A scam phone calls and emails discussion.

[1D54]

. Some of the larger organisations are bringing their operations back onshore,

I wish Barclaycard would. It's a bloody nightmare at times trying to get a point across to someone who barely speaks English.

 

[Howardh]

Im guessing you don’t have a mobile phone if you are asking that question.

My mobile has had an ‘answering machine’ (voicemail) ever since I’ve had one (nearly 30 years).

I do but I rarely use it as a phone! To conatact people it's text, Whatsapp or other apps like Teamo. Luckily I've never had any incoming scam calls so haven't had to look up a blocker.

 

[jon0844]

From what I have heard from different people, those Indian call-centre operatives seem to add the word "the" in phrases that are not used in Britain in common speech. A typical example being "I am calling you from the Microsoft". Has anyone on here noticed that?

I was at an event once where they talked about these types of scam (email) and why they're usually so bad, and therefore obvious, even laughable, to most people. Rather than it just being a language barrier thing, or incompetence (although both are of course possible), it was said that they often make obvious errors to filter out people who might otherwise get involved and waste their time (something I enjoy doing when they phone, but never bother to do via email - although some YouTubers do it for giggles).

They simply want easy targets, and those who can't spot a potentially dodgy email will more likely fall for the scam and the ridiculous hoops people are made to jump through that should set alarm bells ringing.

At the end of the day, every year there's a new lot of potential victims and there are plenty of people who fall for things - hence why they continue to do it. Look on any Facebook community page and you'll see people asking 'is this legit?' when it's blatantly obvious it isn't!

 

[najaB]

I wish Barclaycard would. It's a bloody nightmare at times trying to get a point across to someone who barely speaks English.

It's been over a decade since I was in the BPO world, but I know that Barclays used to outsource at least some of their contact centre work as a Barclays contract had ended about four or five months before I was hired.

And as anyone who has worked for an outsourcer knows, every penny is a prisoner and profit depends on being able to undercut in-house staff, so corners will be cut. And that applies equally to on-shore and off-shore operations. One of the worst run outfits I ever dealt was in Belfast - as an example (and without giving any details away) I trained some new agents there for a campaign for them to spend the first two weeks or so answering calls (meaning that they got paid) but not actually doing anything useful due to 'system issues' and 'technical difficulties'.

Said difficulty was convincing the IT guy that they had fired a month or two before to come back and do whatever it was that he had done to get the rest of the computers talking to our (the client's) systems like the two that were working!

Long story, short: just bringing the work back the UK doesn't mean that things will get any easier.

 

[swt_passenger]

Had a few of the typical McAfee virus protection lapsed emails in the last day or so. I think BT’s spam filters must have a day off every few weeks.

 

[najaB]

I think BT’s spam filters must have a day off every few weeks.

Yes and no. While I can't speak for BT's spam filter specifically, the one that I work with largely depends on having a large enough corpus to work with to identify spam messages. So it take a little while for it to evaluate a sufficiently sizeable number of messages to pick up new variations of a malicious email.

 

[londonbridge]

Had an email yesterday from Facebook with a password reset code. Couldn’t tell if it was genuine or not, went into my account and checked security settings, turned out they HAD sent me a password reset email. Went into my account on a separate device and changed my password directly without clicking any links in the email.

 

[najaB]

Had an email yesterday from Facebook with a password reset code. Couldn’t tell if it was genuine or not, went into my account and checked security settings, turned out they HAD sent me a password reset email. Went into my account on a separate device and changed my password directly without clicking any links in the email.

Likely someone else clicked the 'Reset password' link - it's normally safe to ignore these since they won't have access to your recovery email/phone.

 

[317 forever]

Had a few of the typical McAfee virus protection lapsed emails in the last day or so. I think BT’s spam filters must have a day off every few weeks.

I had a couple yesterday too. Maybe the result of setting up a new laptop.

 

[AndrewE]

I had a couple yesterday too. Maybe the result of setting up a new laptop.

my new laptop came with McAfee installed 18 months/2 yrs ago whether I wanted it or not. Supposedly free with lots of features, trouble is that I didn't want it as I had a subscription to Avast - and the two programs apparently fight and lock me into a never-ending cycle of problems accessing some webpages. That's on top of whatever the Windows Defender thing is doing whether I want it or not.

 

[Bevan Price]

Just had an incredibly poor quality scam email about updating my details to allow my TV licence to be renewed. Haven’t seen it before.

I had something similar about a eek ago. Claimed I had not renewed my TV licence and invited me to click a probably dodgy link. Inevitabl, it included a bit of dodgy grammar - and appeared to have come from a .jp (Japan) email address.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

I had something similar about a eek ago. Claimed I had not renewed my TV licence and invited me to click a probably dodgy link. Inevitabl, it included a bit of dodgy grammar - and appeared to have come from a .jp (Japan) email address.

Genuine e-mails from TV Licensing should always include the name and/or part of the recipient's postcode in the e-mails.

Many scams simply use the recipient's e-mail address or say ‘Dear Customer’ and/or quote a fake TV licence number.

Best always to on-forward the dodgy e-mail to <[email protected]>

 

[najaB]

That's on top of whatever the Windows Defender thing is doing whether I want it or not.

Something is wrong there: Windows Defender should turn itself off whenever a third-party AV is detected.

 

[AndrewE]

Something is wrong there: Windows Defender should turn itself off whenever a third-party AV is detected.

Thanks, so it is probably Avast fighting McAfee!
Oddly, the one webpage affected (a sign-in account) works intermittently, like once a week or maybe after a monthly update but is inaccessible most of the time... and it has daily updates that I would like to see!

 

[d9009alycidon]

Had a weird one today, guy called claiming to be from my mobile provider Three and offering me a cheaper deal, but I had to fit a new sim from o2, who they said was a "partner" firm. Said I would give it some thought and contacted Three via the app. The caller had used a Private Number and Three told me they always disclose their calling number as a number starting 0333 300 and advised they have no "partner" arrangement with o2, I will be ready for him if he calls back.

 

[341o2]

I am receiving numerous emails, with a different title, but they all read the same

You've been earning Bitcoin with our AI technology for 364 days.
You may have overlooked your account, but it has been earning funds in
the background, totaling $25.745 over the past year.
Urgent: Your account will be blocked within 24 hours. Please withdraw
your remaining funds.
Please refer to the attached PDF for account access guidance.

It begs the question why is my account going to be blocked, and why do I need to withdraw the funds?
Most know the answer

 

[mike57]

The caller had used a Private Number

I have set a general block on private numbers, if anyone needs to hide their number then I probably dont want to speak to them.

I also enable Caller ID spam protection, I have a Samsung S22. This refers any numbers not in your contact list to an external database, and identifies incoming calls as 'Potential Spam' or 'Potential Fraud' if appropriate. Obviously if the call is identified in this way I dont answer it.

This has reduced scam/spam calls to a trickle, the odd one still gets through but overall its maybe 1 a month rather than several per day. This is why we dont have a landline phone connected, its much easier to filter out the rubbish on a mobile.

My email spam filter seems fairly good, again the odd one get through. One thing with any email is to learn how to read the header, not the name that is displayed, but the actual URL of the sender, as this usually give a clue

 

[owidoe]

my new laptop came with McAfee installed 18 months/2 yrs ago whether I wanted it or not. Supposedly free with lots of features, trouble is that I didn't want it as I had a subscription to Avast - and the two programs apparently fight and lock me into a never-ending cycle of problems accessing some webpages. That's on top of whatever the Windows Defender thing is doing whether I want it or not.

McAfee and Avast are both now essentially scams; you should rid yourself of them as soon as possible. They both sell as much of your data as possible to the highest bidder. Mr McAfee died on the run from the FBI after selling his company and liabilities to a shady shell company owned by an anonymous hedge fund, and Avast are being investigated by the Czech government, for example. The days are long gone when you actually needed a third-party AV; Windows Defender and uBlock Origin on your browser are all you need.

 

[dgl]

I like the scam emails that claim to have turned on my webcam and have caught me doing stuff, so a virus can now activate a physical switch?, don't think so somehow! (and yes the webcam switch on my laptop is not a software switch but a slide switch that electrically disconnects the webcam from the machine).

 

[Ostrich]

Received a call on the landline earlier today which was a recorded message: "This is bank security department" and mentioning two suspicious tranactions etc. - this was from a foreign number which turned our to be coded for the Republic of Ireland. Interestingly 30 minutes later I received exactly the same call from a UK mobile number ......
Neither number features on the "Who Called Me" site.

Makes a change from "John from the Driveway Centre" and his significant other "Anna from the Solar Centre" ......

 

[341o2]

My Yahoo email, wich is my principal one, uses my surmane + first name, and most scam emails read something like this

Package Tracking service Bloggsjoe, please respond. Hi, bloggsjoe, you have one(1) package.....

 

[swt_passenger]

Hi all, are many other forum members getting a completely stupid number of “McAfee expired” scam emails at the moment? I’m with BT and had a few every day for at least 10 days now.

As has been discussed before the spam filters seem to have a few days off every now and again.

 

[najaB]

Hi all, are many other forum members getting a completely stupid number of “McAfee expired” scam emails at the moment? I’m with BT and had a few every day for at least 10 days now.

Nope. Apple Pay suspension notifications, if anything.

 

[Railsigns]

Hi all, are many other forum members getting a completely stupid number of “McAfee expired” scam emails at the moment?

Yes; I've had those appearing in my spam folder recently.

 

[swt_passenger]

Nope. Apple Pay suspension notifications, if anything.

I had a couple of “iCloud full” attempted scams a week or so back, easily spotted though.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Jul 2023 ==

Yes; I've had those appearing in my spam folder recently.

I checked the BT webmail version, and they’d trapped a similar number to what they let through, it all seems pretty random what gets blocked and what doesn’t.

 

[najaB]

I had a couple of “iCloud full” attempted scams a week or so back, easily spotted though.

Especially for those of us who don't use iCloud.

 

[yorkie]

Someone tried to call me today so I answered in Spanish. My policy now is to answer in Spanish as my theory is they will take me off the list. It certainly seems to get rid of them

(I only speak a little Spanish but it's enough!)

 

[Jamiescott1]

I had to calls from "potential spam" over the weekend (uk mobile numbers) Both left voicemails in what I think was mandarin.

 

[yorkie]

I had to calls from "potential spam" over the weekend (uk mobile numbers) Both left voicemails in what I think was mandarin.

I'd be tempted to say "we don't speak Japanese, we don't speak mandarin & we don't speak satsuma"

(I hope at least some people reading this get what that's a reference to!)

On a serious note you have to be so careful about scammers/spammers, for example if someone claiming to be a colleague asked for a password reset, I'd not be doing that without a phone call to the person to verify it was them. Remember the person calling you may know some information about you, and people you know.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Someone tried to call me today so I answered in Spanish. My policy now is to answer in Spanish as my theory is they will take me off the list. It certainly seems to get rid of them

(I only speak a little Spanish but it's enough!)

One of the advantages for being a folk-singer in the early 1960s is the number of non-English songs that our group sang (and that I can still remember the words perfectly these days). A well known song from that time was in Spanish called "Guantanamera" and sections of the verses would be ideal to use in the situation you so describe.