Have you ‘had the phone call’?

[Thistimetomorrow]

Yesterday I received the phone call, we’re calling because you’re having problems with your computer/internet.
I know it’s a scam. Today, I’ve had another recorded message saying my internet will be terminated and I have 2 options.
Press 1 to speak to someone
Press 2 to continue with the termination
My friend was nearly conned out of a lot of money by one of these scams.
Have you or anyone you know been a victim?
How do you deal with these calls?
I just put the phone down and don’t engage.

I find it fun to wind them up.

I had one a while back now claiming he was from the tax office, I kept pretending to miss hear him & telling him that I hadn’t ordered a taxi. He got really rather annoyed with me & told me I was wasting his time

Considering how many of these phone calls are made everyday I assume that the scammers must have a call centre to rival the big companies. I wonder if they employ "genuine" people or if all the 100s of people making the calls are in on the scam?

We've had them on the business line for years. I have now resulted to vulgarity - not that it stops them, just makes me feel a little better.

Get a BT Call Guardian phone. They're brilliant. Non of the spammy calls get through

If I'm bored I will wind them up a bit. It sickens me when they prey on the elderly.
I hope every one knows one of the more recent ones?
Call or person at door telling you about a loop hole in the universal credit application and they can get you up to £1500 in a couple of days. Some people have ended up in serious debt and denied benefits because of this scam.

Yes l get them all the time. Sometimes if I'm bored l play along. I actually can't believe people fall for this my dad is 75 and he knows better than to engage

i used to tell my daughter santa was on the phone and wanted her list of presents

Today's favourite scam seems to be call saying "your Visa card is being used and a transaction of £600 is about to go through . Press 1 to stop this transaction.
Had this twice today .... odd as as have no Visa card . Twats !

These terrify me as my DF is nearly 90 & although not diagnosed he probably has early stage dementia. He is very likely to assume it is a 'genuine' call & get sucked in. . He is of the generation where you have to be terribly polite to eve. Pointless getting him a call screener as he wouldn't know how to 'screen' the calls.

I had one about a car accident yesterday! I agreed that I had been in an accident, when he asked about my injuries I told him I was dead! He told me to f off!
Another thing I do if they ask for DH I ask them to hold the line and make them wait a while, then return to phone and say 'his grace is at prayer!' They have no idea how to respond to that!

DS(12) deals with that sort of thing and gets quite upset if he misses their call.

I ask them were they got the phone number as they have come through to GCHQ on a surveillance line as part of an international crackdown on fraud and criminallity. The physical location of callers to the number have been tracked and will be detained.

Most hang up v. quickly.

I always string them along for ages to waste their money on phone bills until they shout at me and hang up.

A couple of years ago my car was damaged in a Lidl car park and I asked them to check the cctv for me.

I had calls for weeks after that about the “accident” id been in. No prizes for guessing where they got hat info from then.

@BigcatLittlecat - 'his grace is at prayer.' I have to borrow that one!

My mobile phone is on someone's autodialler.

Mobies can be registered with the TPS too.

"The telephone number has been registered with the Telephone Preference Service, you are committing an offence by calling this number."

And report to ICO.

I often don't get to finish what I was saying.

I've never had one on the landline, we've been TPS, ex-directory and caller ID from when we moved in but I get one of the car accident ones on my mobile every now and then. I'm happy to give them lots and lots of details about a crash I had in 1992.

We register all mobile numbers with the TPS too but the odd one still calls.

I have the numbers of people I want to talk to saved on my phone (but mostly they will use my mobile anyhow) If it's a strange number - I don't answer, I figure if it's important they will leave a message or Email. I had my windscreen replaced by Autoglass as it had a crack, after that I had endless calls from accident claim lines, strange coincidence 😗

We’ve had a spate of these over the last few days.....strangely we’ve just changed internet provider, bit of a coincidence

I've had ones from India asking me about my problems with Microsoft.

Really weird - I live in France!

I had one once where they informed me that I had been in a car accident. I told them I don't drive! So she responded "well as bus accident then!"
Like I would forget something like that.

@newtb Me too!

I had a new one yesterday.The insurance cover on my Sky equipmen had expired and I needed torenew it with him. My resonse was that isreally interesting , and I asked when it ran out. He put the phone down,. Needless to say, we don't have Sky.

I had three last week within the space of 40 minutes to tell me someone had spent £600 on my credit card overseas.
I don’t actually answer my landline anymore, just screen the voicemails. So many bastard scammers out there.