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March 28, 2024, 11:06:04 PM

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My method of dealing with the phone scam...

Started by timebug, November 15, 2018, 10:10:00 AM

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timebug

Mobile phone rings.
Me:Hello?
Caller:Hello, my name is Trish (or whatever) we have been told you were recently involved in an accident in your car...
Me: Oh yes? And who told you this please?
Caller: Sorry?
Me: You said 'you were told' I had been in an accident,where did you get this information?
Caller: (Silence,or Musak while they consult their script, which this reply does not seem to cover;or ask their supervisor!
Caller: Er, we got the information from Road Traffic Control...
Me: I see. What did you say your name was again?
Caller Trish (or whatever)
Me:Okay Trish, thank you for that. This call has been recorded, because you have reached a crime scene; we have your location, and someone from our local Police Station will be round to interview you within the hour....
Caller: (Disconnect. Usually once I mention that I am recording the call (I am not!) or when I mention 'Crime Scene'.
End of call, quietly smirky self. I used to explode and tell them to go forth and multiply, but this way is much calmer!

Buelligan

Heheh.  I never get phone calls, I don't even have a phone.  The ultimate revenge.

madhair60

I just put the phone down, pivot and resume shagging.

Sebastian Cobb

I don't answer calls from numbers I don't recognise.

madhair60

I don't even know what a phone is. What's a phone?

steveh

These days a growing number of them are fronted by robots (complete with fake office noise in the background) which do all the pre-screening of people before the call gets passed over to an actual human. Makes it interesting to see what responses they are capable of dealing with but removes the opportunity to go off on wild flights of fancy.

New Jack

#6
I use Truecaller on my blower and if I'm lucky it shows the service providing telco who own the number.

Since I've been IT and set up many a phone system, Mitel, Cisco, the lot, I'm quite effective at then contacting them in a professional manner, finding out if they indeed control the phone number. Because they're often a UK business, and there's a contact being breached, basically.

I usually can find complaints online, coupled with my own, and I've had confirmation a few times that accounts / numbers have been suspended due to breaching contract. Which is entirely my shtick - as the telco you're responsible! It's great what fear achieves.

Had a few false positives, thanks to spoofing, but actually speaking to the telco is always worthwhile. Found the mobile networks are shocking. They won't do anything, but as a consumer they won't block owt their end for you.

Of course, Truecaller doesn't always work. Spoofed calls using my local police station (!) with a robot on about a car accident (I don't drive) are my current enemy. I'll find a way. One moronic firm sent me to a website who didn't anonymise their whois data, complete with email address. Great fun.

I labour under no illusion I'm doing owt on any worthwhile scale, but i take umbrage bigtime. Apathy solves nowt.

If you do answer just don't say Hello. The scripted robots are voice activated. So are humans, but they at least go heeelloo-oooo!? I fear no AI!


Sebastian Cobb

Truecaller peers into your address book and logs your contacts. It's not only creepy but it's fucked up that it allows people to send their contact's number without the contact's consent.

im barry bethel

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on November 15, 2018, 10:24:27 AM
I don't answer calls from numbers I don't recognise.

I don't answer calls from numbers I do recognise.

New Jack

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on November 15, 2018, 10:50:44 AM
Truecaller peers into your address book and logs your contacts. It's not only creepy but it's fucked up that it allows people to send their contact's number without the contact's consent.

That's the definition of what a phone address book app does. It's the definition of what I want mine to do, at any rate. You don't have to use it. I expect you read my post and think I'm wasting my time. But there's no other way to do it.

Ahh, heckling from the sidelines!

Sebastian Cobb

Most address books either store things locally or via private sync. If you submitted my number to some questionable third party I wouldn't be happy about it.

thraxx


I give the phone to my 6 year old daughter who is free to play it however she wishes.

Shit Good Nose

I try and keep them going with their schtick for as long as I possibly can, letting them do all the talking, and making them think they've got me before pulling back the curtain and revealing myself to be a cunt who knows exactly what they're playing at.  My favourite one is the "we're calling from you internet provider [which they invariably get wrong] and there's a problem with your connection - please do this command and then tell me what it says", I play along and I've spelt out FUCK OFF CUNTS before, said "I've just realised I don't actually have a computer or the internet", said that I coincidentally also worked for whomever it is they claim to be calling from and ask for their office address and staff number and phone log-in etc.  All good fun.

Unfortunately this is getting harder and harder to do as they're obviously getting wise to those kind of shenanigans - they now tend to hang up the second they've clocked something doesn't feel quite right with the call.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on November 15, 2018, 11:24:08 AM
Unfortunately this is getting harder and harder to do as they're obviously getting wise to those kind of shenanigans - they now tend to hang up the second they've clocked something doesn't feel quite right with the call.

I've noticed that, the other day I got a miss sold personal insurance call and the moment I said I've never had insurance they put the phone down on me, which felt oddly rude.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain


Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on November 15, 2018, 11:57:21 AM
I usually tell them to fuck off.

I nearly did that to an Indian sysadmin wanting to reboot one of our servers, he'd phoned my personal phone rather than the on-call number and I was exasperated in Morrisons and assumed it was one of those support scam things. Because it was MY phone my brain had decided that it was impossible it would be anything to do with work.

Utter Shit

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on November 15, 2018, 12:05:29 PM
I nearly did that to an Indian sysadmin wanting to reboot one of our servers, he'd phoned my personal phone rather than the on-call number and I was exasperated in Morrisons and assumed it was one of those support scam things. Because it was MY phone my brain had decided that it was impossible it would be anything to do with work.

Ahahaha I've never thought of that before. Loads of Indian lads trying to do genuine IT work and not understanding why everyone is making their lives so difficult. There's bound to be at least one actual benevolent African prince in the world as well, utterly baffled that no one wants his charity.

Cloud

I just go with "oh wow, that must have been one heck of an accident as I can't remember it!  Now fuck off"

I quite like one my dad did on the landline when one of those called with a survey (the original source surveys usually pay, so you get guys in India and the like asking you the questions as a proxy and pocketing the money).  "Am I the houseowner?  Naw mate I'm the burglar.....  No I don't know where the owner is, I'd rather he wasn't here while I was robbing his house anyway.......  I told you mate, I'm a burglar, the phone was ringing so I picked it up....... how should I know what company he uses for electric?..... oh right, look I'll find the bill in a minute, I'm a bit busy lifting a TV at the moment.....SHIT he's back I need to go grab a knife.... hello?"

MoonDust

I can't personally do the whole "I don't answer calls from numbers I don't recognise."

Like it could be genuinely important. Your next of kin or family member could have had something horrible happen and the police or whoever on the other end are trying to contact you.

Obviously that's super rare but you never know. Something less bleak but still important could be going on.

MoonDust

On another note I always tell scam/spam callers to remove my number from their database before the call ends. Does this actually work or am I wasting my breath? Do they even have control over that?

I would assume since GDPR such requests are easier, right?

timebug

As I said in my original post, I spent a long time answering, listening to their opening shite,and then used to shout as loud as possible 'Oh...fuck off!!!' But I like the implied panic when they slam the phone down,once I have mentioned 'recording' or 'crime scene'. Minor satisfactions!
I always answer,even unknown numbers,because as has been pointed out already, it may involve a family member in some sort of crisis,and a friend of theirs is phoning. Ho hum, whatever gets you through the day!

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: timebug on November 15, 2018, 12:50:25 PM
I always answer,even unknown numbers,because as has been pointed out already, it may involve a family member in some sort of crisis,and a friend of theirs is phoning.

Ditto.  And some of the (legit) work related calls I get are both from unknown numbers AND have that gap between you saying "hello" and them responding, so I can't really not answer, especially as so many people don't like leaving voicemails, or immediately hang up on non-response.

We have call monitoring on our landline, as well as TPS and some other thing that TalkTalk themselves have got that prevents nuisance calls, so the only ones we tend to get on our home phone these days are legitimate nuisance calls, if that makes sense (genuine sales and PPI and the like), but they're VERY few and far between now.  In fact I can't remember the last one we had on our home phone.

New Jack

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on November 15, 2018, 11:10:08 AM
Most address books either store things locally or via private sync. If you submitted my number to some questionable third party I wouldn't be happy about it.

Well, I suppose it is the thin end of the wedge. I do feel like in my mad tirades against scammers, I'm sort of being a pest myself, and this element is using private data to stop private data being used! But nowt else is being done.

When I speak to my Canadian mate about this he's baffled. Ditto the yank forum I'm on. I think scam calls are becoming a very British thing.

The DWP telling me to put my phone number in my CV and put it online, as well. Er.

Icehaven

Ever since hearing (admittedly questionable) claims that some of these calls will be recording and ask questions designed to make you say 'yes' or 'Yes I can confirm that' (e.g. Am I speaking to (your name)? Can you confirm your postcode is (whatever)? etc.) which will then be transferred onto other recordings to make it sound like you're agreeing to sign up for whatever the scam is, I've just either hung up or played silly buggers like others here, squawking about dain bramage in ve akkident and so on until they hang up. I don't know how true the claims are that misusing your voice is a thing, but it doesn't sound out of the realms of possibility, just as if it's a lot of trouble to go to to do something which is quite easily detectable. 

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: New Jack on November 15, 2018, 01:01:12 PM
Well, I suppose it is the thin end of the wedge. I do feel like in my mad tirades against scammers, I'm sort of being a pest myself, and this element is using private data to stop private data being used! But nowt else is being done.

When I speak to my Canadian mate about this he's baffled. Ditto the yank forum I'm on. I think scam calls are becoming a very British thing.

The DWP telling me to put my phone number in my CV and put it online, as well. Er.

I got loads of (useful) calls from recruiters when I it in my cv and stuck it on monster. Although when I'm on the lookout again I'll probably use a divert service or a second sim so I can long them off once I've got a new job.

One of the young lads here set up a twilio and does things like divert recruiters to their own/other recruiters switchboards.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: timebug on November 15, 2018, 12:50:25 PM
I always answer,even unknown numbers,because as has been pointed out already, it may involve a family member in some sort of crisis,and a friend of theirs is phoning. Ho hum, whatever gets you through the day!

If they couldn't get through I assume they'd text.

slapasoldier

Quote from: timebug on November 15, 2018, 10:10:00 AM
Mobile phone rings.
Me:Hello?
Caller:Hello, my name is Trish (or whatever) we have been told you were recently involved in an accident in your car...
Me: Oh yes? And who told you this please?
Caller: Sorry?
Me: You said 'you were told' I had been in an accident,where did you get this information?
Caller: (Silence,or Musak while they consult their script, which this reply does not seem to cover;or ask their supervisor!
Caller: Er, we got the information from Road Traffic Control...
Me: I see. What did you say your name was again?
Caller Trish (or whatever)
Me:Okay Trish, thank you for that. This call has been recorded, because you have reached a crime scene; we have your location, and someone from our local Police Station will be round to interview you within the hour....
Caller: (Disconnect. Usually once I mention that I am recording the call (I am not!) or when I mention 'Crime Scene'.
End of call, quietly smirky self. I used to explode and tell them to go forth and multiply, but this way is much calmer!

That does sound like fun but aren't you committing a serious crime by impersonating a police officer?

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: slapasoldier on November 15, 2018, 01:29:27 PM
That does sound like fun but aren't you committing a serious crime by impersonating a police officer?

timebug never claimed he was a police officer, he just said he's at a crime scene and the fuzz are on their way.  For all they know he could be Fred Dinenage, just picking up the phone whilst everyone else is busy.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: Buelligan on November 15, 2018, 10:15:16 AM
Heheh.  I never get phone calls, I don't even have a phone.  The ultimate revenge.

*wait, Buelligan doesn't have a (insert technology here)?*