Cycling UK Forum

My mate Jack who, unlike me is a computer whizzard, sent me the following e-mail this morning :

Just received this warning and thought I’d pass it on to you

This is an interesting new scam, and very simple to accomplish:
The new telephone 'scam' has arrived.
I received a call from a 'representative' of BT, informing me that
he was dis-connecting me because of an unpaid bill.

He demanded payment immediately of £31.00 , or it would be £ 118.00 to re-connect at a later date.

The guy wasn't even fazed when I told him I was with Virgin Media,
allegedly VM have to pay BT a percentage for line rental!

I asked the guy's name - the very 'English' John Peacock with a very 'African' accent - & phone number - 0800 0800 152.

Obviously the guy realized I wasn't believing his story, so offered
to demonstrate that he was from BT.

I asked how & he told me to hang up & try phoning someone - he
would dis-connect my phone to prevent this.

AND HE DID !!
My phone was dead - no engaged tone, nothing - until he phoned me again.

Very pleased with himself, he asked if that was enough proof that he was with BT.

I asked how the payment was to be made & he said credit card, there & then.

I said that I didn't know how he'd done it, but I had absolutely no
intention of paying him, I didn't believe his name or that he worked for BT.

He hung up.

Did 1471 & phoned his fictitious 0800 number - not recognised.

I phoned the police to let them know , I wasn't the first!

It's only just started apparently but it is escalating.

Their advice was to let as many people know by word of mouth of this scam.

The fact that the phone does go off would probably convince some people it's real, so please let as many friends &family aware of this.

This is good but not that clever. He gave the wrong number - it should have been 0800 800 152 which takes you through to BT Business.

The cutting off of the line is very simple, he stays on the line
with the mute button on and you can't dial out - but he can hear you trying

This is because the person who initiates a call is the one to terminate it). When you stop trying he cuts off and immediately calls back.

You could almost be convinced!

The sad thing is that it is so simple that it will certainly fool
the elderly and vulnerable.

Please pass this own to friends and family and be on your guard.

Snopes is your friend!

This does seem to be a genuine scam - most are hoaxes though, which succeed only in clogging the e-mail systems. I usually check them out on Snopes before passing them on, very few are real.

Yes, it's a real problem/scam.

They profiled the scam on Radio4 some time back.

Yes, this one went the rounds on our work Intranet. Seems they target the elderly/vulnerable (as so many of these do) and presumably they get enough victims to make it worth while before people catch on. I don't suppose too many of us fall for the "Nigerian wanting to use your bank account to transfer funds" one now. (Or so I would like to think).

Jan

One reason I rarely answer my landline. Most people have my mobile number. If it is an important phone call or a family member they can leave a message on the ansafone, if they hang up it obviously was not important.

Sadly this is a genuine scam. Although hopefully lots of publicity will put paid to it.

However, there is another one also doing the rounds which was on Watchdog a few weeks ago. People post fake 'we tried to deliver whilst you were out' parcel company cards, with a phone number on them. They look pretty convincing - especially as so many of us buy stuff online now - so if you were waiting for a parcel from Amazon, for example, it could seem realistic.

Except when you ring them they'll ask for £3.50 redelivery cost. Most people think 'that's OK' and pay up, but beware that is also a scam - once they have your card number, they use it to place adverts costing £2500 or so in newspapers for selling cheap TV's and electronic goods - those quarter page ads that show unbelieveable bargains. So they sting the courier carded people for the cost of the advert, then fleece the people who ring up to buy the stuff from the newspapers, because they don't exist either. It's a complex scam but very nasty. I'm surprised they can't trace the people who buy from the bucket adverts as they must be making money somehow.

I think the simple thing to remind people is that no courier company should charge you for redelivery - I know if you get stuff from abroad there can be duty charges, but it's usually only Royal Mail or Fedex/UPS that will charge you that directly. Most of the smaller courier companies like Citylink don't handle imported goods directly.

Thanks John,I hadn't heard of this one,I'll pass on the information to as many people as I can.

The not being able to phone someone is easy to do. The network runs caller disconnect. If someone calls you and you put the phone down on them the call stays up for upto 3 minutes. If however they put the phone down the the call clears down immeadiately .

If someone calls you and you put the phone down on them the call stays up for upto 3 minutes.

Damn, you mean my leaving the phone off the hook when some telesales cold caller has started to annoy me will only end up charging them for three minutes.

Si wrote:

If someone calls you and you put the phone down on them the call stays up for upto 3 minutes.

Damn, you mean my leaving the phone off the hook when some telesales cold caller has started to annoy me will only end up charging them for three minutes.

Tell them to hang on a minute, you'll be back soon, then put the phone down (but don't hang up). My phone has a timer - I kept one waiting for 14 minutes once!

If you have a mobile phne to hand, would there be any useful milage in ringing the BT operator? They can hold the landline open and check it out.

rbrian wrote:

Si wrote:

If someone calls you and you put the phone down on them the call stays up for upto 3 minutes.

Damn, you mean my leaving the phone off the hook when some telesales cold caller has started to annoy me will only end up charging them for three minutes.

Tell them to hang on a minute, you'll be back soon, then put the phone down (but don't hang up). My phone has a timer - I kept one waiting for 14 minutes once!

I do that with repeat offenders, I'm on the TPS and attack any cold caller with questions as to why they are calling me and how did they get my number?


The second time they call I ask them to wait while I 'answer the door'. I look at the phone after 10 minutes or so and no one has held on that long, but at least I'm wasting some of their time like they wasted mine!

YOu could always try one of these if cold callers bother you that much.
basically any number it does not reconise it ask you first if you wish to answer. once you accept it knows its a friendly call

http://www.shop.bt.com/products/truecal ... -5KB7.html
Alternatively prescreen your calls with an answering machine or use a phone with Caller line display.

But stop being nasty to call centre workers, they are only men and women trying to earn a living wage like the rest of us.

I suppose that with the majority of unsolicited callers, they are being paid peanuts for working in some call centre, often in India etc. What I find most annoying is the way the caller display info operates. As I understand it, cold callers based in the UK have to show their number, but if they call from abroad ineviatbly all that shows is INTERNATIONAL or UNAVAILABLE. As these calls originate from call centres, it's pretty common that when you answer there is either nobody there ot there is a long delay before they speak. I understand that this is caused by a computerised system ringing numbers at a speed intended to keep all the operatives constantly busy. One of my sons has been abroad for most of the last 10 years, to get an incomplete international call can be worrying.

An easy reaction is to bar all calls whre the number is withheld but that would mean that legitimate calls from any number of major organisations which choose to withhold their number - NHS generally, police, etc., would be declined.

there is either nobody there

yeah, I used to get one of those, 3:10pm every day regular as clockwork.

barring all withheld numbers was an option but then our SP increased the charge for that service substanially.

If someone is going to cold-call me while I'm working, and without invitation, then I feel perfectly entitled to handle their call how I see fit.