As some of you know I am involved with a charity for vocational licence holders and as such, I'm the first point of contact.
I have just taken this call, and as I had to transcript it for our other Trustees, I thought it might be a bit of an eye opener for here too!
It went like this....
Hello, is that ther err, errr, Professional, err, errr, I'm distracted now and can't think who I'm ringing.
Professional Drivers Association?
Yes, that's it, do you have a Benevolent Fund.
Yes, we have the Foundation, which is our charitable arm.
I need £400 for a man who is in distress through no fault of his own.
OK, what does he want it for?
For a deposit on a rented house.
Right, does he meet our criteria though?
I didn't know you had any criteria (stroppily)
Yes, we do, is he a vocational licence holder?
I don't know, I think he did the job years ago.
Can I ask who I'm talking to please?
Karen
Karen from where?
A Charity in South Wales.
What charity?
It doesn't matter, I will find out if he does meet your criteria.
Can I ask why the Charity you are from can't help this man?
We're already helping him.
Right, well when you confirm his position it would be necessary for him to contact us directly for us to discuss this with him.
OK, Bye. (slams phone down)<<<<<
Is it any wonder I have a cynical outlook on life?
Pat
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Presumably, as with most scams, the belief that eventually one charity or other will fall for it?
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As you know Pat, I am the most courteous and patient of men, but almost every remark by that caller would have made me want to ring off abruptly. The first one in particular which begged for the reply: 'Look, I have work to do, so when you remember who you're trying to call, call them, and if it's me I'll see if I can help you.' (click)
I know you aren't a helpless idiot, so you must have the patience of a saint.
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I always loose my rag with time wasters, e.g people cold calling me trying to sell bogus advertising or saying I can claim compensation for the car accident I never had.
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>> saying I can claim compensation for the car accident I never had.
I get a lot of those. They are all text messages though.
I never answer them of course, but I do have longing thoughts of being a Mossad thug who has slipped them a special mobile phone with an explosive charge in it. Press the button and ZAP! one headless enemy.
Surely there is something criminal about these messages? Shouldn't there be an offence of 'attempting to recruit idiot toerags for scamming purposes'? They can hardly pretend these calls and messages are all honest mistakes. They constitute in fact a clear incitement to criminal activity I would have thought.
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>> They constitute in fact a clear incitement to criminal activity I would have thought.
Or is making fanciful, excessive or totally fraudulent insurance claims seen as just good fun and potentially a nice little earner? Perhaps I am too simple-minded and naive for the modern world. I often think I may be.
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Don't lose your rag, be public spirited and just keep them talking.....
My most 'successful' wind up was with a boiler room (share) salesman who obviously thought he had hooked a mug. After 10 minutes he tried to go in for the kill and I just said that I had no money.
He did get me back about 5 minutes later with a torrent of foul mouth abuse to which I just laughed.
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ive had 2 boiler room scams pulled on me. played dumb and kept asking really stupid questions.
at the end i gave them a five yr old defucnt credit card number. they were not pleased when they phoned back a little while later
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...ive had 2 boiler room scams pulled on me. played dumb and kept asking really stupid questions...
Nick,
I get the impression you know your way around the business world better than most.
For the rest of us, I think the best plan is to put the phone down sooner rather than later.
I don't know much about these fellas, but I do know they are cleverer than me at what they do.
Last edited by: Iffy on Tue 31 May 11 at 20:35
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>> I don't know much about these fellas, but I do know they are cleverer than me at what they do.
Sounds as if you may have given it a try Iffy...
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they are well rehearsed conmen who rely on the easily led to make there living. but agreed anyone phones me without being invited or doesnt display a number when they call dont get through nowadays
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>Don't lose your rag, be public spirited and just keep them talking.....
That can backfire if you are not careful.
A practice called 'slamming' used to be very common in the US and has found it's way over here.
The phone call usually starts with something like:
"Hello Mr pmh. Would you (like/be interested in) (cheaper/faster/better) (phone calls/broadband/whatever)?" (Delete as appropriate).
As soon as they get a "Yes", the tele-marketeer takes that as an agreement and quickly ends the call.
The next thing you know your (phone line/broadband/utility) bills are coming from Acme Telecoms or Electrons4U.
Last edited by: Kevin on Tue 31 May 11 at 20:38
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>> "Hello Mr pmh. Would you (like/be interested in) (cheaper/faster/better) (phone calls/broadband/whatever)?" (Delete as appropriate).
I am never interested and I wouldn't like it. And I never hesitate to say so, usually with unnecessary politeness.
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I'm the same as you PMH. Have a bit of fun with them...unless it sounds like a young lady, in which case a bit of chatting up doesn't go amiss before I put the phone down.
Like AC, I get txts, had one today saying I could claim £3800 for the recent accident I had...???
Some are a bit more evil. Dom Littlewood featured a poor guy who'd been sucked into buying all sorts of mail oreder offers...all junk. He had become addicted and the house was full of stuff with dozens of letters, catalogues and vouchers arriving daily.
He hadn't told his wife of 50 yrs where all the stuff was coming from and she was on the verge of leaving until he suddenly came to his senses.
A sad world..
Ted
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>> Like AC, I get txts, had one today saying I could claim £3800 for the recent accident I had...???
Seen adverts for mis-selling payment protection claiming you could get back close to £20k... So how much would one have borrowed to really get that back.... Yeh right.
There will be some idiots thinking they are due thousands.
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"There will be some idiots thinking they are due thousands."
They might not be idiots. PPI costs on a secured loan of £100,000 could have added another £16,000 to the loan. Adding interest to that they could easily be due back £20,000 .
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I suppose I get my fair share of scam calls.
My normal procedure when I get a call with a 'funny' number, or number withheld, is is to pick up the phone, but say nothing, until the caller speaks. This happened the other day; the caller spoke - heavy foreign accent, crackly line "Could I speak to Mr Blank (they had the right name), I said "first of all would you like to introduce yourself"? They said no, they wouldn't like to and put the phone down.
I have caller display on my phone, I took a call yesterday where the number displayed was a row of noughts (I nearly said zeros). How do they work that?
Last edited by: Duncan on Wed 1 Jun 11 at 07:05
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>>I suppose I get my fair share of scam calls.
We do, too, most days.
Our method, generally, is to ignore calls where we don't recognise the number; if it's important they can leave a message on the answerphone, but invariably they don't.
We frequently have 'out of area displayed' when we receive incoming calls, although I haven't seen a row of noughts yet.
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I got an interesting scam email yesterday. It purported to come from my cousin, who said she had been mugged in Madrid and had all her cards etc stolen, and asked me to send some money urgently.
On phoning her home number I found she was not in Madrid, but that a hacker had stolen her address book and was now emailing everyone trying this scam.
The devilish thing though was the wording was brilliant. It managed to capture exactly the slightly hysterical increasingly panicky manner of someone who had just been mugged at gunpoint, and was alone abroad wondering what to do. She was allegedly in an internet cafe, and afraid that she was being watched.
The email had her correct home address at the bottom, with a phone number that was close to, but not quite right, her real number. That was the number I initially rang, and a voice said she was away. So even that detail had been planned.
The whole thing was not impossibly implausible, especially as the sum asked for was quite modest.
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For a very small monthly fee my phone is set to reject all calls from withheld numbers. It is well worth it for the peace of mind.
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Guess I'm lucky somehow. In all the years I've had a mobile I've never had a call from anyone at all that I didn't know, nor do we ever get cold calls on the landline. In fact, until reading this thread I didn't realise people even did get cold calls on a mobile.
Touch wood.
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...In all the years I've had a mobile I've never had a call from anyone at all that I didn't know, nor do we ever get cold calls on the landline...
Very, very few cold calls at Iffy Towers or to my mobile.
I wonder if you get a few, your number gets passed around, so they multiply like a virus.
Or if you entertain one, the call centre marks you as a 'possible' and calls you on behalf of every client they have.
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Taking the biscuit. - Stuartli
