think they are easier to scam. My guess is that the Northern Border of Wales is a similar flag so they don't have to waste time with people who are slightly knowledgable and might be tempted to report them.

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py_megapixel · 3 Mar 2021

SteveM70 said:
He was good enough to tell me where this compromising of my NI number had taken place - it was “on the northern border of Wales”

In the Irish Sea?

Who knows, maybe there is an illegal smuggling gang using your NI number for their fraudulent tax purposes

Peter C · 3 Mar 2021

Apologies if this has already been mentioned but I got a scam call, supposedly from HMRC, yesterday evening. I didn't answer but they left a voicemail using a text-to-speech system saying I had to press 1 to contact an officer or else I'd be arrested immediately or some nonsense. Just to make people aware!

-Peter

Westcountryman · 3 Mar 2021

SteveM70 said:
Had the well-spoken English gentleman recorded message call again this morning. This time he’s telling me my national insurance number has been compromised and I need to talk to them by pressing 1 immediately otherwise they’ll take legal action against me.

He was good enough to tell me where this compromising of my NI number had taken place - it was “on the northern border of Wales”

Do people really fall for this nonsense?

We have had 'on the western border of Wales'. I wonder how long it will take to get a full set.

david1212 · 3 Mar 2021

SteveM70 said:
.....

Do people really fall for this nonsense?

Even if a small percentage like any business there must be enough to make it viable. Once one takes the bait I guess they will then be targetted.

najaB · 3 Mar 2021

david1212 said:
Even if a small percentage like any business there must be enough to make it viable.

Indeed. The cost per contact is very low, as are the wages of the people manning the phones so it doesn't take many successes to make the while thing highly profitable.

Assuming that they're in India, if they manage to get £500, that's three months of the average wage.

Ostrich · 5 Mar 2021

We very rarely get phishing phone calls, but we had one just now, a well-educated female English voice purporting to be an automated phone call from Amazon about a suspicious transaction. I hung up at that point.
By coincidence I am awaiting an Amazon delivery, but I don't have an account with them - my son does and he orders items for me. I'm sure he wouldn't have given them my telephone number.

The call appeared to be from a 13 digit number commencing 0016111.... so either international or a generated spoofed number, I assume.

najaB · 5 Mar 2021

Ostrich said:
The call appeared to be from a 13 digit number commencing 0016111.... so either international or a generated spoofed number, I assume.

That's the correct length for a North American number.

duncombec · 5 Mar 2021

najaB said:
That's the correct length for a North American number.

It is, but the 611 area code is unassigned (https://www.areacodehelp.com/where/area_code_611.shtml); in fact, it is specifically not assigned because it's apparently the equivalent of dialing your mobile provider's help line (150 in the UK?).

A bit like the "western border of Wales"... nice try...

A Challenge · 5 Mar 2021

SteveM70 said:
Had the well-spoken English gentleman recorded message call again this morning. This time he’s telling me my national insurance number has been compromised and I need to talk to them by pressing 1 immediately otherwise they’ll take legal action against me.

He was good enough to tell me where this compromising of my NI number had taken place - it was “on the northern border of Wales”

Do people really fall for this nonsense?

They've moved from when they phoned me from the west border of Wales, though they are still in the sea - maybe they are going to get round the east border at some point, which at least exists!

swt_passenger · 5 Mar 2021

I hope someone guesses my NI number. Hopefully they’ll pay in some voluntary contributions to upgrade my state pension...

Bevan Price · 5 Mar 2021

Amongst my latest batch of spam are several where the sender's name has been spoofed to make it appear that I am sending email to myself. Not sure if it is Thunderbird or Norton, but it all lands straight into the spam folder, and I then delete without opening any of them.

A Challenge · 6 Mar 2021

Bevan Price said:
Amongst my latest batch of spam are several where the sender's name has been spoofed to make it appear that I am sending email to myself. Not sure if it is Thunderbird or Norton, but it all lands straight into the spam folder, and I then delete without opening any of them.

Oh I don't remember sending myself any Emails, but I'll just open it and check I didn't... (are people that stupid?)

PeterC · 6 Mar 2021

A Challenge said:
Oh I don't remember sending myself any Emails, but I'll just open it and check I didn't... (are people that stupid?)

Sending yourself an email is a good way to send a file to another device if you aren't in a position to plug them into each other. Not a common need but I do it if I want to transfer a photo from phone to laptop.

A Challenge · 6 Mar 2021

PeterC said:
Sending yourself an email is a good way to send a file to another device if you aren't in a position to plug them into each other. Not a common need but I do it if I want to transfer a photo from phone to laptop.

My point was more that if you'd sent yourself a Email, for whatever reason (and while I do occasionally, I find uploading to OneDrive more convenient), unless you are particularly scatterbrained, you know you have (and you probably want the file sent immediately), whereas when somebody else sends you an Email, they aren't going to phone you to tell you they have (normally).

dgl · 6 Mar 2021

Naturally some scams involve you being sent an email purporting to be from your address claiming that they have hacked into you machine and have recorded your "dodgy" internet browsing and will tell everyone if you don't send then money/bitcoin.
Now spoofing an email address is really easy as with some providers you can set the email address you want to appear on the email as anything.
This is how my free email/web hosting works. They give you free pop3/webmail for incoming messages but you have to provide your own outgoing server, in my case that would be via my internet provider.

packermac · 6 Mar 2021

Peter C said:
Apologies if this has already been mentioned but I got a scam call, supposedly from HMRC, yesterday evening. I didn't answer but they left a voicemail using a text-to-speech system saying I had to press 1 to contact an officer or else I'd be arrested immediately or some nonsense. Just to make people aware!

-Peter

Strangely we had the same thing with the Amazon Prime subscription scam yesterday. I have never come across messages being left before they normally hang up when an answer phone cuts in, maybe this is a new ploy.

Peter C · 6 Mar 2021

packermac said:
Strangely we had the same thing with the Amazon Prime subscription scam yesterday. I have never come across messages being left before they normally hang up when an answer phone cuts in, maybe this is a new ploy.

I thought it was strange as they left a message: never seen that before either. These scammers also seem to be more intent on getting through to people as well; a while ago we had several calls one day from the same scammers on the landline.

-Peter

najaB · 6 Mar 2021

dgl said:
Now spoofing an email address is really easy as with some providers you can set the email address you want to appear on the email as anything.

Substitute "some" with "all" and you've got it. The "From" email header can always be spoofed and should not be relied upon for validating an email. The only time it will be checked/verified is if the claimed sending domain has implemented DMARC, which a disappointingly small percentage of domain owners have done.

Xenophon PCDGS · 7 Mar 2021

One of my twin sons is wondering as to the methodology requirements required to be able to introduce a voice response during a scam call answered in which the scam caller would meet with a recorded voice stating that the call is being monitored by Action Fraud UK and the scammer needed to press "1" on their phone to be able to speak to a Senior Investigation Officer.

najaB · 7 Mar 2021

Xenophon PCDGS said:
One of my twin sons is wondering as to the methodology requirements required to be able to introduce a voice response during a scam call answered in which the scam caller would meet with a recorded voice stating that the call is being monitored by Action Fraud UK and the scammer needed to press "1" on their phone to be able to speak to a Senior Investigation Officer.

A simple recording of ring tone followed by a voice stating the desired message and a recording adapter would do it. Once you realise it's a scam you say "Can you hold on a minute?" and play the recording.

Jamesrob637 · 7 Mar 2021

I had my first "unsolicited" call on a weekend in a very long time yesterday - 01614983642.

It purports to be from St Ann's Hospice so maybe not a scam in the truest sense of the word, however upon attempting to ring it back (with which I always put 141 at the start so they know it's not the number they dialled barely an hour before!) it does not accept incoming calls - it just goes straight to the O2 messaging system.

87 027 · 8 Mar 2021

Just had a scam call which presented an incoming phone number in UK format (area code for Brighton) but the caller ID on the phone on the next line of the display said “international “

Westcountryman · 8 Mar 2021

Oh dear again, not only is my wife going to be arrested for Customs fraud, but I'm off to the nick for tax fraud. Call on my mobile from 07572 440604.

ABB125 · 8 Mar 2021

So far today, there have been 3 landline calls, which have rung off as soon as the answer machine started its "we are not available now" message

Westcountryman · 10 Mar 2021

A call early this morning from 'BT' An Indian sounding woman from 'International'. I did listen for a few moments to see what the scam was. In this case too many people were connected to my internet and some of them were doing things that they shouldn't. If I would sit in front of my computer they would show me. I may be quite computer and scam savvy, but I certainly wasn't going to let her do anything with my computer. Just told her I knew she wasn't from BT and disconnected. Perhaps I should have asked her my name. If she was genuine she should have that info.

Also, whilst typing this, another international call. In that nasty fake synthesised American drawl, 'Thank you for placing an order with Amazon'. That was as far as that call went. So 2 already this morning and it's only 9.30.

DelW · 10 Mar 2021

Westcountryman said:
A call early this morning from 'BT' An Indian sounding woman from 'International'. I did listen for a few moments to see what the scam was. In this case too many people were connected to my internet and some of them were doing things that they shouldn't. If I would sit in front of my computer they would show me. I may be quite computer and scam savvy, but I certainly wasn't going to let her do anything with my computer. Just told her I knew she wasn't from BT and disconnected. Perhaps I should have asked her my name. If she was genuine she should have that info.

If I do answer a call from an unrecognised number (which I mostly don't) it quite often claims to be about "a fault on" or "misuse of" my internet connection, and frequently from someone claiming to be from BT.

Which I know immediately is a lie and a scam, because I get my internet over 4G which has nothing at all to do with my landline - a fact the real BT are well aware of since I get a significant discount on my line rental for that reason.

Occasionally if it's a real person calling I tell them that I know they're fraudulent and lying to me, at which point they quite often get abusive and cut the call at their end. But at least they know what I think of them!

kevin_roche · 10 Mar 2021

Just had a call from 07477184752, not yet on any of the sites that report marketing or spam or fraud calls.

Jamesrob637 · 10 Mar 2021

kevin_roche said:
Just had a call from 07477184752, not yet on any of the sites that report marketing or spam or fraud calls.

There have been suspicions about other prefix 07477 numbers though if you go on who (hyphen) called dot co dot uk

JohnMcL7 · 10 Mar 2021

I just had the scam HMRC one from an 07446 number but I suspect these companies will be changing numbers constantly to evade detection. I used to find the filtering system built into my phone dialler pretty good at flagging fraud or spam calls but it rarely does now.

A scam phone calls and emails discussion.

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