View Full Version : Telephone Scam
Below are details of a scam currently going the rounds. The police have requested that as many people are alerted as possible. Unfortunately it is a genuine scam.
>Police Report.
The reason this is working so well is it plays on your good will! Picture the scene:-
You are sitting at home and there is a knock at the door. On answering it you are confronted by a respectable looking woman in a suit, who is slightly distressed. She explains that her car has broken down further down the road and she needs to contact her husband to come to her aid. Is it at all possible to use your phone to call him?
You allow her to use the phone, but being the suspicious type you stand with her as she makes the call. She dials the number, and asks to be put through to Mr Smith / Brown / Stevens (Whatever). She holds the line for about thirty seconds. She continues, 'In that case can you ask him to leave the meeting for a minute I need to speak to him quite urgently.' She apologises again and explains they are getting him out of a meeting.
A couple of minutes go by and she starts to speak to her husband. She explains the situation to him, tells him what has happened to the car, is annoyed because she now can't get to her meeting, and asks what she should do now. She listens for a few seconds and then says, 'Well as soon as the meeting finishes can you come to Cardiff Road / Leicester Road / Surrey Street (Whatever), where the car has broken down. Another few seconds go by, 'OK, I'll see you in about twenty minutes then.'
She put the phone down, and thanks you ever so much for your kind assistance, even offering you a pound for your trouble, but of course you decline, it's no trouble. She leaves and everything is fine. Or is it?
The day or week before knocking on your door she set up her own premium rate line with a telephone company at the cost of about £150, and she has dictated that calls to that number should be charged at £50 per minute. She has dialled that number. The conversation she has had with her 'husband' is entirely fictitious, there is a pre-recorded voice message on the other end to give you the impression she is talking to someone. She has been on the phone for about five minutes, that call just cost you £250, the majority of which goes into her pocket, and the first you know about it is when you get your bill a month later.
To rub a bit of salt into the wound, she hasn't even committed a criminal offence. You've given her permission to use your phone. 5 occasions in Luton where this has been reported in the last couple of weeks.
Would anyone reading this please pass it on to friends and colleagues etc. otherwise it could cost someone a lot of money.
LiesaAnna
23-11-2004, 23:40
<span style="color:red">great</span id="red"><span style="color:blue">!!</span id="blue"> <span style="color:green">not in this house theyre not!!</span id="green">[msnmad]
The maximum for a premium rate call is £1.50 per min, yet another urban legend !! This email comes round every few months ;)
LiesaAnna
23-11-2004, 23:43
<span style="color:red">have i got muppet on my head?</span id="red">
no dont answer that [msnwink]
Michele L
24-11-2004, 00:53
Talking about telephone scams - I received an answerphone message (1571) saying I had "won a prize" but the competition closes on December 5th, so to claim th prize why don't I ring this number 090...... as I will get my prize quicker.
Well I did not but I bet your bottom dollar it was a scam and you were being charged at premium rate - nybody else had one like it and dare I ask did they ring back?
Michele
christhear
24-11-2004, 01:10
Theres an easy way to stop this happening, get your phone barred from all premium rate no's. We can not phone any numbers starting 09. This is a good odea if you have kids as all the kids programmes tell you to enter their competitions by ringing 09......... I don't think my son would do so without asking but you never know.
LiesaAnna
24-11-2004, 01:34
well!!!!!
i had a phone call 3 weeks ago, lovely american guy called Perry, he was something to do with a cruiseliner, travelling around the USA and Islands, (i think thats what he said) he said "i had won a competition" apparently i had been browsing on line (which i had) for cruises, (which i had), we could take this cruise which was 1 week all found for 2 people for any time in the next 12 months! i was so overjoyed as i said i had been looking at these trips online as its our silver wedding anniversary in april and thought this would be fantastic for Steve and i, at the end of this call he said "it wil cost you xxx" (cant remember the exact amount) i replied but you said it was free!!!! he said i would receive the package within 10 days <span style="color:red">guess what?</span id="red">
<span style="color:red">it never came!!!!and i heard no more!!!!! </span id="red"> <span style="color:blue">happen to anyone else??</span id="blue">
John Rocke
24-11-2004, 02:16
next time you pick up the phone and all you get is silence, chances are that it's not a nutter on the other end. It's more likely to be an automatic call which is searching for answerphones to leave a message telling you that you have won a competition ( which you never entered did you?0 or a prize of some description. You will then have to ring an 090 number to claim your reward. Don't bother.
Sometimes you will get a pre recorded message telling you that you have won a prize. Cheer loudly at this point and the machine will reset and start again. Cheer as often as you wish, it wears a bit thin, but then you pass the phone over to the wife or children and they can take over. Simple pleasures.
If you get a real person ringing you up and telling you that you have won a prize, stop them and ask them what YOUR name is, not theirs. Usually they are cold calling and haven't got a clue. It'll be a scam.
there is a website for an org called ictis in the uk which can tell you the names of companies owning 090 numbers. you can mail a moan to them if you get the same pests all the time.
happy listening
john rocke.
My ansa phone is on 24/7 and I often come back to the same messages,
I would be a multi millionaire by now if I had won everything they say I have.
Never ring a number back, especially if you can't remember entering a competition. If you have really won they will call you again, and it won't be a recorded message.
Kaz
The other big culprit at the moment for silent phone lines is tele-sales. Their computers predictively dial the next number based on when they think the next tele-sales agent will complete a call (all based on call metrics). The idea being that as soon as a tele-sales agent completes one call the computer has you on the end of the phone saying 'hello', effectively saving the time it takes you to answer and keeping the agents 100% busy.
The trouble is, every so often (or quite often as it turns out) a call doesn't complete as expected and this leaves the situation where the computer has you on the end of the phone saying 'hello' but no sales agent to hand you to. So it just sits there for a few seconds and if no agent becomes free it will hang up.
You can usually tell who the culprits are because they will call you back sometime later.
So what should you do? Could get mad, but that just makes you mad. Could try to get even? Next time you get telesales don't hang up, don't be rude, they're paying for the call. Talk to them. You can still watch TV or surf the forums at the same time, you don't have to listen to them, just occasionally say OK. After about 5 minutes of blurb they'll get to the punch and you can just say 'no thanks' at that point. It's cost them 5 minutes of phone calls which they do have to pay for. Keep them talking for longer and it costs them more. Eventually it will cost them more than they make and they'll stop it. When they ask for Mr Jones ask them to hold while you go get him (even if you are Mr Jones). Come back to them about every 30 seconds to see if they are still there and say he's on his way. See how long you can keep them on the phone for. Great sport. Enjoy!
chrizzy100
24-11-2004, 06:32
<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by John Rocke
next time you pick up the phone and all you get is silence, chances are that it's not a nutter on the other end. It's more likely to be an automatic call which is searching for answerphones to leave a message telling you that you have won a competition ( which you never entered did you?0 or a prize of some description. You will then have to ring an 090 number to claim your reward. Don't bother.
Sometimes you will get a pre recorded message telling you that you have won a prize. Cheer loudly at this point and the machine will reset and start again. Cheer as often as you wish, it wears a bit thin, but then you pass the phone over to the wife or children and they can take over. Simple pleasures.
If you get a real person ringing you up and telling you that you have won a prize, stop them and ask them what YOUR name is, not theirs. Usually they are cold calling and haven't got a clue. It'll be a scam.
there is a website for an org called ictis in the uk which can tell you the names of companies owning 090 numbers. you can mail a moan to them if you get the same pests all the time.
happy listening
john rocke.
[/quote]
My husbands company makes a unit the listens for you to say hello...before it puts you through to a person...it hangs up if it thinks its only got an answer phone..........[msnembarrased][msnembarrased]
Thats why we never say hello.......when picking up the phone......[msneek]
chunkichik
24-11-2004, 08:20
I have had a couple of calls at work recently
"hi i'm chrissie from sunshine estates and you have won a fantastic holiday to Orlando!!!!"
you are told to dial 0, perhaps I should, its not my phone bill!!!![msnwink]
You could just join the telephone preference service, we joined years ago and have only had 1 telesales call since..... ;)
Mo Green
24-11-2004, 14:08
We are also registered with telephone preference service and very rarely get any telesales calls but we do get the calls saying we have won a 'free' holiday but we both need to go to a hotel next Saturday to collect it. I am always suspicious as the hotel is usually 2 hours drive and the caller obviously knows we are going to be away from home for over 4 hours but curious to know if anyone has gone along and did they actually get a free holiday?
You get nothing for free, people. Don't ring these companies back they are all scams. It's the elderly I worry about, they are easily taken in by these offers and ripped off in the process. Just remember, you get what you pay for and if it's offered free there's something amiss. Take the prize on I WANT THAT HOUSE, a villa in Florida, but you still have to pay taxes etc on it, so it's not FREE.
Cruella DeVilla
24-11-2004, 17:14
This is a really old scam!
LiesaAnna
24-11-2004, 18:00
been there done that! with the computer thing! BT got on to it and we had the preference service for a quarter then didnt need it anymore, free!
Liesa, it cost's nothing to register or be on the list? Maybe you were on something else to the one I'm thinking of..
LiesaAnna
24-11-2004, 19:50
<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by rosieuk
Liesa, it cost's nothing to register or be on the list? Maybe you were on something else to the one I'm thinking of..
[/quote]
it was something with BT, cant remember what i had to do! we spoke to them at BT and do you know cant for the life of me remember what we had to do, they did something for a month, and if that didnt work than we would have to pay a quarterly service am sure it was for preferance calling!
When I get someone on the phone selling me something I just say "can you hold for a minute, please?" lay the phone down and walk away. They don't wait long often hanging up within a minute!!;)
chrizzy100
24-11-2004, 23:37
<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by millie
When I get someone on the phone selling me something I just say "can you hold for a minute, please?" lay the phone down and walk away. They don't wait long often hanging up within a minute!!;)
[/quote]
I put the phone in the chair and come back later when I hear it buzz......
LiesaAnna
24-11-2004, 23:46
be trying that one next!!thanks girls!!!!
tezz7628
25-11-2004, 00:02
<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by LiesaAnna
<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by rosieuk
Liesa, it cost's nothing to register or be on the list? Maybe you were on something else to the one I'm thinking of..
[/quote]
it was something with BT, cant remember what i had to do! we spoke to them at BT and do you know cant for the life of me remember what we had to do, they did something for a month, and if that didnt work than we would have to pay a quarterly service am sure it was for preferance calling!
[/quote]
call number barring
someone rings you and you dont want to receive a call from that tel. no. anymore
free for a while then you have to pay for it
LiesaAnna
25-11-2004, 00:06
Thanks Tezz, that sounds like it!
sunseeker
25-11-2004, 04:13
Liesa
I had a call from an American guy, said his name was Perry!
I had also won a cruise, also said i would have the details in about
10 days. Never heard another thing, very strange. This was about 6 months ago, to this day i cant see what he got out of it [?][?][?]
Dave
LiesaAnna
25-11-2004, 11:16
oh!!!!!
he nearly had me believing him!! which was so sad, cos i was looking for something special for our silver wedding aniversary!!!!! pig!!!!!!!!
i was still hoping that the "package" might still come!
This is yet another case of the bad callers spoiling it for the genuine. I used to manage a very small tele-marketing company (10 callers) for car dealerships. We would genuinly ring to tell people when their mot/service/timing belt etc was due - some people were pleased with the service, some were downright rude & offensive!! A firm 'thankyou for your call' but I will call you when I require a (window/phone/kitchen etc) should be all that is necessary for the caller to stop the conversation. Sadly very often now Im at home all day I know, that its not. That is because a lot of these call centres employ the lowest paid workers who are depending on commision to make a living.
Just one point about TPS (preference service) - once you are registered it is the callers responsibility not to ring you or risk a very heavy fine. This is great until situations like we came across where a car was to be re-called due to a fault & we could not ring the owners to warn them. As usual - two sides to every story & its the bad who spoil it for the good! [msnsad]