And another phone scam/nuisnace

[woodenhead]

Been bombarded with calls relating to Talktalk for the past two days.

 

Automated message, different CLI each call so cannot block.  Always the same message, our internet is about to be switched off, press 1 to speak to someone, press 2 to be disconnected.

 

They must be being generous, two days of disconnection threats and my Internet is still up and running.

[kevinlms]

5 hours ago, jonny777 said:

I was checking my email while half watching telly, and was almost on the point of clicking the "confirm" button before an alarm went off in my head. 

 

If you have accounts with Santander, beware of this realistic looking message. 

 

 

 

I always give such messages a quick glance. To me the dead giveaway is down the bottom where it says urgent. Designed to make people panic and click without thinking. 

 

Get that hardwired into your brain and you won't go far wrong.

[monkeysarefun]

19 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Just because the Node is near your place, doesn't mean a great deal. I've heard of people having the Node on their nature strip, but the line actually goes up the road & back again, giving the several 100 metres of phone line. It ought not to drop out at all.

What type of NBN do you have? Perhaps best to reply as a private message, rather than boring everyone!

 

I'm in a one horse village about 10km from a larger town so the phone line doesn't have any reason to meander very far. The node is one of those notorious  micro-nodes that they installed in outer areas and then took about 6 months to figure out how to get working. Now it does  I'm pretty happy with 70 to 80Mbps at my laptop if I sit close enough to the wireless router.

I have fibre to the node. The dropouts were usually the NBN box rebooting itself, originally this was several times a day but lately to be honest is now about once a week that I'm aware of. For some reason the houses behind me fronting the main road got fixed wireless, even though they are closer to the main node and the fibre was laid along the front of their properties to get to our micronode...

[kevinlms]

Found this response to a scammer elsewhere.

 

"What is the oddest conversation you've had with a telephone scammer?

 

40+ years as an English language/ communications instructor

 

I live in Thailand but answer my phone in English, mostly to weed out sales, wrong number or scam calls. Hearing English, callers usually hang up.

I was 2 hours early for a corporate teaching assignment and was at an open-air coffee shop in the 3-floor high lobby. Areas were divided by crisscross fences and potted trees.

A mobile “boiler room” group was making their calls and having coffee at a nearby table. I was seated close to the fence but hidden by a bush.

I have ‘teacher ears’ (meaning I can hear conversations from a distance), and I understand Thai.

Being bored, I listened in on some of their calls, thinking how horrid they were to pressure people to invest in high-risk whatever.

My husband called, telling me he would drop by, and then it was back to boredom.

My phone rang again, i.d. blocked. The caller asked for me by name in Thai. When I spoke in English, he asked me to wait a moment, and another man came on calling himself ‘Santi.’

In very good English, he started his hook line about me needing more money, getting finer things, blah, blah,blah. He was GOOD at this!

I complimented his English, but he was determined to stay on track. He continued his spiel and had an answer for everything.

I began to notice I was hearing background noises in stereo; he was in the boiler group near me!

Thanks to that crisscross fencing, I could see him. I knew by his mouth movements that he was the one who was speaking English (I am good at what I do, too!).

I heard his colleague call him a different name.

I am no prankster, I can never pull it off, but today, karma smiled.

“Santi, I have to tell you something….I am a fortune teller as well as a teacher.”

Thais love fortune tellers. They ask for auspicious dates before big steps, good luck names for their children, and judgments about what they should do.

“If I tell you about you, will you hang up and never call me again?”

He is silent and then whispers, “Yes.”

“O.k. First of all, your name isn’t Santi, is it. (I hear a strong intake of breath). “ I think your name is something like ‘Det’…Nadet? Noooo, Chandet!“ (I hear a Thai expression of surprise “Oy!”)

“Yellow is a good luck color for you, but together with dark blue may hurt your opportunities.” (He is wearing a pastel yellow dress shirt and dark blue tie.)

He took off the tie!

“Chandet, you want to do your own business, I know. (Most young Thais say they want to do their own business.) But that might not happen if you hurt others.” (I am beginning to lose him.)

“Right now, NOW, you have trouble coming towards you from brown men with power! LOOK!”

He swivelled in his chair, confused, until a few moments later, he saw 4 policemen (in brown uniforms) enter the lobby from a far door and walk towards the coffee shop.

He didn’t say goodbye. The group split up and hurried towards 3 different exits.

The policemen walked up to my table.

3 of them greeted me politely while the 4th, my husband, asked if I wanted another coffee."

[Tony Davis]

I had a call from "BT" with an interesting twist.

 

Heavily Indian/Asian call Centre accent

 

BT: This is BT, calling about your internet

Me: Uh huh

BT: We are going to help you fix it

Me: Uh huh

BT: Yeah, you need to be by your computer, are you by it?

Me: No

BT: Well can you go and stand by it?

Me: No

BT: Well why not?

Me: I don't want to

BT: Well you can F*** off - hangs up

 

Twist was him telling me to F*** off! That's my job! I was waiting for the moment to say it and he said it first.

 

I am most miffed!!

[eastwestdivide]

Latest one is a recorded message saying my visa card has unauthorised activity, press 1 to continue etc. So for a laugh I did, and the person the other end from "British Telecom" starts telling me about problems on my internet line. They're all in it together!

[Dunsignalling]

My new phone weeds out all this sort of cr4p without me even knowing it's happening. I've had about half a dozen "missed calls" this week from what are probably fraudulent numbers (from lord knows where but with UK area codes to allay suspicion). The phone asks callers from any numbers not in its memory to identify themselves.  First I know about it is the call count having risen even though the phone hasn't rung.

 

Its about time that issuing numbers to people/firms not located where they purport to be was stopped. Plymouth, Camborne and anywhere in South Wales currently seem to be hotspots for this.

 

John   

[PaulCheffus]

9 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

Its about time that issuing numbers to people/firms not located where they purport to be was stopped. Plymouth, Camborne and anywhere in South Wales currently seem to be hotspots for this.

 

Hi

 

They are not allocated they are masking their real number with a fake one.

 

Cheers

 

Paul

[ejstubbs]

AIUI the numbers aren't issued to them, they "borrow" them from existing subscribers.  Sort of a telephonic equivalent of identity theft, except they're not pretending to be the true owner of the number, it's just a number that they can be 99.999999% certain won't be recognised by the callee or their phone.

 

EDIT: Or more likely what Paul said.

Edited July 26, 2019 by ejstubbs

[J. S. Bach]

Here it is called "caller id spoofing"; a friend once got a call from his own number!

 

[kevinlms]

2 hours ago, Tony Davis said:

I had a call from "BT" with an interesting twist.

 

Heavily Indian/Asian call Centre accent

 

BT: This is BT, calling about your internet

Me: Uh huh

BT: We are going to help you fix it

Me: Uh huh

BT: Yeah, you need to be by your computer, are you by it?

Me: No

BT: Well can you go and stand by it?

Me: No

BT: Well why not?

Me: I don't want to

BT: Well you can F*** off - hangs up

 

Twist was him telling me to F*** off! That's my job! I was waiting for the moment to say it and he said it first.

 

I am most miffed!!

He picked you up, correctly, as someone trying to keep him on the line as long as possible and thus wasting his time.

Remember, not all of them are on their first day!

[Tony Davis]

15 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

He picked you up, correctly, as someone trying to keep him on the line as long as possible and thus wasting his time.

Remember, not all of them are on their first day!

Best time waster tactic I used was to go through the whole procedure with the man on the phone - from the computer being off and needing to boot up - until the point I was told to click on the icon on the bottom left-hand corner and type a command in the box. I told him it didn't work and, after having had the instruction repeated to me a couple of times , was told by a now frustrated caller that I had made a mistake. I then pointed out that it was him that had made the mistake of assuming that I was using Windows and not Linux. Then I got to tell him where to go. I smiled for quite a while afterwards.

 

Trouble is, as this thread is demonstrating, these type of calls are proliferating to an alarming degree. The one about "there is a transaction of £600 on your visa card" is particularly worrying as it is plausible, and a lot of people would be worried and press the number given.

 

I don't have an intimate knowledge of how the phone system works but I do feel more could be done to stop them.

Edited July 26, 2019 by Tony Davis
redundant word

[monkeysarefun]

On 26/07/2019 at 23:57, J. S. Bach said:

Here it is called "caller id spoofing"; a friend once got a call from his own number!

 

Here recently people were getting scam calls and the number being used was Narellan Police station.

[John M Upton]

Unfortunately most if not all of these scams originate from overseas where the domestic law enforcement authorities have practically no chance of doing anything about it.

 

All we have in this country is the TPS - Telephone Preferences Service which in my experience are about as much use as a handbrake on a canoe...

[jonny777]

On 26/07/2019 at 15:44, Tony Davis said:

Best time waster tactic I used was to go through the whole procedure with the man on the phone - from the computer being off and needing to boot up - until the point I was told to click on the icon on the bottom left-hand corner and type a command in the box. I told him it didn't work and, after having had the instruction repeated to me a couple of times , was told by a now frustrated caller that I had made a mistake. I then pointed out that it was him that had made the mistake of assuming that I was using Windows and not Linux. Then I got to tell him where to go. I smiled for quite a while afterwards.

 

 

 

 

My Dad used to do this. 

 

He would reply "OK" to all the instructions, and get to the caller frustration point then tell them that nothing would work for him as he didn't have a computer, but had alerted the police on his mobile and given them enough time to trace the call. 

 

The speed at which a previously polite caller can end a conversation was quite remarkable. 

[Mallard60022]

On ‎26‎/‎07‎/‎2019 at 14:07, Dunsignalling said:

My new phone weeds out all this sort of cr4p without me even knowing it's happening. I've had about half a dozen "missed calls" this week from what are probably fraudulent numbers (from lord knows where but with UK area codes to allay suspicion). The phone asks callers from any numbers not in its memory to identify themselves.  First I know about it is the call count having risen even though the phone hasn't rung.

 

Its about time that issuing numbers to people/firms not located where they purport to be was stopped. Plymouth, Camborne and anywhere in South Wales currently seem to be hotspots for this.

 

John   

Camborne could be Kernow Model Shop telling you that you are the 1,000,000th customer to ask about the Bulleid shorty coaches and that you therefore get a free set and no postage charges. The Plymouth one is efinately a fraud as no one in Plymouth can now afford a phone due to Austerity.

Ar$£

[Mallard60022]

On ‎26‎/‎07‎/‎2019 at 15:44, Tony Davis said:

Best time waster tactic I used was to go through the whole procedure with the man on the phone - from the computer being off and needing to boot up - until the point I was told to click on the icon on the bottom left-hand corner and type a command in the box. I told him it didn't work and, after having had the instruction repeated to me a couple of times , was told by a now frustrated caller that I had made a mistake. I then pointed out that it was him that had made the mistake of assuming that I was using Windows and not Linux. Then I got to tell him where to go. I smiled for quite a while afterwards.

 

Trouble is, as this thread is demonstrating, these type of calls are proliferating to an alarming degree. The one about "there is a transaction of £600 on your visa card" is particularly worrying as it is plausible, and a lot of people would be worried and press the number given.

 

I don't have an intimate knowledge of how the phone system works but I do feel more could be done to stop them.

True Call does the job.

P

[jonny777]

I had an email last week from an anonymous someone who was trying to blackmail me. They quoted a password and said they had access to my email account. I was a bit shocked to find they had an old obscure password I used to use some years ago, but abandoned after a suspected data breach.  (Presumably they must have bought lists of email addresses and passwords).

 

They said they had hacked into my computer and had filmed me pleasuring myself, using the computer's camera, and would be sending copies to everyone on my address lists unless I deposited a certain amount of Bitcoin to some kind of receiving code.  I had 7 days to pay up. 

 

Sadly for them, I am rather paranoid and almost as soon as I get a computer I tape a thick piece of black paper over the camera, and so they would have struggled to film anything through that. 

[Mallard60022]

Posted at same time almost as jonny 777....spooky.

 

More worryingly now I am getting these stupid emails telling me I have been seen on my webcam pleasuring myself or some such information and they are going to publish the pictures or similar on RMWeb so that I will be 'exposed' (convenient word there) to the world; I'm not fussed about that except that you might see my well developed beak. Well that is a load of urine, however the latest ones have told me they have one of my passwords and show it; it is almost correct but not quite.  The sender has different weird addresses that are obviously scam and I don't seem to have a blocker facility on my new PC using Windows 10 and a Hotmail Account. I can delete but not block as I could on my old machine. Any advice would be welcome. I'd also like to block the crap from Russian girls who want to see my train set as soon as possible.

Apologies that this isn't all about 'calls' except that to say I go to a 'who called me' search as I am getting a few of these on my mobile that I obviously have not set up well to deal with rubbish calls. Many are from charities so they have got my number from it being passed on I am sure.

Phil

Edited July 28, 2019 by Mallard60022
Spooky happening!

[Mallard60022]

1 minute ago, jonny777 said:

I had an email last week from an anonymous someone who was trying to blackmail me. They quoted a password and said they had access to my email account. I was a bit shocked to find they had an old obscure password I used to use some years ago, but abandoned after a suspected data breach.  (Presumably they must have bought lists of email addresses and passwords).

 

They said they had hacked into my computer and had filmed me pleasuring myself, using the computer's camera, and would be sending copies to everyone on my address lists unless I deposited a certain amount of Bitcoin to some kind of receiving code.  I had 7 days to pay up. 

 

Sadly for them, I am rather paranoid and almost as soon as I get a computer I tape a thick piece of black paper over the camera, and so they would have struggled to film anything through that. 

Tape just applied!!!!!!!

P

[chris p bacon]

18 minutes ago, jonny777 said:

I had an email last week from an anonymous someone who was trying to blackmail me. They quoted a password and said they had access to my email account. I was a bit shocked to find they had an old obscure password I used to use some years ago, but abandoned after a suspected data breach.  (Presumably they must have bought lists of email addresses and passwords).

 

They said they had hacked into my computer and had filmed me pleasuring myself, using the computer's camera, and would be sending copies to everyone on my address lists unless I deposited a certain amount of Bitcoin to some kind of receiving code.  I had 7 days to pay up. 

 

Sadly for them, I am rather paranoid and almost as soon as I get a computer I tape a thick piece of black paper over the camera, and so they would have struggled to film anything through that. 

 

 

Aaaah I spent ages cleaning the screen, wouldn't have bothered if I'd known that. 

[Tony Davis]

1 hour ago, Mallard60022 said:

True Call does the job.

P

It’s £100 though, seems a lot.

[Mallard60022]

1 minute ago, Tony Davis said:

It’s £100 though, seems a lot.

Well it was a replacement answer machine/message taker at the time and it works a treat, giving an automated screening service as well, plus I was still working so it wasn't quite such a cost at the time. I am sure there are other systems but ICBA to check and anyway, RMW clever dic#s will say they scratch built theirs for nothing or got one at Poundland, so they can say what theirs is.

[kevinlms]

1 hour ago, Mallard60022 said:

Tape just applied!!!!!!!

P

So you need the tape to stop them seeing how much pleasure you get, from the sites you visit then?

[kevinlms]

45 minutes ago, Tony Davis said:

It’s £100 though, seems a lot.

Funnily enough, the same phone is sold in Australia as the Call Guardian. It costs much less than that. It certainly works and stops scammers stone dead, according to friend that has one. I don't, because I run my own business & so I don't mind unknown numbers, as it could be a new customer!

 

Actually Telstra (equivalent to BT), has now discontinued it.