Telephone Scammers.

Started by Techno, 13 June 2019, 03:13:09 PM

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FierceKitty

Quote from: Matt J on 13 June 2019, 04:39:30 PM
I deal with a number of companies in Asia (China, Thailand, India, Vietnam etc) pretty much all the contacts have anglicised names.

One poor girl from a Thai company (hugely complicated names) had her handle reduced to 'Porn'. A bit off-putting when you commence an email 'Dear Porn' (took 2 years for them to change it)

Not an unusual nickname for Thais.
I don't drink coffee to wake up. I wake up to drink coffee.

Techno

There's a book called "Cooking with Poo" written by a young lady from your neck of the woods, Alexander. :)

(Available from Amazon .....at least.....)

Cheers - Phil

OldenBUA

Quote from: Techno on 14 June 2019, 08:01:28 AM
Did they 'try' and talk to you in Dutch ? OB.

No, this was a standard 'Hello, I am so-and-so and I am calling from Microsoft' call. People will accept that such a call would be in English, and most could manage a conversation I suppose. So it is doable for the scammers.
Water is indeed the essential ingredient of life, because without water you can't make coffee!

Aander lu bin óók lu.

Big Insect

The 'trick' with auto-diallers on landlines is to 'train' them out of calling you.
There are 2 approaches

1). pick up the phone but remain silent - a lot of auto-dial tech is voice activated - they only want to spend money on the call if they will have somebody to talk to. So until you speak they often wont connect you through to an agent. If I can hear it is a foreign call centre I very often just put the phone to one side (don't hang up) and let them rattle through their script - it's nice to know that you are wasting their money  :D
Ultimately, your number will get a registration in the auto-dialler as being an expensive number to call - as they do get charged for the pick-up. It can be unnerving to friendly callers but I used to just say I had a mouth full of coffee if they queried why I hadn't answered on pick-up. But it's now standard that we leave our answer phone on the landline on permanently and anybody who knows us well and wants us to pick up just shouts abusive messages!

2). the 2nd technique is to have your calls go straight to answer machine (for a few weeks at least) - the auto-dialler will automatically hang-up as the call is of no value to them. After a while you'll notice you have a lot of dropped calls but your 'nuisance' calls get less and less and ultimately disappear.

Talking (or screaming abuse) to the agents who call is pointless and in fact makes matters worse, as all you are doing is confirming that at that time of day you are at home, so can be rung (incessantly) and also they can legitimately sell your number on to others who will also call you. As you are a confirmed target.

Making a note of the numbers and reporting them to your telco provider also works - they will track and block the calls at the main service routers.

If you work at home during the day or run a business from home, this is all a real nuisance but it is ultimately possible to stop the calls.
Not putting a contact tel.number on your business website also stops your number being harvested and abused in the 1st place.

Cheers
Mark
'He could have lived a risk-free, moneyed life, but he preferred to whittle away his fortune on warfare.' Xenophon, The Anabasis

This communication has been written by a dyslexic person. If you have any trouble with the meaning of any of the sentences or words, please do not be afraid to ask for clarification. Remember that dyslexics are often high-level conceptualisers who provide "out of the box" thinking.

Ithoriel

14 June 2019, 03:17:19 PM #19 Last Edit: 14 June 2019, 03:21:38 PM by Ithoriel
I think I'll stick with

"Cooking with Pooh"

There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

Ithoriel

As a retiree with time to spare I am happy to spin out calls from real people (silent calls and voice messages are such a disappointment) as long as I possibly can.

I am getting worryingly good at the mildly confused old guy routine.
There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

Techno

 ;D ;D ;D ;D

I'm just the 'Grumpy Old Git,' Mike.  ;)

Quote from: Big Insect on 14 June 2019, 03:13:48 PM
The 'trick' with auto-diallers on landlines is to 'train' them out of calling you.
There are 2 approaches

1). pick up the phone but remain silent - a lot of auto-dial tech is voice activated - they only want to spend money on the call if they will have somebody to talk to. So until you speak they often wont connect you through to an agent. If I can hear it is a foreign call centre I very often just put the phone to one side (don't hang up) and let them rattle through their script - it's nice to know that you are wasting their money  :D
Ultimately, your number will get a registration in the auto-dialler as being an expensive number to call - as they do get charged for the pick-up. It can be unnerving to friendly callers but I used to just say I had a mouth full of coffee if they queried why I hadn't answered on pick-up. But it's now standard that we leave our answer phone on the landline on permanently and anybody who knows us well and wants us to pick up just shouts abusive messages!

2). the 2nd technique is to have your calls go straight to answer machine (for a few weeks at least) - the auto-dialler will automatically hang-up as the call is of no value to them. After a while you'll notice you have a lot of dropped calls but your 'nuisance' calls get less and less and ultimately disappear.

Talking (or screaming abuse) to the agents who call is pointless and in fact makes matters worse, as all you are doing is confirming that at that time of day you are at home, so can be rung (incessantly) and also they can legitimately sell your number on to others who will also call you. As you are a confirmed target.

Making a note of the numbers and reporting them to your telco provider also works - they will track and block the calls at the main service routers.

If you work at home during the day or run a business from home, this is all a real nuisance but it is ultimately possible to stop the calls.
Not putting a contact tel.number on your business website also stops your number being harvested and abused in the 1st place.

Cheers Mark

I like your thinking, Mark....I'll first have to train myself not to instantly 'snap' at them.

Quote from: OldenBUA on 14 June 2019, 03:12:29 PM
No, this was a standard 'Hello, I am so-and-so and I am calling from Microsoft' call. People will accept that such a call would be in English, and most could manage a conversation I suppose. So it is doable for the scammers.

Interesting, OBUA.

I can imagine they work on the basis that folk in your neck of the woods are very likely to understand English, even if it's not the country's first language.

Cheers - Phil

d_Guy

We cancelled our landline at the first of this month. All it was doing was providing a voicemail box for robocallers to leave messages.
Anyone who we might actually want to talk to has our cellphone numbers. As was mentioned, our cellphone provider does a much better job screening out junk call.

For those that might remember, we were using DSL (3 Mbps) up to early May (which is why we needed the land line). We FINALLY got the high speed cable put in place - an eye opening 150 Mbps - amazing - satellite TV has now gone away as well as we use Roku. Sometimes I like the new world.
Sleep with clean hands ...

Fenton

I think by law a business website has to have telephone number listed
If I were creating Pendraken I wouldn't mess about with Romans and  Mongols  I would have started with Centurions , eight o'clock, Day One!

Big Insect

Not sure about that one Fenton .... I'll do some research. Think it might depend upon which jurisdiction your in ... the good old EU will probably require it, but who know what the UK policy might be ... (hmmm ... I'll stop this thinking now before it turns this thread all Brexit)!!!!  :'( :'( :'(
'He could have lived a risk-free, moneyed life, but he preferred to whittle away his fortune on warfare.' Xenophon, The Anabasis

This communication has been written by a dyslexic person. If you have any trouble with the meaning of any of the sentences or words, please do not be afraid to ask for clarification. Remember that dyslexics are often high-level conceptualisers who provide "out of the box" thinking.

Lord Kermit of Birkenhead

It has to have a means of contact, often the totally frustrating LIVE CHAT...

IanS
FOG IN CHANNEL - EUROPE CUT OFF
Lord Kermit of Birkenhead
Muppet of the year 2019, 2020 and 2021

T-Square

Got one of those calls awhile back.  Guy started talking and all I said quite loudly was, "Hello, hello, is there someone there?  I can't hear you.  Hello, hello."  This went on for a bit.  Finally I heard the guy whispering, "asshole, asshole, ...". He finally hung up. 

Hey, I got a laugh out of it.

Fenton

17 June 2019, 06:42:15 AM #27 Last Edit: 17 June 2019, 06:44:23 AM by Fenton
Quote from: Big Insect on 14 June 2019, 06:03:49 PM
Not sure about that one Fenton .... I'll do some research. Think it might depend upon which jurisdiction your in ... the good old EU will probably require it, but who know what the UK policy might be ... (hmmm ... I'll stop this thinking now before it turns this thread all Brexit)!!!!  :'( :'( :'(

Under the companies act 2006 a company must put on their website

Company name
Company registered number
Place of registration, such as England and Wales
Registered office address
Your company name, postal address and company email address
How to contact your business via non-electronic means
Your VAT number, even if the website is not being used for ecommerce transactions
The name of any trade bodies or professional associations that the business is part of, including membership or registration details.

Not sure if non electronic means includes the telephone as well
If I were creating Pendraken I wouldn't mess about with Romans and  Mongols  I would have started with Centurions , eight o'clock, Day One!

fsn

Quote from: T-Square on 17 June 2019, 04:51:08 AM
Got one of those calls awhile back.  Guy started talking and all I said quite loudly was, "Hello, hello, is there someone there?  I can’t hear you.  Hello, hello."  This went on for a bit.  Finally I heard the guy whispering, "asshole, asshole, ...". He finally hung up. 

Hey, I got a laugh out of it.
I had a similar experience with the vicar.  :P
Lord Oik of Runcorn (You may refer to me as Milord Oik)

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