coachmann Posted October 29, 2011 Share Posted October 29, 2011 I'm a bit old fashioned when it suits me and when the hard-faced spivs try to rob me or mine I call a spade a spade. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pacific231G Posted October 29, 2011 Share Posted October 29, 2011 I get these about once a week when I'm working at home. They are fraudsters just as much as those who use to tell you that you'd won the lottery. I'd like to come up with a response that would make them believe they'd entered a bad place. Something like "Grosvenor Exchange.... is this a secure line?" but they probably wouldn't get it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
EddieB Posted October 29, 2011 Share Posted October 29, 2011 Yes, it's a malicious scam, and at present there's nothing BT are able prepared to do to stop these calls. Registering with TPS has no effect. Time was you could say "just a moment", put the receiver down, brew a coffee and come back ten minutes later to find the caller still on the line. You think you can be clever and wind them up? Come on, they've heard it all before. These days they've learnt some choice anglo-saxon phrases and, if you try to give them the run-around (e.g. I'm using Linux/Apple Mac or a warning about connecting to rogue IP address) you're likely to get an earful of quite nasty abuse and a dead line. Then there'll be another call the next day. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
EddieB Posted October 29, 2011 Share Posted October 29, 2011 PS Those of you who get these calls one a week or once a fortnight, consider yourselves fortunate. At times I've been getting them every other day. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thos Posted October 29, 2011 Share Posted October 29, 2011 Simplest is best - I find Lancashire-accented French and plenty of "quoi?"s and "pardon, jen' comprends pas" works wonders. Eventually they decide you are not worth the effort. The trick is to use speakerphone so you don't have to listen to the words, just the silences. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dutch_Master Posted October 29, 2011 Share Posted October 29, 2011 · Hidden Hidden Just tell'em you're not interested in their religion and hung up. As I was getting similar calls (though not about computers or like, similar in a sense they wanted my money) more often and as I sleep regularly during (part of) the daytime because of my job, I decided to connect my fax to the landline. Everyone whom I deem necessary to be able to reach me by phone has my mobile number and know to use that. Coldcaller numbers have substantially reduced since Link to post
Geoff Endacott Posted October 29, 2011 Share Posted October 29, 2011 I inform them that I am self-employed and charge for my time at £300 per hour with a minimum fee of £50. Before I answer any of their questions I need to know where to send the invoice. They usually hang up. Shame as I could do with the money. I am also thinking of putting a notice on my front door stating that I charge cold-callers £20 per consultation and asking them to have their money ready before they ring the bell. Actually, I might well do that for Halloween... Geoff Endacott Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim H Posted October 30, 2011 Share Posted October 30, 2011 Keep a whistle by the phone, and blow it loudly into the receiver. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unchuffed Posted October 30, 2011 Share Posted October 30, 2011 If I'm not busy I do the how long you can string them along for stunt. I've pretended to be a bit deaf, my rather flustered aunty who doesn't understand computers, and done the broken English ploy..... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium kevinlms Posted October 30, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 30, 2011 I am thinking of having incoming calls diverted to a premium-rate phone number. That way I can earn money out of the scamming gits. Except for one niggling minor detail. It would be your number that would be doing the diversion, not theirs. Kevin Martin Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Welly Posted October 30, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 30, 2011 At home we have caller ID on the phone and always ignore any witheld number / no number calls. Genuine callers will leave a message. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
QRModeller Posted October 30, 2011 Share Posted October 30, 2011 Over here (and possibly every other countries they call), the blighters have started using real companies so if asked who they work for, they reply with a company name, an address and website and 95% of the time, the company exists, even though the caller has nothing to do with the stated company. Keep a whistle by the phone, and blow it loudly into the receiver. I have a lot of fun whenever I answer one of these call and this is one of my favorites. Others include simply saying I don't have a computer, trying to sell them something, ordering food (as mentioned previously) and talking in another language. The talking in another language one is fun because if you can speak three (or more) and the caller knows the first language you tried, just change to a different one! Then there's this one. A few weeks ago when I answered one of these calls, after a few seconds listening, I said in an official tone, 'This is the Australian Federal Police. We've been tracking calls made from your location for three months' but I didn't get to finish because there was scrambling and shouting (not at me) coming from the other end of the line! Matt. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rugd1022 Posted October 30, 2011 Author Share Posted October 30, 2011 Matt, I do like your style.... do you think they'd wince and make for the door if I told them I was with The Sweeney...? Great responses so far chaps, it seems these ar*eholes are everywhere... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
m0rris Posted October 30, 2011 Share Posted October 30, 2011 I like that police option it is certain to put them off guard. We had one of these phone calls a while ago and I told him in no uncertain terms that I knew what he was doing and that he should never ever phone back... nothing received from these guys again. Presumably until another lot try it on thinking they could get me to believe them. Another one to watch out is a fake "microsoft" email which runs on the same principal - your computers slow, download this. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted October 30, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 30, 2011 Matt, I do like your style.... do you think they'd wince and make for the door if I told them I was with The Sweeney...? Great responses so far chaps, it seems these ar*eholes are everywhere... You're clearly leading a sheltered life Nidge - in addition to this bunch there the ' about your recent accident personal injury claim' merchants (who increasingly seem to hail from the Sub-Continent for some odd reason), plus the 'you recently answered a survey ..' characters who tend to be English and get frightened very quickly when you threaten to report them to TPS or mention the fact that their lies don't work on you and they ought really never to ring again, or else. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Sheep Posted October 30, 2011 Share Posted October 30, 2011 having looked into this one before what happens is: they phone saying there is an issue with your computer's running of windows, (assuming you believe them / play along) you turn the computer on and follow their instructions to look up a list of these errors - a computer magazine showed a while ago that these are normal and appear on a brand new install on brand new hardwear and so are nothing to worry about. the person on the phone will make noises about how bad these are and that your computer is about to blow up etc etc they then charge you £100+ and install a program onto the computer that harvests information / lets them in and also needs a fair bit of money spending (from their other organisation) to remove. hope that helps anyone who hears 2nd hand from a none tech savvy relative. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium 45156 Posted October 30, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 30, 2011 Yes, it's a malicious scam, and at present there's nothing BT are able prepared to do to stop these calls. Registering with TPS has no effect. Regrettably, there is no identifying flag on a call indicating its nature, so as far as stopping calls from these sources is concerned, the only way would be to block all calls from the number(s) - withheld numbers can be traced and identified, with police consent, and if that happened, all the scammer needs do is to change the source number. This is also true of teleselling calls whether genuine or scam - the call has no identifier on it saying "teleselling" and hence, there is no real mechanism to block teleselling calls - in fact, there is a strong argument that blocking calls would not be legal. Also TPS is a UK based organisation, and only teleselling operators in the UK therefore need to subscribe to it, and adhere by its code of conduct. Regrettable, but true - it really is a case of caveat emptor. One good way is to use caller id, and call screening - if a call comes in from a withheld, unavailable, or overseas source when not expected, then let the answering machine take the call, as a genuine caller will leave a message. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pennine MC Posted October 30, 2011 Share Posted October 30, 2011 plus the 'you recently answered a survey ..' characters who tend to be English ... My wife seems to get these quite regularly; as ever, the mentality baffles me, that they think they can sell you something from a call that's predicated on an untruth, and moreover one that they're quite prepared to argue with you about. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold beast66606 Posted October 30, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 30, 2011 Unfortunately a well known scam. Already covered on here iirc. If your are having perfromance problems, than I would do a least check how full the system disk drive is - if > 75% - 80% then remove unwanted stuff (like temp file etc...). Perform a defrag of the system drive. If that doesn't clear out performance issues, then rebuilding the O/S environment is a probably a must. I do this on a yearly basis (when renewing f/w and a/v environments - a bit of a pain, but worthwhile in the long run (make sure you save any personal data beforehand)... dilbert 75 - 80 % full is not necessarily an issue if the drive is big, defrag (except in extreme cases) does little to increase performance and rebuilding (aside from an odd hardware issue) is not something I've ever felt the need to do and certainly not something I would recommend to a "casual" user, I've seen many personal documents / photos / programmes / settings / etc. etc. vanish with a format ... Nidge - always happy to help with PC issues, start a thread if you need assistance. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Posted October 30, 2011 Share Posted October 30, 2011 We used to get a firm ringing up every few days in the signalbox offering us the deal of a lifetime if we bought a fitted kitchen from them. How good they were and their rep would call and measure up and design your kitchen for you for free, and then you got a discount on the purchase. One day some wag said yes rather than putting the phone down, gave the postcode and sure enough a couple of weeks later a snake oil salesman in a suit turned up at the cabin door, he was not amused to find that he had been had! Oddly enough the calls stopped though! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete_mcfarlane Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 I had the same call today from an Indian chap calling himself Simon, they always pick English sounding names for some reason. It's to make you think that they are calling from the UK, and happens in legitimate call centres as well. Presumably they hope that you'll overlook "Simon's" strong Indian accent and very poor English. And in my case, his inability to pronounce my last name. I find that a five second rule works - if you pick up the phone and and there's nothing at the other end after several seconds of you saying "Hello?" then put it down quick. The automated diallers these foreign scam merchants use to make cold calls seem to take ages to connect a call centre operator at the other end once the phone is answered (the UK has regulations around the length of this delay and how many calls can be dropped because nobody is available in the call centre etc). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Removed a/c Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 I work for an ISP and we have even had them calling our customers pretending to be from my workplace. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ForestPines Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 It's to make you think that they are calling from the UK, and happens in legitimate call centres as well. Presumably they hope that you'll overlook "Simon's" strong Indian accent and very poor English. And in my case, his inability to pronounce my last name. When I worked in a call centre - an entirely legitimate one, I should add; and we waited for people to call us - some of my colleagues, particularly those who sounded as if they were from overseas on the phone, would get very annoyed with callers who would accuse them of being overseas! Some would go as far as asking them questions about the city we were based in to try to "catch them out". . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold beast66606 Posted October 31, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 31, 2011 Already covered on here iirc. I was right http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/30549-internetpc-ms-phonecall-scam-i-think Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
the penguin of doom Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 I had one of these calls a few weeks back. As per usual, the caller asked for the previous occupant who moved out seven years ago! Out of curiosity, I followed the first few instructions to see where it was all leading and was directed to a team building website. It appeared to have nothing to do with the content of the call, so I left it there after pointing out a few facts about what they were doing. I do like to play with them though. It stems from hearing my dad get a quote from a double glazing sales rep to double glaze his fish tank..... It took ten minutes for the 3 mobile caller the other day to explain that you don't actually get three mobiles which was good because I "only have two ears and one mouth, so could I give the third one away to my mum". You could actually feel his frustration before he hung up on me. I know this one could touch a raw nerve, but when in Rome..... I always let the ones selling life insurance go through all the shpeel and getting ready to sign me up before telling them ai only have six months to live. The back pedalling is painful to hear apart from the one time when I was told that God loves me and I will be received into his kingdom. I'm not so sure after my little japes..... Cheers. Sean. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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