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.

It does make me tempted to get a loud whistle

We haven't but that's because we have a True Call and when people ring us they either:

1. come straight through (family/friends if we've starred the number),
2. have to press a button (if it's a withheld or international number) to get any further which cuts out a lot as they're automated calls or
3. have to speak to a 'machine' that asks them to record a short message and wait a few moments whilst it comes through to us and asks us if we want to accept it (press 1), star the caller (so they cont straight through to us next time) or reject it (press 2) and not have to speak to them at all.

They're fantastic, they also record our calls too so if there's any problems we can follow it up. Came in V handy with Sky when they tried to charge us higher than we'd agreed and refused to believe they had agreed the lower price until we clipped the recording and sent it through to them.

Now, unless its family our home doesn't ring for weeks on end.

I also have the truecall app on my phone and it identifies most of your calls and lets you know if they are spam calls or if not and it's a business 90% of the time it names the company if it's like British Gas, Sky, Asda etc so you know to answer them if you're expecting it. It doesn't work for every call but it has massively knocked down the amount of spam calls on my mobile to approx 90%

(I promise I don't work for them, I'm just a very happy customer and sharing it incase anyone else is interested. )

It does make me tempted to get a loud whistle

I can gleefully confirm that this works. I got loads of calls from 1 number and told them to take my number off or the next caller would be deafened. Needless to say they called again and were deafened and after that they didn't call again.

When my friend got her call the phone company told her they owed her a refund of £60.00 and had mistakenly transferred £6000. All she had to do was a money transfer from the Post Office. They told her not to discuss it with anyone.
She is a very trusting person and was fretting about having money she didn’t own.
On the way to the Post Office she called to her bank and checked her account. No £6000 there and when she explained to the bank employee it was them who realised she was being scammed.
The scammers had the cheek to ring back and were livid she hadn’t transferred the money. Threatened to blacklist her and all sorts and tortured her for days afterwards.

i give them a lecture about being immoral and why dont they get a proper job rather than scamming people and they ought to be ashamed of themselves....they quickly ring off after that

I used to love winding them up. We have a new phone now that doesn’t allow junk calls.
I used to say to them “oh wow, a problem with my computer, let me go and put it on now. What buttons do you want me to press?” And then I’d say “oh wait a minute, do you think I’m really stupid that I would let you have access to my computer. I keep you on the phone, just so it’s less time for you to annoy a little old lady”. By the end, they’d normally hung up!
Also, I have asked them to speak to the dog before and put the phone on the floor! Dog looks confused, but they still carry on chatting!
Like I said, I miss those calls lol.

We used to get loads of them until we moved and changed number. I've only given the loneliness to family and school.

Sometimes I did used to enjoy arguing the toss with them just to listen to their replies.
My most memorable responses to me telling them they were scamming me were
"Madam you are the biggest liar in the whole wide world"
and
"Hope your husband fuck your behind"

My favourite response to the you've been involved in an accident is to reply 'shhhhh it's a secret we're not telling anyone and it was my fault' then hang up

i give them a lecture about being immoral and why dont they get a proper job rather than scamming people and they ought to be ashamed of themselves....they quickly ring off after that

This. And I sometimes ask them what their mother would think of she knew that her son / daughter were tricking people out of their money.

Clemantara that sounds like a fab response. Did they reply?

I’ve had that phone call once and all I replied was ‘oh really? Tell me some more about this’. They paused and hung up. Which was a shame as I was a bit bored and was looking forward to winding them up a bit.

Yup, got it today funnily enough. Hung up straight away.

"i believe you had an accident madam"
"How the FUCK do you know that?! I have a weak pelvic floor and I PISSED myself that's all!!"

newtobe and Frenchfemme me too! A local friend has had it too - and they always speak English! I have no idea whether they know we are English speaking or they just go through the phone book looking for non-French names