Scam Telephone Call Regarding Amazon Prime Membership

[Spamcan81]

Regularly get calls asking to speak to the manager. Usually from somebody trying to sell me cheap energy. Most often I hang up but occasionally I'll string them along for a bit of sport. I add the number to my blocked numbers list but since they spoof the number that appears on the display, that's not very effective. I recognise quite a few of them now though so don't bother to answer.

 

[Lucan]

Breaking news : there is a wave of new phone scams offering Thomas Cook refunds.

 

[duncanp]

If we ever do leave the EU (and I don't want to start a discussion on that topic here) I hope as part of a post Brexit trade deal with India the government insists that India cracks down on this type of activity.

But as you, there are vested interests in operating scam call centres, and they are by no means confined to India.

 

[dgl]

Most scams calls come from abroad, paticularly from India (and from China in the case of the USA). In India it is an industry, with large "call centres" employing numerous agents. During scam calls you can often hear other talkers in the background.

The agents first get jobs at legitimate call centres, outsourced by UK companies like BT. That way they get free (or rather paid) training on how to talk to UK "customers" and on the technical side - I have found some scam callers (the ones who say my phone is being disconnected) to be very knowledgable about the BT phone system.

The local Indian police are not interested. The scam centre is a good employer and earner for their community, and they probably get a cut, or at least their wives work there. One guy on the web (I forget the link), an expert at networking, has a story that he delved and found not only the street address of one of these centres, but also the names of the bosses. He gave this info to the Indian police but they did nothing.

the bloke in question goes under the name of Jim browning (not his real name) and is a real hero in the modern world.

As for call blockers, since having our BT8500's we have had no scam calls come through.

 

[sprunt]

If you have bank account numbers then the only thing you can do is send money, you can't take money without the Debit card number.

Yeah, that's what Jeremy Clarkson thought.

Although that was over ten years ago, I'm pretty sure this would still be possible - I've set up direct debits online within the last six months without having to sign anything.

 

[Crossover]

This thread from an IT Forum I frequent may be of interest to some having read some of the responses on here:
https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2227586-so-i-interviewed-a-phone-scammer-for-fun

However, yesterday traffic was building for some glorious reason everyone decided to get in a car accident yesterday, so my normal 60-minute commute became a 90 plus commute, and an IRS scammer called earlier in the day... I had time to kill... and thought... let's interview these folks. I wanted to know their success rate, curious how the industry worked nowadays, do they have regrets, and generally lets chat, I'm bored. This is how it went.

I tend to pick up the phone and say nothing for around 5 seconds, that way you can hear what is on the other end. It is normally enough to confuse the auto diallers into hanging up thinking they got an answer phone

A colleague told me that - on hearing no sound many will hang up. I have to say I usually forget and start talking, then putting the phone down

If we ever do leave the EU (and I don't want to start a discussion on that topic here) I hope as part of a post Brexit trade deal with India the government insists that India cracks down on this type of activity.

But as you, there are vested interests in operating scam call centres, and they are by no means confined to India.

I may be missing a point, but with India not part of the EU, Brexit wouldn't make a jot of difference surely?

 

[duncanp]

I may be missing a point, but with India not part of the EU, Brexit wouldn't make a jot of difference surely?

Whilst the UK is a member of the EU, it cannot negotiate trade deals independently of the EU.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

There are so many scams about and some do sound quite genuine, you really have to be careful. I don't answer my land line now when it rings as I get a lot of these calls, I wait until it has stopped and then call 1471, if it's a number I know I'll call back, but usually it isn't, same with odd numbers that come up on the mobile.

One particular scam has again re-surfaced this week. A very cultured British male automated voice says the call is "On behalf of BT" to state the landline service and the internet service "would be terminated at midnight" and giving two options. I do not do anything and after 10 seconds the line goes dead. I use the 1471 service to establish the number that called, which I then enter into the 1572 Call Protect service, which sends any more calls from the number to my voice junk section.