Had one today. I couldn't make out what the (chinese sounding) woman was saying first of all, could have been due to the background noise that sounded like a very large call centre. Asked her to repeat it, which she did. Still couldn't fully understand what she was saying, so put her on speaker and asked her to repeat again, so SWMBO could also listen. We decided she was telling us we were due (£?)199 refund for our washing machine insurance.
We both burst out laughing. She replied: "Why you laughing, motherf@#%er, click."
Made our day.
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But then, of course, she has your number to pass on to other such organisations...
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I expect it's "sell" rather than "pass on".
Though they already have your number - they called it!!
But they know it is likely to be a private individual rather than a company or a fax machine or whatever.
Last edited by: smokie on Sat 26 Mar 22 at 09:24
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I still think an ear full of @#%, etc, is likely to be counterproductive.
So there!
:)
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I had two this morning both from what may well have been the same person (female). Phone number per CLI showed as 020 4xxx xxxx so possibly London. Caller's accent and background noise suggested an Indian call centre.
On both occasions person asked if I was Mrs Bromptonaut. I asked who was calling. After another attempt to ask for Mrs B the caller said she was from 'my domestic appliance warranty co'. Clearly nonsense as I only have one (boiler) and that's D&G who have their admin in UK (Warwickshire?).
Second time she asked if I was Mrs B. My response was 'do I sound like a woman to you?'. She hung up.
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I am sure we have done this before, but 99% of the time, as soon as I realise it's a nonsense call - whether scam or sales - I just hang up. That's it. No swearing, no dragging out the call to wind the other person, just put the phone down, I don't block the number, or owt. Just put the phone down.
I get very few silly calls.
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>>Phone number per CLI showed as 020 4xxx xxxx so possibly London.
Don't rely on the CLI, it is very easily spoofed.
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If I bother to answer them I'm the same as Duncan, just hang up. Not worth the waste of my breath. I always assume (probably wrongly) if it's important they will call back/leave a message/contact another way.
I occasionally block a number on the mobile but that is pretty futile as I bet ty hardly ever call from the same number twice.
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Sky Shield installed and in 4 years no scam calls - Looking online I can still see incoming calls and their dodgy "UK phone number" but they give up.
Any person can give their name/company name and my home phone will ring - I the decide to allow the call or block it.
From 3/4 scam calls per day to zero in 4 years is wonderful.
Other landline suppliers will have "free" caller blocker.
Any negatives? Yes it is a pain the rrrs to get friends, families & company numbers into the system as everybody seems to have home number, works number, mobile, work mobile etc etc
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If we don't recognise a number on caller display, we leave it to go on to answerphone. Most callers hang up well before the end of the answerphone messsge.
Actually, we need to buy another three 'phones to replace our aging Panasonics. Any advice regarding the best available for avoiding scammers and their like, will be much appreciated.
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No need for a special phone if you use BT Answer service with (presumably any) ordinary phone.
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No need for a special phone if you just hang up when you realise it's a nonsense (scam or sales) unwanted call.
Just hang up. I probably get less than one call a week, saves any nonsense about people having to identify themselves.
Scenario
Phones rings
Me "Hello"
(Strong foreign accent) "Hello, is that Mr Duncan, how are you today, sir?"
Phone is hung up. No drama. No special equipment, just the Mk1 brain.
Just hang up.
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Works when you get "one call a week".
Not so much fun when you get multiple calls a day, some repeated within a few minutes if you hang up.
Hence other tech to stop it, as I've mentioned before.
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Hello, is that Mr D’Hills?
No, but I can get him for you, he’s out in the garden, can you hold?………he’s just coming, won’t be long……just a sec, he’s gone to the loo, shouldn’t be too long now…………
;-)
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For me, it's generally compulsory to wind them up and string them along for a bit.
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>> For me, it's generally compulsory to wind them up and string them along for a
>> bit.
>>
He he, me too.
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>>Hello, is that Mr D'Hills?
I'll often reply: "you want my father, I'll go and dig him out".
He died sixty years ago!
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>> Works when you get "one call a week".
>>
>> Not so much fun when you get multiple calls a day, some repeated within a
>> few minutes if you hang up.
>>
>> Hence other tech to stop it, as I've mentioned before.
>>
Perhaps they have done their market research and they find that the people who invest in various systems to keep them at bay, are, in fact, more likely to fall for their sales pitch.
It's not impossible.
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There's some truth in that. I bought my call blocker thing because Mrs C answered the phone, and then came galloping to find me in a panic because "BT say they are going to cut us off". She knows we have been with Virgin for twenty five years, but...
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I regularly get calls (usually IT based) to our extension at work, from the start I tell them that they've rung a hospital number but they carry on talking...
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I used to get as many as eight scam calls a day, which was annoying. I have a Panasonic phone now with caller block so they never get through, although they still call, but I don't hear them.
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>> Actually, we need to buy another three 'phones to replace our aging Panasonics. Any advice
>> regarding the best available for avoiding scammers and their like, will be much appreciated.
I've just ordered a set of three Panasonic cordless digital 'phones, with call block @ £79.99.
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I'd like to see the economics of this.
The call cost is probably small, but more than the wages. If it is India then they can probably get away with £1 a day. They'll be using a dialler so the people will only be involved when there's a pick up.They might be able to speak to 50 people per hour, 3 or 400 per day? Maybe the all up cost is £10 a day so a couple of pence per contact, most of which will be of a few seconds duration, so one hit a day will still be good money for (presumably) their boss.
I can't be bothered to wind them up but I don't like to help their business model by hanging up immediately, so I say as warmly as possible, trying to sound about 90, "Hold on, I'll go and fetch him/her", leave the phone off the hook and carry on with whatever I was doing. Even if they only hold on for 10 or 20s it will undermine their productivity a bit.
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Didn't someone link to a programme about the scam call centres in India some time back on here? I'll look for it later.
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I am getting frequent scam emails, mostly with women's names on them, apparently selling bonds. I send them to my Blocked Senders list and they disappear from view but don't then appear on the Blocked Senders list, although many do from the past. Why would that be?
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Had one this afternoon offering to refund me the £119 washing machine insurance premium. As I'm sitting here with a bad back and can't do anything useful, I decide to wind them up. Was transferred twice to someone who each had a better grasp of English of than the previous and were further away from the general noise and hubbub of the call centre (sorry, there's a lot of background noise, can you repeat that please?)
Finally had someone who spoke good English and were in a quiet place. I got bored and started laughing. They called me disrespectful before hanging up, which was an improvement on MF.
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I was scammed last Sunday. I got a txt fro the Halifax at 7pm to say they had noticed odd transactions on my internet banking and to ring them. I first quickly checked my desktop and my phone app and couldn't get in to see a statement. I rang the HX on the no. on the back of the card and set there for nearly an hour hearing how busy there were !
When I got through, my accounts were frozen straight away but the damage was done. 12 transfers had been made by a male of about £30 each and thirteen by a female of about £44 each. Debit card purchases had been made of £241, £114 and one of £314 was pending. Several amounts of £200 had been transferred to that account to top it up ready for more thieving but the freeze had stopped them.
In all, I guess over£1000 had gone. Three hours on the phone saw the 25 smaller sums credited back to the account and my debit cards locked. I have a very secure password and memorable word but chummy had got in, disabled both and changed my phone number to his in order to get incoming codes by txt
We sorted the debit card purchases the following day. One to a clothes shop in Newcastle, one to a shoe shop in London and One to a toy shop in London Total £690ish. I was uncertain that I could get this money back as there was no proof that I hadn't made the purchases But while the operator was off the line I spotted an anomaly. The toy shop sale had a note, 'card not present ,card ending 6354 '. I had the only card on that account in front of me on the desk and the number ended in 6357. Discussion with the operator resulted in him thinking it was a card sent out to me but intercepted somehow by the felon. He couldn't get any cash because he had no PIN. I assume the three purchases were by phone or on line
All passwords and memorable words have been changed now and I've been told I can get cash out at the branch in the village if I take my passport. I like the system where they txt you a one-off passcode which you have to enter to open your banking on line. Not a good experience but I seem to have made a few quid on the deal. Perhaps they felt sorry for a poor old man. I transferred a couple of grand to my wife's Santander account just to be safe leaving a few hundred over 4 HX accounts to cover bills and so on.
The crims were using names on their multiple transfers, Josiah Daisi and Marina Ferreina. I looked on Facebook, there are a few Marinas but only one Josiah Daisi... a Nigerian, about 30 yrs living in London......Hmmmm! The Halifax was superb, apart from the phone waiting time. The girls and boys who dealt with me were excellent. One guy was a Scouser so we had a bit of cheeky banter about tomorrow's football match at Wembley!
Ted
I'll be getting
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Ted are you saying that the scum actually credited money to your account? If so this sounds odd. Could the Halifax explain that? I vaguely remember scams where they credited accounts to enable them to take out loans. So if they did credit your accounts you may need further advice from the Halifax fraud dept as to any further risks or actions.
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Ted. I presume you contacted the police? When someone tried to clumsily defraud my credit card, the bank told me not to contact the police, I did anyway and they were most interested. I understand the miscreant got a knock on the door!
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>> Ted are you saying that the scum actually credited money to your account? If so
>> this sounds odd. Could the Halifax explain that? I vaguely remember scams where they credited
>> accounts to enable them to take out loans. So if they did credit your accounts
>> you may need further advice from the Halifax fraud dept as to any further risks
>> or actions.
>>
>>
>>
It’s worth keeping an eye on your credit file.
I use www.creditkarma.co.uk/
It’s also worth putting a marker on your credit file such as a Protective Registration — Recorded at the request of the person name or Victim of Impersonation — Use, by another person, of this name and/or address.
These marker may also inconvenience you.
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Sorry to hear about the trouble you've had Ted.
Mrs Z was the victim of a card scammer / skimmer at the local petrol station. She had dodgy charges appear and an anti fraud call because "her card" was used in Morocco and Tunbridge Wells within a few minutes.
I guess your new card was stolen on route to you. I know a large sorting office in Kent had to use high speed cameras to catch a member of staff pocketing mail because they were so quick a normal camera couldn't capture the act and they wouldn't do a search without video evidence.
The names you have may not be the perpetrators and may have had their accounts compromised as well.
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I don't think ordinary banks don't have such high card security as some of the challenger banks, but with my (rarely used) Revolut I can turn off internet transactions, swipe transactions, ATM transactions and vary my contactless limit. And I can turn on location based security. I can also freeze and unfreeze the card from the app, as well as change my PIN.
I guess the old banks will catch up before much longer. It won't eradicate fraud but it must help.
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Lots of good info there, keep it coming chaps. Answering Martin's point, no , our friend transferred money in £200 blocks from my two savings accounts to the debit card current account he was using. I ended up, after various transfers in and out, having £600 more in that account than I had on the day before he started. Of course, it was mine anyway ! He couldn't use our joint account for purchases as he didn't have any card details but he could transfer money. I feel he could have thoroughly rinsed me if the HX hadn't frozen it all when they did. I was a bit concerned, although it didn't affect me, that the helpline closed at 11pm. What do you do if you get scammed after midnight ? I do have the facility to freeze my accounts but in this case, he had changed my login details on the desktop and the phone, denying me access.
I appreciate that false names would be used but it's such an unusual real name to be picked at random. Perhaps he didn't realise that using his own account to harvest the money would bring his name and account number onto the screen. I told the police but they didn't seem interested. Perhaps it will go in the bin with the 80,000 other crimes that our force have been accused of 'writing off'.
The HX and myself were at a loss about how the bloke got into the online account. Possession of a debit card, legit or not, shouldn't have allowed that....or should it ?. I have Bitdefender security and, although being an old duffer, I am mostly up to date with scams, etc. My password, n obscure German word, changed now, is not written down as I have a good memory, even swm doesn't know it as she never needs to use 'my' internet banking. If she did, we could easily 'code' it for her. My memory for numbers is very good, I haven't come across anyone else yet who knows their 16 figure no. expiry date and security number without looking at the card.
More thoughts fro you banking experts always welcome, we'll see what happens. All ok up to now, new cards coming next week. I like the new HX cards with no embossed number, much easier to read, both debit and credit ones. Only trouble now is getting my £2K back from swm before she hits the Trafford Centre !
Ted
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Thanks for the update Ted. I still find the overall scam a bit puzzling and, like you, can’t work out how they got so far without passwords. The bank will be wary of speculating and so encouraging copy cat crime.
The biggest mystery of all of course is how a village still has a bank.
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>>The biggest mystery of all of course is how a village still has a bank.
As someone in the industry - I think it's a crying shame that so many branches have been closed.
My local town has 5 centres - the original villages and new town and until the mid 2000s all had the full or almost full main 4 + building societies.
I recall a branch at the college and a room put by every Wednesday morning at my first full time employers for the bank to turn up so staff could get banking done without having to leave site.
Now only the town centre has bank branches. The post office has also gone (now an understaffed area of WH Smiths).
There should have been a move years ago to shared premises banking and the move to free banking certainly hasn't helped.
We see it even in corporate banking with an inexorable rush to the cheapest pricing. Customers seem to forget that it is rare to get good service without a reasonable profit being made. We have clients come to us with quotes from the competition that we know must be loss making (we know what the cost of borrowing is to other banks) and show them in the T&Cs the hidden costs which would more than cancel out any savings made on headline rates. We have clients come back to us after going to rival banks and not liking the lack of service.
I went in to a local (not my employer) bank recently to pay in some cash to my back up accounts. All of the tills had gone, replaced by machines that were not that easy to use and so close together that they afforded no privacy.
Don't use self service tills or pay at pump services - keep people employed.
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>> >>The biggest mystery of all of course is how a village still has a bank.
Well, of course, we oldies call it a village but now it's a suburb of Britain's premier city outside the smoke. Our main crossroads was know to newcomers as ' 4 banks corner ' but it's 2 banks now, the Scottish one and the Spanish one now closed. HSBC looks as if it's on it's way leaving the Natwest. Barclays is 50 yards up the road and HX 50 the other way. We had a Bank of Ireland not so long ago as well. There are 4 post offices as well with another across the road in a different borough. I imagine most of the 10 or so estate agents have links to other banks as well. Right, nearly kick off time !
Ted
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We live not far from one of the claimed biggest 'Village' in the UK. All the main banks had branches and only Lloyds has survived. There is a main PO with sorting office.
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>>
>> My memory for numbers is very good, I haven't come across anyone
>> else yet who knows their 16 figure no. expiry date and security number without looking
>> at the card.
>>
>>
I do... and the previous card, which expired 2 years ago (that's useless of course!)
Well I mean I know it for my card, not yours.
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>>I haven't come across anyone else yet who knows their 16 figure no. expiry date and security >>number without looking at the card.
My daughter knows those details. It certainly impresses me.
She complained when she got a smart phone. " I can no longer text with my phone in my pocket"
Me ? I do not have a good memory for names or phone numbers.
Its all a lottery
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My memory for numbers is very good, I haven't come across anyone
>> else yet who knows their 16 figure no. expiry date and security number without looking
>> at the card.
>>
>>
My OH can, always has been able to. Me? Hopeless at that sort of thing.
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>> My memory for numbers is very good,
>>
>> My OH can, always has been able to. Me? Hopeless at that sort of thing.
>>
My OH is great at remembering precisely any transgression I made over the last 30 years.
Any favours or good deeds done over the same period - nothing - if it's not written down - it didn't happen!
:-)
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>> My OH is great at remembering precisely any transgression I made over the last 30
>> years.
Tell me something new, I've been married 50 years!
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>>Tell me something new, I've been married 50 years!
I'll see yore 50 years with my 53 years!
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I did not know what true happiness was until I got married.
But by then it was too late.
(Almost 51 years and she is still pointing out the errors in my ways).
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>> >>Tell me something new, I've been married 50 years!
>>
>> I'll see yore 50 years with my 53 years!
>>
I'll match you with my 53, Perro !
Ted
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>>I'll match you with my 53, Perro !
Another glutton for punishment, hey.
:o}
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That sounds like a variation of the SIM-swap scam.
Lots of info online about it.
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My favourite line to the scammers after listening to their preamble is,
“Does your mother know that you are a thief”
Hopefully it will give them something to prick their conscience.
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The person you are talking to on the phone is unlikely to be the originator of the scam. More likely,especially I’d foreign, they are likely to be an employee trying to earn some money as best they can It’s more than possible toy might do the same in their circumstances.
Perhaps it would be more polite to say “No thank you” and hang up.
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It doesn't seem to bother "These employees trying to earn some money" that they are going to bankrupt some confused OAP they talk into parting with their bank and credit card details. They are thieving scum, and no it is not possible that I would do the same under their circumstances.
They deserve all they get.
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Perhaps, but perhaps not. It’s difficult to know. If they are indeed fully complicit in what they are doing I very much doubt your abuse will change their mind.
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I don’t have a house phone.
When I get them on my mobile I try and keep them on for as long as possible if I’m not otherwise doing anything. In my head I am sparing someone else getting the call in that time.
Then when I hang up I block the number.
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They must laugh at you, after all they are being paid to hear you wasting your time!! :_)
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But there's probably commission if they hook you. And they are leaving some other victim alone - temporarily.
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Talking of scams, this link appeared in something which I was reading.
thetimesreport.com/a/bo/reportbo_b2.php
I can imagine some might be taken in by it.
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BTW, that was not me who put the frownie on your post GC.
Last edited by: Robin O'Reliant on Sun 17 Apr 22 at 21:01
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Scam calls - Clk Sec
