In reply to a post by kitcat:

All those people using VPNs and then VOIP would be unpleasantly surprised if their calls suddenly stopped working! Many on here would be screaming!

A small price to pay to protect the vulnerable, that fall for these scams.

We had one from SKY internet last week, using a local number saying my connection has a fault and will be disconnected , so press 1 for more information. Naturally I pressed another digit!

A few minutes later it rang back saying they had mad a mistake!
Variation on a theme perhaps:? Pity I don't have SKY.

Had one last week and knew exactly what it was. Played along, with them.

Acted a little "dumb" - so whn asked to open windows I said why, the weather is cold and raining. So he told me "no, your computer". The a few more stupid answers and comments. Maybe 10 or 15 minutes and finally he got to the:

Press "Win & R", what can you see &c then type "http:// ... .com" into the box (which I did not) and enter. Kept him hanging on whilst it connected (a little slow) then siad "Yes, it has come up with a new screeen" and he asked what it said to which I responded "Be careful, some ****er is trying to scam you". CLICK and he was gone.

At least it stopped someone else getting a call.


And I can see how someone might get caught out. I have some major issues at present and spoeaking with BT frequently. Someone without background knowledge that is having issues could easily fall into the trap ...

I once kept one going for 35 minutes and said I needed to write down the given address so I didn�t make a typing error. Then read it back slowly getting him to agree each letter in turn.

In the meantime I looked it up on Whois and finally said I was a bit puzzled by the domain being registered in whatever African country it was, with an individual�s name having registered it not Microsoft, when he claimed to be from Windows support in the UK.

He had two goes trying to persuade me that was normal, then gave up. I forget his exact expletives, and wouldn't get them past the censor anyway LOL.

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 17-Jun-19 10:24:03)

In reply to a post by radiomarko:

Some gov action is required before something that works will be rolled out I think, progress is glacial ofc. The move to digital voice may make the tech easier, anyone know?

Nah. Just buy a TrueCall unit. It always saddens and amazes me when people think that the government is the answer to all our problems. Makes me think I live in an alternative universe since as far as I can tell all that any government has ever done is make things ten times worse.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by radiomarko:

Some gov action is required before something that works will be rolled out I think, progress is glacial ofc. The move to digital voice may make the tech easier, anyone know?

Nah. Just buy a TrueCall unit. It always saddens and amazes me when people think that the government is the answer to all our problems. Makes me think I live in an alternative universe since as far as I can tell all that any government has ever done is make things ten times worse.

And to think they get paid vast amounts of our money to do this, they may have academic qualifications, But they consistently are lacking in the common sense department, maybe that is a solution MP's with common sense , who have actually worked for a living, and are working class , so actually get it, because the current shower (entire parliament) can't grasp basics can they?

Edited by tommy45 (Mon 24-Jun-19 20:01:44)

I fear you have grasped the wrong end of my stick.. I could have been clearer, but there you are, I'm getting old.

Examples - OFCOM ( Gov agency) eventually says that telephony and internet providers have to send you a letter when you are nearly out of contract.

Central Gov ( and I agree they are a shambles, always have been) demand that everyone gets real fibre to the home by tuesday.

That's what I meant by gov action. If Gov have control of telephonic services or whatever ( via legislation and oversight) they logically own the problems too. Whether they attend to those problems is another matter!

Just an Update to this thread - today I received an automated "sounding" call with an American accent saying that my Broadband is to be cut off within 48 hours. So I followed through the option/s (out of curiosity) to speak to someone and ended up speaking with an Indian sounding Guy who initially seemed as if he didn't know what I was calling for. I guess there are a number of scams all going through to the same "Call Centre". After telling him that I had received a message about my broadband being cut off he reiterated that was the case. i asked what company he was calling from, which he replied BT Open Reach.

Of course I gave no info away and guessed it was a scam from the outset. He only hung up when I asked him for his telephone number so i could call him back. I wonder just how many UK residents lose out to these sort of scams - and what is it that these scammers get from them? Are these scams looking more prevalent than they've ever been?

These things seem to run in cycles. Our Truecall blocks most of them but two came through yesterday because the Indian accented perpetrators had spoof UK phone numbers. When another one came through this morning thanking me for accepting this call from BT I'd had enough and replied with a volley of Hindi obscenities, learned from my boyhood in India long ago. He disconnected during the third sentence ... impolite but very satisfying.

Agreed, we get Scam calls stating they are from BT, Visa, a few others all with a similar message to press 1.
So where loads of the scams are from the same place, they wasn't too sure what the call was referring too.

I recall a phone call scam (non automated) stating they was from BT and that our broadband would be disconnected, so I thought I would also pretend to be from BT, so when I stated this they become Toxic verbally, so I then stated to them "We would never speak to our customers like that" then they cussed a few more times, I laughed and they hung up.

I know when people phone our landline stating to be BT they are all mostly scams and if my parents pick up the phone I just tell them to hang up.
This is due to BT only call my Mobile because it is down as the first point of contact and its in our notes to only use that.

Paul