A scam phone calls and emails discussion.

[MotCO]

I remember reading about a bloke who (before the war) placed adverts in newspaper small-ads sections offering 'a metal clothes wall hanger and a guaranteed light-first-time cigarette lighter' for one shilling, and sent the people who fell for it a nail and a match.

I think I remember seeing an X-Box box being offered for a ridiculous low price - it was just a box the X-Box came in rather than a game console!

 

[najaB]

I think I remember seeing an X-Box box being offered for a ridiculous low price - it was just a box the X-Box came in rather than a game console!

Along those lines, it was a common scam to sell the "[Insert item] picture below..." rather than "pictured below". So, yes, you would receive a picture of the item you thought you were buying than the actual item.

 

[AndrewE]

Along those lines, it was a common scam to sell the "[Insert item] picture below..." rather than "pictured below". So, yes, you would receive a picture of the item you thought you were buying than the actual item.

Ian Hislop said that a brilliant (i.e. un-sanctionable) scam ran in the private ads at the back of Private Eye...
An advert saying "For a guaranteed income send a postal order for £5 to P.O. box no..." In return they got a printed slip saying "Put an advert in Private Eye saying "For a guaranteed income send a postal order for £5 to P.O. box no... ""
Scams are nothing new!
A

 

[swt_passenger]

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.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

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.

If the e-mail says "Dear Customer" (rather than the licence holder's actual name) or quotes a fake licence number, it'll undoubtedly be a wrong 'un.

You can always on forward a suspicious e-mail such as this to <[email protected]>.

 

[swt_passenger]

If the e-mail says "Dear Customer" (rather than the licence holder's actual name) or quotes a fake licence number, it'll undoubtedly be a wrong 'un.

You can always on forward a suspicious e-mail such as this to <[email protected]>.

Done, thanks for confirming the right address, saved me searching.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Done, thanks for confirming the right address, saved me searching.

Make sure you forward it as an attachment; they can't analyse the headers if it's simply forwarded...

 

[317 forever]

Quite a few scam emails have a valid alias but a weird-looking email address not from the actual alias.

These ones are best not acted upon.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

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?

 

[3rd rail land]

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?

Never spoken to such scammers myself but in videos I have seen of them trying to scam people I had noticed this. It's probably because most people learn American English when learning English as an additional language. Americans have a nasty habit of putting the in front of just about everything!

 

[1D54]

For the second time in three weeks I've had three calls in quick succession, i declined them all, they were from Liverpool, Nottingham, Bodmin and London. Googling numbers shows they are all known to be scam artists at work.

I often feel like answering and going along with whatever they have to say, I'd get some sort of warped satisfaction out of it before telling them to p**s off before hanging up but why bother!!

Numbers can't be blocked on my mobile which i find strange.

 

[Bald Rick]

Similarly I’ve had a lot this last week - also Bodmin, plus Orpington, Antrim, and Thailand - the latter via What’sApp calling.

 

[ainsworth74]

Yep had a few this week as well. One didn't connect (guess I didn't get to it fast enough!) the other put me through to a nice gentleman from EE who wanted to talk about my contract. Why I said "maybe" to the question about if I had an EE contract he put the phone down! Very rude.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

One of my neighbours tells me he received a rather strange landline call saying "Is that you....Press 1 for yes, press 2 if you are not the person being called, press 9 to hear this message again". He immediately hung up and dialled 1471 and the call had been made from an 0800 number and on checking with 1572, the number was not in existence.

 

[Bill EWS]

I have had a couple of the "Your computer is locked up, You must phone this number. Please don't shut down your computer etc.

All they have done is lock the X'' box at the top right hand corner so that you can't close it down. The seriously sounding voice over is to panic you into to phoning the number stated where they will try to scam you. Just ignore that. Use Control + ALT + Delete and use Task Manager to close the page down and it's gone.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I have had a couple of the "Your computer is locked up, You must phone this number. Please don't shut down your computer etc.

All they have done is lock the X'' box at the top right hand corner so that you can't close it down.

How have they been able to do that without any prior access to the computer in question.

 

[A Challenge]

Quite a few scam emails have a valid alias but a weird-looking email address not from the actual alias.

These ones are best not acted upon.

I had an issue with my Email doing this, that I only solved by removing from outlook and reinstalling it, which caused issues when I tried to Email someone it caught in their spam filters

 

[najaB]

How have they been able to do that without any prior access to the computer in question.

It's relatively easy to do with a web page, depending on the browser in use and its security settings. Or with an application that the user is tricked into downloading because it promises something useful - eg. downloading YouTube videos.

 

[1D54]

Three more just now. They always come in three's!! Ashford, Strathpeffer and Bodmin this time. All numbers have been successfully blocked but they'll be back in a fortnight using different ones.

 

[BluePenguin]

Three more just now. They always come in three's!! Ashford, Strathpeffer and Bodmin this time. All numbers have been successfully blocked but they'll be back in a fortnight using different ones.

Was it Ashford in Kent or Ashford in Middlesex?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

It's relatively easy to do with a web page, depending on the browser in use and its security settings. Or with an application that the user is tricked into downloading because it promises something useful - eg. downloading YouTube videos.

I have never been attracted to cold selling of "something useful" items, as even now at the age of 78, my Consultant tells me that "all my marbles are still at home"...

 

[1D54]

Was it Ashford in Kent or Ashford in Middlesex?

Kent.

 

[gg1]

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 read somewhere that this is due to the definitive article not being present in the major Indian languages, as a result there's sometimes a little confusion for Indians who don't use English as their first language around where it should and shouldn't be used. I've also heard the reverse where 'the' is omitted when it shouldn't be.

 

[Howardh]

For the second time in three weeks I've had three calls in quick succession, i declined them all, they were from Liverpool, Nottingham, Bodmin and London. Googling numbers shows they are all known to be scam artists at work.

I often feel like answering and going along with whatever they have to say, I'd get some sort of warped satisfaction out of it before telling them to p**s off before hanging up but why bother!!

Numbers can't be blocked on my mobile which i find strange.

My landline has an answering machine, so I can pick it up If I know who's calling, if not they can leave a message (scammers won't). Can a mobile phone do such a thing, ie. have answering machine capabilities (say those around £100-200)?

 

[Bald Rick]

Can a mobile phone do such a thing, ie. have answering machine capabilities (say those around £100-200)?

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).

 

[1D54]

Mobiles have answering machine facilities but mine is disabled but as you say scammers are not in the habit of leaving messages anyway. You'd think they would take me off their database system or whatever they use as they must have realised by now that they are wasting their time.

 

[gg1]

My landline has an answering machine, so I can pick it up If I know who's calling, if not they can leave a message (scammers won't). Can a mobile phone do such a thing, ie. have answering machine capabilities (say those around £100-200)?

Far more useful from the point of view of scam calls are call blocking mobile apps which automatically block known scam/spam numbers and allow you to manually add numbers to a block list. It's not perfect as they're constantly using new numbers which the apps don't always pick up but the number of calls I received dropped dramatically after I started using one of them.

 

[Lucan]

those Indian call-centre operatives seem to add the word "the" in phrases that are not used in Britain in common speech

Maybe, but you do not need grammatical subtleties to know it is an Indian call centre. After a very short while, only as long as it takes them to get through their rehearsed opening words in a fake Oxford accent (if that fools you), they will soon slip into an unmistakable Indian accent. If you keep going, wind them up, get them off their script, and eventually they will be swearing at you in Hindi - no mistaking that

I had thought that [legitimate] UK companies were giving up using Indian call centres because many people have got to the point of assuming they must be a scam, and they seem badly managed anyway. Yesterday I called OVO (who??) who have just taken over my electricity supply and promptly messed up my billing. Phoning them, I got through to an Indian call centre and on top of my own agent's strong Indian accent, the racket in the background was making it almost impossible to hear him. They must be packed in like sardines in that call centre. I will change my supplier as soon as convenient.

 

[najaB]

I have never been attracted to cold selling of "something useful" items, as even now at the age of 78, my Consultant tells me that "all my marbles are still at home"...

The thing is, the scam program is usually given a name similar to a legitimate product, so that people searching for (made-up example) YouTube Downloader end up downloading the fake YooTube Downloader.

I had thought that [legitimate] UK companies were giving up using Indian call centres because many people have got to the point of assuming they must be a scam, and they seem badly managed anyway.

It's a bit of a mixed bag. Some of the larger organisations are bringing their operations back onshore, others are dealing with the actual problem: BPO companies. They are, generally speaking, badly managed whether in the UK or overseas.

 

[Jamesrob637]

07477154512 rang me this morning purporting to be from HM Revenue and Customs

Immediately blocked. First time in a while I've had one of those.