My internet has been "compromised"..... have you had this scam phone call?

[raleighnut]

When I worked at BT, I took a call from a very upset lady who had been scammed for £40k the evening before. I got her through to the fraud department where she promptly told them that she had recognised my voice when I answered the phone - clearly a lie - and I left them to it.
I felt for her but there was no benefit of blaming a random call centre agent for her stupidity. BT had called her and asked for her bank details and passwords or they would have to cut off her service, it seemed.

 

[Profpointy]

It happens , although it's less frequent because the rules about unsolicited calls are different: you have to opt in rather than opt out. Wierdly they generally speak English which rather gives the game away.

Bear in mind fraudsters are planning to commit fraud, ergo criminals. They are not really bothered about complying with ofcom cold calling regulations given they would go to jail for the fraud bit anyway

 

[Deleted member 26715]

Bear in mind fraudsters are planning to commit fraud, ergo criminals. They are not really bothered about complying with ofcom cold calling regulations given they would go to jail for the fraud bit anyway

But as most of these originate overseas the chances of catching them & getting them to court is very slim.

 

[MiK1138]

On Radio 4 the other week there was, what sounded like a reasonably intelligent woman, who had a similar call from 'her bank'. The fraudster got her to transfer over £200k into a bogus account. Her genuine bank told her she had no recourse to refund.

So, whilst it seems like an obvious scam, there are plenty of honest people being caught out.

Hamilton Accies FC where duped with a similar scam
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-42963379

 

[Johnno260]

I had the old Windows scam people call me, I kept them on the phone pretending to be slow and clueless.

It keeps them from scamming someone easier to manipulate.

 

[ianrauk]

Must admit, I do like to play and string the phone scammers along. Long enough to either they hang up or I get bored. Like @Johnno260 My time is 1 less for someone else.

 

[Johnno260]

I have never ever heard of a genuine bank asking customers to hand over passwords.

If they claim to be the bank I say make an appointment at my local branch and I will speak then.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

If they claim to be the bank I say make an appointment at my local branch and I will speak then.

Quite a few years ago before all this became the norm I had a 15 minute conversation with a guy from Halifax bank, he cold called me, at the time I did have a credit card with them, he wanted some details from me to go through security before he could discuss the account, so I said I wanted details from him before I gave mine. We went backwards & forwards over this, he was getting more & more exasperated, polite but exasported, in the end he gave up. I ran them back on number on the back of the card & got back through to him to explain why I wouldn't give him those details he was after.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Bear in mind fraudsters are planning to commit fraud, ergo criminals. They are not really bothered about complying with ofcom cold calling regulations given they would go to jail for the fraud bit anyway

I meant that most people say "push off you are breaking the law by calling me" so they probably wouldn't bother too much in Germany. The people that do try are probably the ones dense enough to try and convince Germans they are official while speaking English.

 

[snorri]

I've begun asking them is this the career their parents wanted for them, is this how they saw their future, where did it go wrong, what led them down this path. No one has stayed on long enough to tell me yet but maybe one day.....

I seriously wonder if the callers know that they are involved in a scam. IME, they hand over to another person when things get technical, ie when I tell them for the third time that I do not see the things on my screen that I should see, if I had followed their instructions to the letter(which of course I had not!)

 

[Nigel-YZ1]

The current fashion in my office is cold callers wanting to send me 'white papers' and wanting to confirm my email address. Of course the address they ask me to confirm is utter twaddle so I agree that it is mine.

I also get a persistent UK sales guy ringing up saying he's from Dell. I always tell him he's not from Dell, and when he gets all huffy I remind him that Dell uses staff in India for virtually all communications. That's when he comes clean. Only happened 3 times now, you'd think he'd give up the pretense.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

I had an Indian accented man call me to tell me he needed to fix my router to avoid total loss of internet access.

Me: Who did you say was calling?

"I am Manish from BT OpenSearch, sir."

OpenSearch?!

"Yes, sir, BT OpenSearch."

Dude, you're trying to scam me and can't even get the name of the company right!

"I'm from BT OpenSearch."

Look, even if you got the name right you wouldn't have anything to do with equipment beyond the wall socket in the customer's house. Goodbye.


Honestly, the calibre of scammer is really going downhill.

 

[Dave7]

I had an Indian accented man call me to tell me he needed to fix my router to avoid total loss of internet access.

Me: Who did you say was calling?

"I am Manish from BT OpenSearch, sir."

OpenSearch?!

"Yes, sir, BT OpenSearch."

Dude, you're trying to scam me and can't even get the name of the company right!

"I'm from BT OpenSearch."

Look, even if you got the name right you wouldn't have anything to do with equipment beyond the wall socket in the customer's house. Goodbye.


Honestly, the calibre of scammer is really going downhill.

Some 'body' should start night school classes for scamming. They could offer basic all the way through to degree level. Thay could make a fortune in fees.

 

[C R]

I have never ever heard of a genuine bank asking customers to hand over passwords.

About 11 years ago I got a call from a call centre working for Barclays about a remortgage application we had ongoing, but they wouldn't say more unless I passed the security questions. We did have an ongoing application, but I had no means of verifying that the call was actually from Barclays, the lady got very shirty when I pointed this out and refused to answer security questions unless she could prove she was calling from the bank. I hung up and called Barclays customer services, who said that they were indeed trying to contact me. When I complained about the absurdity of me having to pass security questions when they had called me and I had no means of knowing if the call was genuine it seemed to go over their heads.

Had a similar experience three years ago with Direct Line, requiring verification of who I was when they had called me and I had no means of knowing they were who they said they were. This time, though, the caller did understand the issue, and gave me a reference to give to their customer services when I called, so they would pass me on to him.

 

[Globalti]

The worrying thing is that my Mum aged 88, despite having been warned many times, fell for the IT call scam and allowed somebody into her computer. Luckily she had a GP appointment to keep and she had to terminate the call. She phoned me and I realised what had happened and she was mortified. The scammer kept calling her back for several days afterwards. Her local IT shop managed to remove whatever had been placed on her computer.

The problem is that elderly folk grew up in an era when you could trust most people, are reluctant to cause offence and are easily browbeaten as my Mum was. On top of that as you age the part of your brain that governs belief loses its effectiveness and you do become less able to discriminate.