31 Types Of Scam To End This Month!

There seems to be a new wave of telephone scams that originate from outside the Uk thus avoiding TPS compliance.
In the past two weeks, I have had:-
1) a call from someone who opened with the line "I understand your sky plus box is not working". I don't and never will have a SKY subscription.
2) I got a call from someone who wanted to save my hundreds of pounds on my Gas & Electricity bill. This was a total cold call and came from abroad.
3) Then today, I got a call from someone who said that I had won a holiday in Florida. Naturally, I had not. Again the call was from outside the UK. The woman became abusive when I asked her for details of the competition I had supposedly entered.

I wish there was some way to stop these.

I have an ex-directory listing, annonymous call reject and am registered with TPS, I STILL get at least a dozen or more of these type of canvassing calls per month. What else can I possibly try to stop these calls? Any suggestions?

I saw on Watchdog (yeah, someone has to watch it :P ) that many people who request x-directory still get their name/details listed... it makes little difference.

Hi

They are using autodialers which generally target an area code and go through all the possible combinations of numbers.

We have 4 lines running in our property, 3 business and one residential, we are sick and tired of these companies calling us and can guarantee once one of our numbers are called, the rest will be called in the next 15 mins

I had a joke with one of them the other day "do you feel a victim and deserve compensation" so I hit the yes button, told the guy on the phone the date, time and place it happened .. when he asked me to elaborate I said "well I was at bingo and wanted number 57 for the full house and number 56 came out"

I don't know why he just hung up

I sometimes have these calls but not so many and when I do, I am invariably very polite just before I hang up. Get an answerphone and let it kick in before you pick up, then you can filter out the calls and they will slowly stop coming. Works for me.

With the cold calling I find stringing them on with a sob story about being a hospital worker on night shifts usually does the trick. Or sob story plus rage at being woken up. Or play crazy deaf old lady. Or lodger. Or burglar. Or telling them in a perfectly English accent that you don't speak English (really push them on this point) These idiots are not worth taking seriously so have some fun with them. The next call I recieve I plan to persuade them that I will buy their product if they sing 'I'm a little teapot' down the phone as loud as they can.

Seems to me that the easiest way to avoid the telephone scams is unplug your telephone. I have for the past year, the only reason I have a telephone line is for my computer. If someone wants to call me they call my mobile, far too expensive for scammers to do

tulipchickuk - you are more likely to get a good answer by posting a message to one of the Fool's Discussion Boards (e.g. Does Anyone Know) rather than wait for a reply here.

Friedeggsandwich has a good point. The people who make these "cold" calls do not invent the phone numbers

Quite often when you buy something on the net or subscribe to a magazine (pretty much anythin gthat you might be required to enter a contact number) your detials will be registered with a data gathering agency.

These agencies then sell these details to thrid party companies to whom you fit relevant criteria (which you have ticked the box to say is ok).

The guy/gal that is phoning you has generally been told that you are potentially interested in the product they are selling, which is why they can become understandably frustrated sometimes when met with repeatedly aggressive responses by people they have been told are keen!

The easiest way to deal with it is a polite "not interested". Just a thought though, how do you know they would not have been able to reduce the cost of your electric and gas without a conversation?

My son-in-law received a number of telephone calls from a well known company trying to sell him a conservatory. Eventually he decided to play along and listened to a lengthy patter as to why he should choose this company. Eventually the salesman sensed that he had probably made a sale and made an appointment to come around and measure up in order to give a quotation. My son-in-law agreed a time and date and just before he rang off casually said "You will remember to bring a ladder, won't you?" The puzzled salesman asked why. "Because I live in a second storey flat."
Needless to say, he had no more calls from this company!

I regularly get a nice indian gentleman asking to speak to Mr Wazz. On stating that no one of that name lives here he asks if I wish to take out a loan. This occurs weekly - or at least used to. I am a member of TPS and to no avail. BT Recommended the following

"If you recognise the person calling is Ex UK and you do not want the call just say that you will fetch them to the phone. Then just leave the phone off the hook until they give up waiting" This has proved 100% effective at stopping the requests to speak to mr Wazz - much more so than getting angry down the phone and asking for the number to be removed from their Database!

These types of telephone calls are just spam. Keeping your number ex-directory or hiding it in other ways will not help - there are plenty of cold calling centres where the computer which just add a randomly generated number to the code prefix and dial that number next when the cold caller presses the button.

What will help (though I don't think this has been technically implemented yet) is the following:

1) A switch on your phone which changes the standard rate of the incoming call to a premium rate.

2) A clear notification on the caller's bill that when they called you, they were paying for a premium rate phonecall.

3) The profits of the premium rate phonecall to be divided between you and your phone service provider.

4) The precise cost per minute of the premium rate to be entirely in your hands.

Then watch the entire cold-calling telephone sales industry shrivel up and disappear in a matter of months.

I don't suppose BT wants to think seriously about this idea, does it? I would sign up in a second.

hello spiralquark , yes those companies sending premium sms are awful. they arent clear in the costs at all. there is an organisation called phonepayplus used to be icstis 0800500212 that can investigate to see exactly if and when the service was subscribed to. you can stop the service by smsing the word STOP to them. any messges they send after this you should be able to get the money back.

other mobile rip offs include not informing you of what can happen if you upgrade the phone or change tariff part way through the month. always upgrade on your bill date to avoid prorata billing (e.g. 5 days worth of 500 mins tariff and 25 days worth of 300 mins tariff, on one month)
and ask the agent doing the upgrading to remove any old products that were on the account.