I just got a call...

[mmzz]

BT from India... problem with my broadband. I laughed. he asked why? I said its a well known scam.
He asked do I have a bank account with at least £10k?
I asked why, even if he was from BT, would he think that's any of his business?
he said so that i could send it to him in India.
I asked if he'd like it converted into rupees first.
He said that would be good.
I asked for his bank account details. he said no, it needs to be moneygram.
I asked if that was because the police would catch him if I had his bank account? He said yes it was.
I confirmed that would be because he was a fraudster and I'd be his victim.

At this point, i think he knows that its not going to happen. But a minute later he ask me to get on with it. He asks if I think he is stupid.
I say no, i don't think he's stupid because I believe he knows that there is no way on Earth that I'll be sendinghim any money at all.
Then he just politely thanks me and hangs up!

[MiraiDevant]

The EU law will cause all sorts of difficulties I agree.

Re scams though. I would really like to see a campaign to do more to catch and seriously punish these bastards. And prevent fraud generally. It is a horrible crime.

My mother got done: - the "Your credit card may have been used fraudulently, can we check it is still in your possession?" one, (£350 so not too bad but she was so, so upset).

My friend's dad got done with the "We will send a courier immediately to collect it" one - £2k on that. She felt too ashamed to tell anyone at first.

An old friend of the family lost thousands in a fake police one.

I was taken in by the BT one because I CALLED THEM!!! I couldn't log on to the BT website to report a problem so googled BT support and rang the first number that came up. They answered immediately which was odd but hey, maybe they've changed. They asked for my account number and various other info - which I gave until something made me feel uneasy and I said I'd have to call them back as there was someone at the door. Thank goodness I didn't give them control of my computer or access to my bank details.

I later logged on the BT chat through my account and they confirmed the number was not one of theirs. I was bombarded with calls from "Dave" at BT for weeks afterwards.

[totallystumped]

Had a "Microsoft" one in work the other day - it came in at lunch time on our emergency number. I recognised it, double checked that it wasn't actually from our IT support and basically told them to bugger off, and not to bother calling any associated numbers as we were part of the NHS and weren't really appreciative of IT scams etc given recent events.

What surprised was the fact that some of my colleagues were that I had done so because they wouldn't have...

[totallystumped]

BTW re the IRS/Tax scam one I saw this earlier this week and enjoyed
www.boredpanda.com/programmer-writes-script-against-scammers/

[mmzz]

Sometimes it really is not funny. My elderly mother called me in a panic one day. She'd taken the Microsoft windows call, given them access to her laptop and had even had a conversation about a couple of the family photos she has as a a screensaver. She'd also paid £250 for the privilege, having tried two cards first. They were still rooting around her laptop when she called me.
She said she felt uneasy and was it OK?
You really have to think fast, and try to keep calm whilst getting her to unplug the router NOW (not that she knew what a router is- so I had to describe it first).
I then spent the next 3 days helping her reset her passwords, draft what she needed to tell the bank and credit card company and generally reassuring her that she isn't stupid.

[beluga425]

I've had the accident one quite a few times. My favourite response to a youg caller was to be extremely grateful they'd called back at last to advise on our ongoing case as we were expecting a pay out of ten million pounds. I hung up only for the phone to ring again with what sounded like an older manager eager to speak to me. He sounded so excited like he couldn't believe his luck. I spent a while wasting his time before he realised and swore at me.

DH tells them he had a terrible accident. It was after a bad meal. The dry cleaning bill was outrageous etc. At least it makes us laugh.

[Grimbles]

*They aren't officially cold calls if people can be bothered to be bothered about their family's safety.
I would worry that families are in danger, but there's nothing i can do because there are so many scams about. *

This shit pisses me off.

Hiding behind the 'we want you to be safe, why don't you care about your family ' justification doesn't give you any more right to cold call.

[user1483808257]

We used to have great fun with this in the office. We'd listen to them and humour them until we got bored, then advise we weren't descion maker and transfer them to the relevant person, who'd do the same, and so on. It amused us a bit too much I think. It was like musical chairs, you lost if you were the person who got hung up on (eventually!).

We also did some work.

[Plainlycrackers]

I laughed out loud when I got one purportedly from Openreach... I have tried to speak to Openreach in the past and it is utterly impossible other than to be told they never converse with end users as they only have a relationship with your network provider! And yes I know they are part of the BT group but they will do anything to avoid admitting this and they still won't speak to you even if you are a BT customer. I have had arguments with cold callers in the past especially the Microsoft ones... one even called me a motherfucker before I had even tried to be rude to him... I reported that one to Ofcom!

[GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER]

With any nuisance calls, friend of mine used to say very nicely, 'Could you just hang on a tick?' Then she'd go and get the vacuum cleaner, switch it on and have it blasting into the phone.

[pollymere]

I like saying "which broadband?" And that none of my computers run on Windows. They don't know what to say then.

[DagenhamRoundhouse]

HMRC will NEVER email you to say you have a tax rebate due. They'd write to a real street address.

[theDudesmummy]

I used to get cross, swear etc, but it just worked me up, now I just lie the phone down and get on with whatever I was doing...

[sueelleker]

One reason I won't do online banking is so that I know any banking emails are scam,

[Ginnotginger]

I usually say that I'm not interested/I know this is a scam, goodbye then hang up. Now the CF's have started ringing me back to complain that I hung up on them! I have not been so polite the second time.

[FlandersRocks]

One reason I won't do online banking is so that I know any banking emails are scam

That's just silly. Scam banking emails only catch out people that aren't aware of them/suspicious of emails.

If you are, there's no reason not to use online banking...you just don't respond to or click emails appearing to be from your bank.

[Purplealienpuke]

Notso OMG!! That's appalling 😲
A refs whistle works well for the unknown number ones. Let's face it they can hardly complain!
An ex (unbeknownst to me) had been giving out my house number when he lived with me, signing up to stupid survey things. After he left I was bombarded with calls for him, even when I said he didn't live there they called constantly. I resorted to telling people he was dead. It worked!

[Purplealienpuke]

The bank scam emails can be forwarded to the bank the claim to be from. It helps them shut them down.

[NewUser24]

Whenever I get the car crash one I do love to have some fun with them...

Caller: have you had an accident in the last 2 years?
Me:yes
Caller: what happened?
Me: I sneezed behind the wheel and wet myself
Caller: were there any vehicles involved?
Me:yes mine
Caller: was there any damage?
Me: yes there is piss on my car seat

....

It goes round like this in circles until they get annoyed and put the phone down. I love wasting their time so that they are not scamming people.

The other old trick is if you know it's a call centre/spam pick up the phone with the greeting whips, chains and leathers they will soon leave you alone.

On a serious note if you tell them as soon as you pick up the phone you are 15 the annoying call centres have to terminate the call there as they are not allowed to engage with a minor, granted will not work with scammers

[Minaktinga]

This is a podcast about a guy who went to India to find the scammer: itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/reply-all/id941907967?mt=2&i=1000390370460

[FlandersRocks]

People using whistles are being very stupid.

Many of us are so hyper aware of scams now that there's a real possibility you may think 'scam' over a genuine call.

I work with someone who got 'whistled' at down the phone. I work for a bank and this woman has an Asian accent. The outbound call was actually to one of our customers about their account...and they were too clever for their own good, called scam incorrectly and whistled.

Well bad luck to them, she got a significant payout from them in damages.

By all means hang up but don't risk something which will get you into serious shit if you happen to be wrong.

[Dramalady52]

Someone tried to sell me a conservatory years ago, said they'd surveyed the area and we were ideally suited for a conservatory. It was only when I asked if they could cantilever it out from the first floor she realised we were in a flat! These days I let all calls go to ansaphone unless the caller ID is someone I know. If it's important they'll leave a message!

[HolidayHelpPlease]

The best one I’ve ever had was after I suffered a head injury at work (playworker/children/bouncy castle - never again) and the ‘injury at work’ people rang whilst I was still concussed. According to my family I was only saying half of my sentences before slurring off - the caller stayed on the phone for 30 mins!

[1NeedPampering]

I just put the phone down. Used to tell them we had no computer (smug grin as they search their script for answer). Then found its costing them nothing as they nick the broadband often from schools.

[bigbluebus]

PigletJohn Just got DH to register for BT Call Protect so hoping to reduce the number of calls from now on - thanks for the info.

We have a number which rings us about 6 times a day. It just comes up as 00 on the screen. We tried ignoring it in the hope it would think the number wasn't in use but it doesn't give up.

And I am sick to death of the ones that ring and ask if anyone in the house is on benefits as we could get a free boiler. Two days in a row this week - do they really think that if we weren't on benefits yesterday then we might by some slim chance be claiming them today?