Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
In the Colonial days, that area was under French control, so no Portuguese historical connection there.
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A scam phone calls and emails discussion.
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Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
I have just opened my inbox and found a purported email from TV licensing regarding "your latest direct debit" and the implications inherent.
Since I pay the whole annual subscription as soon as it is due and have a receipt for same, I had no worry whatsoever and that email has gone into the spam folder after blocking both the sender and the domain.
I do worry about elderly people who pay by direct debit receiving such an email
Since I pay the whole annual subscription as soon as it is due and have a receipt for same, I had no worry whatsoever and that email has gone into the spam folder after blocking both the sender and the domain.
I do worry about elderly people who pay by direct debit receiving such an email
Mcr Warrior
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@Xenophon PCDGS. Might be worth forwarding a copy of the scam e-mail to <[email protected]>.
Obligatory reminder: send the original message as an attachment to your new message, rather than just forwarding it. When you forward a message we just get the body of the message (the bit that you see) but what we really need is the headers (the bit that you don't see).
(Where 'we' means anyone whose job involves investigating spam.)
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
This is exactly what I did, as that information has been cited many times in the past on this and other websites.
swt_passenger
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Seems like over the last few weeks I’m seeing an almost daily scam email promoting “Verisure Alarms”, they come from different email addresses every time. Anyone else being bombarded with them?
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
They are using the never-ending Verisure TV adverts as a useful scam tool as the UK population is currently being brainwashed by the volume of the adverts from that particular company.
75A
Established Member
Believe me it's an upside.
I had a real call from Croatia a couple of days ago. Also not answered.
I had a call today. A problem with my mortgage payment insurance. Two slight issues. First, she called me Steve which is obviously not the name on any official documents. Second, I don’t have mortgage payment insurance.
So end of call.
Five minutes later she’s back trying to sell me payment insurance.
End of call
Block number
So end of call.
Five minutes later she’s back trying to sell me payment insurance.
End of call
Block number
I am getting about three calls a week from US numbers - albeit from various places in various states (which my phone tells me). Most recently from Osceola Mills in Pennsylvania and Vaiden Missouri. I am also being added to WhatsApp groups that I have no knowledge about, by random numbers I do not know. All reported of course.
Sorely tempted to answer one of them and olay along. But I know it would just get worse!
Sorely tempted to answer one of them and olay along. But I know it would just get worse!
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From late January onwards there has been a noticeable rise in the number of unwanted calls to my landline. All but one failed to get through due to my 'Call Guardian' system. The one that did come through was a lady offering electrical safety checks; on checking with 'Who Called Me?' turned out she was a scam. (I had politely declined on the grounds I carried out my own checks.....)
Mcr Warrior
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Wonder whether the persons making such outbound calls do realise they're working for a scam outfit?
Buzby
Member
I don’t believe so… they simply follow the script and pass on active leads that fit the target established. I understand they are far removed from the big sell (scam) and could quite easily be providing the same pre-sales filtering for legitimate firms. Since the process is fragmented I believe only those nearing the end of the journey can see something isn’t quite right.
That comports with my understanding of how things work.
In this case, they were UK based and it was on the 'Who Called Me' website that numerous callers had commented that they were a scam. A number of contributors on 'Who called me' also mentioned that while very polite when first making the call, she and her colleagues got extremely 'ratty' if you dared to challenge their company's competence or contravention of being TPS-registered. Make of that what you will!
Buzby
Member
A good few years ago I made extensive use of ’Who Called Me’ and I was surprised at the high incidence of false positives invalidating the entire premise. The idea only worked if number spoofing was impossible (which it isn’t) so reports were both warning of malicious call whilst impunging a valid calling number! Then there were the countless numbers listed with no information - ‘silent call’ etc which proved nothing. I wonder who funds it?
317 forever
Established Member
On the last couple of Thursdays I have had missed calls from a supposed landline in Preston, with similar but not identical numbers.
A Google search suggests these were scam calls supposedly offering a government grant.
A Google search suggests these were scam calls supposedly offering a government grant.
dangie
Established Member
A few weeks ago we received a scam phone call from ‘Nationwide Building Society’ with the pretext that there had been unusual activity on our account. At first it was not obvious it was a scam call as the caller spoke very good & clear English and did not ask for any personal or banking information. He then started to slip in the odd question which set off the alarm bells. Once it became clear to him we were not going to give him any information he terminated the call.
More worrying was that the ‘number’ he dialled from was only one digit different from the number printed on the Nationwide Debit/Credit card to report a scam. They are getting extremely devious.
More worrying was that the ‘number’ he dialled from was only one digit different from the number printed on the Nationwide Debit/Credit card to report a scam. They are getting extremely devious.
swt_passenger
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Just had yet another “unsuccessful delivery attempt” email.
This time it’s from ‘dave<at>sftechtraining.com’ pretending to be the Royal Mail, attempting to deliver a large letter from HMRC at about 9am this morning. Someone should tell ‘Dave’ the post isn’t normally delivered on Sunday.
This time it’s from ‘dave<at>sftechtraining.com’ pretending to be the Royal Mail, attempting to deliver a large letter from HMRC at about 9am this morning. Someone should tell ‘Dave’ the post isn’t normally delivered on Sunday.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
I was talking to one of the auxiliary medical staff who was waiting with me on a recent hosptal visit and the matter of scams cropped up in the conversation. The staff member was about 35 years old and at one time had worked in a BT call centre. He said a call came through at his home from a "supposedly" BT Technical Engineer. Having noted the call number displayed on his phone, he asked the caller which BT area he was calling from, the reply being Blackburn. He then asked the caller was he aware that BT Engineers are instructed not make cold telephone calls, but only to confirm their arrival time at a customer's address that had been pre-arranged by the relevant BT department with the customer and that all such calls would have the usual 0800 prefix code, not the 07*** code that was being displayed. He said the line then went dead. He checked the mobile number that was shown and was told it was not a valid number.
You would think the scam call centre managers would update their staff on current BT telephone practice.
You would think the scam call centre managers would update their staff on current BT telephone practice.
3141
Established Member
We had an email last week from Mrs Mavis, who had won a vast sum in $ and decided to give most of it away. We were one of five lucky recipients she had selected. Just press the link to accept.
Yesterday there was a phone call from a woman with a good English accent who said she was from PayPal and a purchase of £980 had been made. Press 1 to query it or 2 to accept. Probably you get through to the same scam centre either way. My wife and I have separate PayPal accounts, but the caller didn't say whose account she was calling about.
On YouTube there are some very interesting videos by organisations, mostly American or Russian, who hack into the scammers' systems and disrupt their activities. But it's hard to make it permanent.
An unfortunate consequence of these scammers is that banks and credit card suppliers have to be so suspicious that perfectly legitimate activities get held up for checking. We're planning to go on a steam trip with first class dining later this year to celebrate our fiftieth wedding anniversary. My card payment was declined twice. I rang Barclaycard and eventually was put through to Security who explained why they'd blocked it and removed the block. How annoying if in the meantime the seats we wanted had been booked by someone else!
Yesterday there was a phone call from a woman with a good English accent who said she was from PayPal and a purchase of £980 had been made. Press 1 to query it or 2 to accept. Probably you get through to the same scam centre either way. My wife and I have separate PayPal accounts, but the caller didn't say whose account she was calling about.
On YouTube there are some very interesting videos by organisations, mostly American or Russian, who hack into the scammers' systems and disrupt their activities. But it's hard to make it permanent.
An unfortunate consequence of these scammers is that banks and credit card suppliers have to be so suspicious that perfectly legitimate activities get held up for checking. We're planning to go on a steam trip with first class dining later this year to celebrate our fiftieth wedding anniversary. My card payment was declined twice. I rang Barclaycard and eventually was put through to Security who explained why they'd blocked it and removed the block. How annoying if in the meantime the seats we wanted had been booked by someone else!
Had a new type of scam caller today. The number given usually doesn't make sense (or just brings up results of those "whocalledyou" websites). This time it's a real number, but it points to a woman who is deeply involved with a bowls club somewhere up north. I'd hope they aren't getting irate people calling back...
Depends. Openreach techs do have mobile phones and I've had calls from them from their 07xxx numbers when actually expecting one to turn up. For a call out of the blue then yes that would be strange.
I think that the call centres are getting wise to people not answering strange numbers. The two most recent on our landline have the same local area code that we are on. I didn't pick up either but the second went to BT voicemail and was a cxharge to your credit card scam.
pokemonsuper9
Established Member
For a few months I had a spam email problem where loads would come through and not get sent into my spam folder, but I just realised they've all stopped (and have been gone for at least 2 weeks).
Maybe they gave up on my email address given all that happened is no response (I don't know if they get told if their emails get reported).
The spam were for all kind of seemingly generic products "You've won a free {x}"
Looking through my deleted folder (I guess that's where reported stuff goes), 4 of the spam in a row were "2nd attempt" for something to do with Tesco, note the C, which is actually ᑕ, not C.
Maybe they gave up on my email address given all that happened is no response (I don't know if they get told if their emails get reported).
The spam were for all kind of seemingly generic products "You've won a free {x}"
Looking through my deleted folder (I guess that's where reported stuff goes), 4 of the spam in a row were "2nd attempt" for something to do with Tesco, note the C, which is actually ᑕ, not C.
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Yes, that is becoming much more common. I had one the other day that came up with my own phone number. So I knew it wasn’t legit!