New Phone Scam

[malbui]

There is an interesting complication around here in that many companies have relocated their customer support to the Maghreb or to countries in francophone West Africa. So sometimes the calls over not-great connections and with foreign accents are legitimate... I was talking to someone from a satellite TV company who reckons the proportion of their calls where the client hangs up has gone through the roof.

[JQH]

Likewise here in the UK it is possible to get a perfectly legitimate call from a call centre in India but it is perfectly reasonable to be wary of them. It would be ironic if transferring customer services to cheaper places turned out to be a false economy because of lost custom.

[Bird on a Fire]

Likewise here in the UK it is possible to get a perfectly legitimate call from a call centre in India but it is perfectly reasonable to be wary of them. It would be ironic if transferring customer services to cheaper places turned out to be a false economy because of lost custom.

I'd be surprised, to be honest.

Even in Portugal, which has a lot of call centres for UK companies, minimum wage is about £7500 pa, compared with twice that for the UK. The median salary in India is about £1500, so a saving of 90%. So they'd have to lose a lot of custom for it to make a difference. Plus the trend towards online text-based support makes accents less of an issue, workers can follow a script more easily, and parts of the initial screening can be done by AI.

[border_reiver]

Just had 'Amazon Customer Services' on. Apparently someone has hacked my account and bought an iPhone for £750 in 'Liverpool, England'
I played dumb for a bit and she kept asking me what device I used to access the internet and I kept saying I didn't see what that had to do with anything.
I got fed up with her telling me to "listen to me"
She stuck around for the accusations of fraud and questions about how proud her mother must be of her career but finally hung up when I started laughing and said I was sorry but I was just enjoying this so much it had been such a boring afternoon up to now.
6 minutes I managed.

[Boustrophedon]

According to the text message, my Paypal account has been locked. Yeah right.

[Martin Y]

"HSBC" need me to follow their link to log in and confirm a payment.

[jimbob]

"HSBC" need me to follow their link to log in and confirm a payment.

I had a text message from LloydsTSB quite recently

[Martin Y]

"HSBC" need me to follow their link to log in and confirm a payment.

I had a text message from LloydsTSB quite recently

The most sinister part is that the link that appeared in the text message looked legit: "https://hsbc.co.uk.payee-review-<reference>"

But I suspect that visible message was actually an image of a message. One downside of trying to make simple messaging clever - what the user thinks is a few bytes of text might have all kinds of shenanigans hidden behind which aren't shown.

[malbui]

A few years ago a credit card of mine got blocked as a precaution while I was on business abroad. I was in Barcelona and someone tried to use the card number for something in the US and that triggered an alarm. Which is good.

Problem was that when the card issuer got in touch, they asked me to contact them on a number that didn't feature on their website. They really didn't understand my concerns about that.

[Aitch]

The Amazon Prime one is doing the rounds again - it's Amazon Prime Day soon, could be connected - I've it twice today, along with two or three 'silence then hang-up' calls.

[Little waster]

Had a novel one yesterday from someone who I later googled to be automobile accident scammers.

"Hello"

"Hello, is that Mr RealFirstName RealSurnameBreakfast?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Mr RealSurnameBreakfast?"

"Seriously!"

They then hung up on me.


f.ck knows what was going on there.

[OneOffDave]

I tried to use my card contactless in Miami last year and it got rejected. Within 5 minutes I had a text from the card company asking me to call them. The best thing was they told me to use the contact number on the card rather than including one in the text.

My favourite trick is to ask them to stay one the line a little longer "while my colleague completes the trace". Usually gets a fairly rapid hang up

[nekomatic]

I tried to use my card contactless in Miami last year and it got rejected. Within 5 minutes I had a text from the card company asking me to call them. The best thing was they told me to use the contact number on the card rather than including one in the text.

That’s all very well except that if the reason they’re texting you about a suspicious transaction is because the transaction has in fact been made by someone else who has nicked your card, then you don’t have the card with the contact number on it.

[OneOffDave]

I tried to use my card contactless in Miami last year and it got rejected. Within 5 minutes I had a text from the card company asking me to call them. The best thing was they told me to use the contact number on the card rather than including one in the text.

That’s all very well except that if the reason they’re texting you about a suspicious transaction is because the transaction has in fact been made by someone else who has nicked your card, then you don’t have the card with the contact number on it.

At least that would tell me my physical card has been nicked!

[murmur]

The Amazon Prime one is doing the rounds again - it's Amazon Prime Day soon, could be connected - I've it twice today, along with two or three 'silence then hang-up' calls.

Yup, we're getting that one about 3 times a day lately.

[sTeamTraen]

What is the Amazon Prime scam?

[Brightonian]

What is the Amazon Prime scam?

I hadn't heard of it before this thread but it seems to be this, where you get conned into allowing remote control of your computer, a bit like the Microsoft scam.

I had wondered if the Amazon Prime scam was one perpetrated by Amazon themselves where they try to trick you into signing up for Prime, or where they are dodging their taxes.

[murmur]

Yeah, that's the one. We just hang straight up, what with never having had a Prime account.

[cvb]

Friend of mine likes to give them a lecture about why they think scamming is an acceptable way to make a living and what would their mum think. They mostly hang up, but one guy phoned back half an hour later to say she was right and he'd quit.

Result.

For quite a few years I scambaited so I get quite a few scam calls as I would happily give out my mobile number

I have never managed to convince any of them to quit but have been cursed at in a wide variety of accents many many times

Most of them are investment scams as I registered for some online dodgy trading scam and used my mobile number as a contact

They sell sucker lists between themselves

[Allo V Psycho]

Just had a robocall from the police to say my NI number has been involved in criminal activities (out on its own?) and that they were going to suspend the number, freeze all my transactions, and arrest me. I must press 1 immediately to speak to them. Presumably this filters out the scam-aware without any need for them to call first.

Voice could have been computer generated, but was sort of posh and not accented (other than posh).

Didn't have time to play with them (my favourites - "I'm terribly sorry, but I don't have a phone': "It's my brother you want, but he's in court for murdering a scam caller- I'll pass on your details' and 'I've just found out my girlfriend is pregnant' - they often say 'congratulations' then I say 'but I'm busy trying to explain it to my wife).

[Brightonian]

I often look up the scammer's number on one of those "who called me" sites, adding my own report. But lately I've noticed the numbers aren't already in there so they seem to have an endless supply of new numbers. Or else they're simply spoofing them.

[dyqik]

I often look up the scammer's number on one of those "who called me" sites, adding my own report. But lately I've noticed the numbers aren't already in there so they seem to have an endless supply of new numbers. Or else they're simply spoofing them.

They are spoofing them.

[Trinucleus]

Just had a robocall from the police to say my NI number has been involved in criminal activities (out on its own?) and that they were going to suspend the number, freeze all my transactions, and arrest me. I must press 1 immediately to speak to them. Presumably this filters out the scam-aware without any need for them to call first.

Voice could have been computer generated, but was sort of posh and not accented (other than posh).

Didn't have time to play with them (my favourites - "I'm terribly sorry, but I don't have a phone': "It's my brother you want, but he's in court for murdering a scam caller- I'll pass on your details' and 'I've just found out my girlfriend is pregnant' - they often say 'congratulations' then I say 'but I'm busy trying to explain it to my wife).

Had that one. Their script is rubbish. They start off by asking my name, to which the obvious response is " but you phoned me, you must know my name". I like to string them on as long as possible to keep them away from people who may be conned

[raven]

I often look up the scammer's number on one of those "who called me" sites, adding my own report. But lately I've noticed the numbers aren't already in there so they seem to have an endless supply of new numbers. Or else they're simply spoofing them.

They are spoofing them.

Definitely. I've had a bunch on my mobile lately that all come from numbers that match the first 6 or 7 digits of mine. Apparently that's a thing because you'll be so intrigued you'll call back. I don't get why; it's not like friends are likely to have numbers close to your own...

[Sciolus]

Isn't the point of those scams that if you press 1, you find yourself calling a premium-rate number? Or is that an urban myth? (Whaddaya mean, JFGI?)