Phone scams

[King Rollo]

I've had a couple of phone calls in the past few weeks - people spinning a yarn (I assume) trying to get me to send them a copy of my electricity bill. Which I haven't done.

I don't see what the scam is here. What would they gain from having a copy of my electric bill??

 

[Christoph1945]

Could it possibly be one of the early steps in identity theft? Did the person say what the reason for requesting your utility bill was?

 

[quattro]

I've had a couple of phone calls in the past few weeks - people spinning a yarn (I assume) trying to get me to send them a copy of my electricity bill. Which I haven't done.

I don't see what the scam is here. What would they gain from having a copy of my electric bill??

Depending on no and my time,I encourage them keep asking them questions and then tell them politely I’m not interested

 

[Exfarmer]

With a utility bill they can take out phone contracts. Buy latest Iphone 12 will be worth several hundred pounds sent out to Africa

 

[Christoph1945]

We have one of those house phones that filters all incoming calls; all known callers come directly to our hand set but those not in our caller directory have to identify themselves and then press the # on their own handset. Upon the ringing of our house phone we pick it up and may just be given a name, before pressing to accept or reject the call.

Most callers unknown to us decline to co-operate with the filter and if we are not in and miss the call they decline to co-operate with the answering system. Some, I suppose, may have criticisms of the system but it has certainly reduced the number of nuisance calls and one can track the numbers that called with 'Who called me?' on the internet.

 

[Exfarmer]

We have one of those house phones that filters all incoming calls; all known callers come directly to our hand set but those not in our caller directory have to identify themselves and then press the # on their own handset. Upon the ringing of our house phone we pick it up and may just be given a name, before pressing to accept or reject the call.

Most callers unknown to us decline to co-operate with the filter and if we are not in and miss the call they decline to co-operate with the answering system. Some, I suppose, may have criticisms of the system but it has certainly reduced the number of nuisance calls and one can track the numbers that called with 'Who called me?' on the internet.

+1 for this reduced our scam calls from 5-6 a day to possibly 1 a month

 

[Jerry]

We have one of those house phones that filters all incoming calls; all known callers come directly to our hand set but those not in our caller directory have to identify themselves and then press the # on their own handset. Upon the ringing of our house phone we pick it up and may just be given a name, before pressing to accept or reject the call.

Most callers unknown to us decline to co-operate with the filter and if we are not in and miss the call they decline to co-operate with the answering system. Some, I suppose, may have criticisms of the system but it has certainly reduced the number of nuisance calls and one can track the numbers that called with 'Who called me?' on the internet.

Have you got details of the phone you have?

Could do with one fur my elderly mother who gets a few nuisance calls that worry her a lot.

 

[Highland Mule]

Have you got details of the phone you have?

Could do with one fur my elderly mother who gets a few nuisance calls that worry her a lot.

From memory, @Dry Rot is a fan of Trucall

 

[Paddington]

Get one or two of these a week, am I on a list ? Usually when I have just sat down with a coffee and have to get up again. Apart from cold calls for double glazing, new boiler, cavity wall insulation, solar power, etc I've had calls from "Amazon", "BT", "the bank", "the police - monitoring my internet use", "Microsoft - we need to check your PC remotely". I am proud to say I have never put my phone down on these people, they need to make a living somehow, but usually after a minute or two talking to me, they put their phone down, sometimes using rude words. Was it something I said ?

 

[Christoph1945]

Probably what you didn't say!

 

[Christoph1945]

Have you got details of the phone you have?

Could do with one fur my elderly mother who gets a few nuisance calls that worry her a lot.

I will double check later and get back to you with the details. If I'm not mistaken we bought the phone locally and it came with two hand sets and 'Call Guardian' installed and we just had to put all our known caller's numbers into the system and they all get through directly; without the Call Guardian challenging them.

Should work a treat for your mum and even for your self.

 

[tje]

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Also bought one for my mother and it is very effective .

Have you got details of the phone you have?

Could do with one fur my elderly mother who gets a few nuisance calls that worry her a lot.

 

[britt]

Get one or two of these a week, am I on a list ? Usually when I have just sat down with a coffee and have to get up again. Apart from cold calls for double glazing, new boiler, cavity wall insulation, solar power, etc I've had calls from "Amazon", "BT", "the bank", "the police - monitoring my internet use", "Microsoft - we need to check your PC remotely". I am proud to say I have never put my phone down on these people, they need to make a living somehow, but usually after a minute or two talking to me, they put their phone down, sometimes using rude words. Was it something I said ?

I find these calls great entertainment if i'm sitting at the office desk with with nothing urgent to do.
"Sorry can you repeat that I can't hear you very well"
"There's someone at the door I'll be back in a sec"
"That's none of your business" When I start getting bored of it.
"I'll just go and find the bill that you are asking for from the filling cabinet" a minute later "I think the secretary has moved it i'll look somewhere else"
It's good sport if I'm just looking at TFF doing some "research"
The more of their time you can waste the less viable it becomes for them to do it, so some may give up.

 

[Dry Rot]

From memory, @Dry Rot is a fan of Trucall

Yes, I am. But be careful to get the right web page. There is also Truecaller which I have no knowledge of. Truecall was on Dragons' Den and all the Dragons said it's just what they needed! There is nothing more annoying to me than to be interupted in my work to answer a nuisance caller!

https://www.truecall.co.uk/

 

[Christoph1945]

Just had a quick check and our phone is a BT phone system (from Tesco) with BT phone guardian installed and it all works quite well with our Virgin landline system. We have the base station in the living room and a repeater station in the bedroom and both have roaming handsets, so the wife can carry a handset in her tab-bard and has no need to be rushing to answer a call.

Must be one of the best investments that we have made in recent years. If the caller is that guy from Massey Ferguson and you just don't want to talk with him at that moment you just switch him to answer phone; or not, as the case may be.

An other little trick that may interest you is for the anonymous naughty caller that may be pestering the wife on the standard phone system; just have someone else answer the phone 'good evening x county police telephone interception service, what is your business? May initially throw one or two friends but it does work.

Or you could try .......... whilst the bad guy is telling your wife about all the naughty things he is thinking of doing to her; just whisper over her shoulder 'keep him on the line whilst sergeant Jones runs the trace; or have you got the trace on that yet Fred? It must be said in a hushed voice and warn the Mrs not to have the receiver too close to her ear; it gets rather noisy when the phone at the other end goes down with a bang, that is unless they are using a mobile!

Stay safe, stay well, and all the best for the coming season of good will.

Chris

 

[Christoph1945]

Just had a quick check and our phone is a BT phone system (from Tesco) with BT phone guardian installed and it all works quite well with our Virgin landline system. We have the base station in the living room and a repeater station in the bedroom and both have roaming handsets, so the wife can carry a handset in her tab-bard and has no need to be rushing to answer a call.

Must be one of the best investments that we have made in recent years. If the caller is that guy from Massey Ferguson and you just don't want to talk with him at that moment you just switch him to answer phone; or not, as the case may be.

An other little trick that may interest you is for the anonymous naughty caller that may be pestering the wife on the standard phone system; just have someone else answer the phone 'good evening x county police telephone interception service, what is your business? May initially throw one or two friends but it does work.

Or you could try .......... whilst the bad guy is telling your wife about all the naughty things he is thinking of doing to her; just whisper over her shoulder 'keep him on the line whilst sergeant Jones runs the trace; or have you got the trace on that yet Fred? It must be said in a hushed voice and warn the Mrs not to have the receiver too close to her ear; it gets rather noisy when the phone at the other end goes down with a bang, that is unless they are using a mobile!

Stay safe, stay well, and all the best for the coming season of good will.

Chris

PS .... one of our friends used to keep an ACME Thunderer whistle by her phone and I can only imagine the earache that caused some naughty callers.

 

[Paddington]

Cold callers, I am an amateur compared to Tom Mabe:

 

[Bruce Almighty]

I'm getting fed up with calls about life insurance & funeral costs.

"Do you have life insurance ?"
"No it's no use to me when I'm dead"

"Have you considered a funeral plan ?"
"No I'm a farmer & own land, we also have a digger"

If nothing else it usually makes them laugh & I hang up

 

[Netherfield]

We are in the midst of going Fibre to the cabinet to get better broadband, BT bill arrived before the switchover to Plusnet, I contacted BT and said I didn't want to pay for the line rental upfront because we were moving, they agreed to send a new bill after the switch.

So this morning I get an automated call saying you haven't paid your bill and we will cut you off unless you make a payment, press 1 do this 2 to do that 3 to do something else.

After another call to BT it turns out it's a scam call and BT would never ring, rather send at least two more bills in the post and then a further letter before stopping the service.

I think if I'd not been swapping I wouldn't have nearly fallen for it, and the bill would have already been paid anyway.

The number was 0800 169 1608, although it is a BT number, it's being cloned by the scammers hoping to get your card details.