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Crank calls

Looks like Panorama tonight at 8.30pm is doing an investigation which I suspect will just confirm what we already know about these scumbags.
Interesting that in the trailer for tonight’s programme it had the voice of voice of Jim Browning who is a tech person on YouTube who goes after these guys and breaks down some of the technical processes they use to scam people. Not sure how he’s involved in the Panorama show tonight but I’ll be watching!


 
I use Truecaller on my mobile but in all honesty it's worse than useless, I mainly google the number then block it but I actually don't have to do that as I see the number and where it's supposedly from, this morning it was a Leeds number 0113 314 0754 which is a computer scammer apparently, last Friday I made the mistake of contacting Virgin Media and they called me about five times in about ten minutes, their numbers start 020 3706 and there's loads of them :(.

Last week I had numbers calling me from Wales, Manchester and London, I just ignore them then block the numbers, I have literally hundreds of numbers blocked on my phone.

I have an iPhone XR and use Apple's blocking feature anyone know of anything better than the Apple blocking thing or that true caller crap?
 
Yup, 1471 is useless as they can spoof the number they are dialling from. However if an incident is investigated then Openreach can confirm the real number being used. Of course the use of VOIP brings another complication these days!
My thought would be to give UK customers the option to dial a number say 1671 that would block at the exchange the real number that just called you and also provide data to the ICO.
 
wow&flutter said:
Yup, 1471 is useless as they can spoof the number they are dialling from. However if an incident is investigated then Openreach can confirm the real number being used. Of course the use of VOIP brings another complication these days!
My thought would be to give UK customers the option to dial a number say 1671 that would block at the exchange the real number that just called you and also provide data to the ICO.
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I have a VOIP landline setup with Andrews & Arnold and you can block withheld numbers or no caller display numbers which means I rarely receive those sort of numbers now but the other numbers listed above manage to call me.

The TPS is pointless IMO plus you have to re-register every year.
 
You don’t have to re-register with TPS. I signed up years ago, am still signed up.

edit: just checked the TPS website; no need to re-register, and I very quickly checked that both my mobile and landline numbers are registered.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
You don’t have to re-register with TPS. I signed up years ago, am still signed up.

edit: just checked the TPS website; no need to re-register, and I very quickly checked that both my mobile and landline numbers are registered.
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They must have changed the set up then you used to have to register every phone number ever year.

Registering is a waste of time anyway there are still scammers calling regardless.
 
True Call unit works well on a landline, I had to get one for my 91 year old mother with Alzheimers. She started to give her bank details to scrotes, no sooner had I blocked the monthly direct debit for fixing her telly, (London based, she lives in Sheffield) she had set up one for Fridge freezer insurance.

You can bar all international calls, or allow selected numbers. Or request that a number is input to get through.
All through a web interface, though you also need access to the unit also.
It has so many options available that it can be confusing.
 
very interesting misterdog , true call video worth watching . but these guys change their number each time they ring

 
It was recommended to me by trading standards.

You can set it so that friends and family have a code and all other calls are blocked, but there is only so much you can do.
 
misterdog said:
True Call unit works well on a landline, I had to get one for my 91 year old mother with Alzheimers. She started to give her bank details to scrotes, no sooner had I blocked the monthly direct debit for fixing her telly, (London based, she lives in Sheffield) she had set up one for Fridge freezer insurance.

You can bar all international calls, or allow selected numbers. Or request that a number is input to get through.
All through a web interface, though you also need access to the unit also.
It has so many options available that it can be confusing.
Click to expand...

You should open another bank account for her and get power of attorney if you don't have it already. And remove anything that's a target for theft.
 
Had one yesterday about my hearing being affected by industrial injury or some such...I led them along for a while before telling them I’d worked in a library all my life. I hadn’t but it was a decent gag, and cheered me up no end.
 
Jamie said:
Unless I recognize the number, I let it go to the answerphone. If it's important, they will leave a message. I have BT, which is not the cheapest, but their spam call filter takes care of many.
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That's exactly what we do plus most of the persistent offenders are on our 'blocked calls' list.
 
I used to have fun with these guys, on the basis that the time I was wasting with them was time they couldn't use to scam someone else - the longest I kept a guy going was a half hour, by being immensely idiotic and literally interpreting his instructions. The most fun was answering their opening "we've noticed a significant increase in your internet traffic" with "yes, I found this amazing porn video website - they have this whole series with these gorgeous Indian boys all working in a call-centre... the things they do to each other!" and keeping up the act for five minutes, until I got transferred to the boss-man, who threatened to castrate me and hang my balls up in the back garden, kill me, **** me up the ass (that latter one an irony, given what had wound him up so much). I asked about the precise order of these events, but he just kept giving out, and the whole tirade ended with a promise to stick "that Irish flag, the green one" (no, me either) up my ass - again, whether this was before or after the sexual assault is unclear - he hung up without answering.

I must say I was a bit disappointed. With that attitude, they talked themselves right out of a sale!
 
KrisW said:
I used to have fun with these guys, on the basis that the time I was wasting with them was time they couldn't use to scam someone else - the longest I kept a guy going was a half hour, by being immensely idiotic and literally interpreting his instructions. The most fun was answering their opening "we've noticed a significant increase in your internet traffic" with "yes, I found this amazing porn video website - they have this whole series with these gorgeous Indian boys all working in a call-centre... the things they do to each other!" and keeping up the act for five minutes, until I got transferred to the boss-man, who threatened to castrate me and hang my balls up in the back garden, kill me, **** me up the ass (that latter one an irony, given what had wound him up so much). I asked about the precise order of these events, but he just kept giving out, and the whole tirade ended with a promise to stick "that Irish flag, the green one" (no, me either) up my ass - again, whether this was before or after the sexual assault is unclear - he hung up without answering.

I must say I was a bit disappointed. With that attitude, they talked themselves right out of a sale!
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i had one years ago, withheld number, I answered and it was some cold calling sh ! t but at the time I was speaking to a customer so I just hung up on the guy and he totally lost it, he phoned back about six times in a minute and I'm like trying to be calm and professional with the customer listening, eventually I had to switch my phone off.

Must be a terrible job phoning people up and receiving untold abuse back from them, obviously it does get to some of those cold caller clowns eventually.
 
When cold calling was part of my job at age 17 in a (manual trades-focussed) recruitment agency and on being given a mahoosive folder full of pages of addresses and phone numbers for local employers fear engulfed my tender heart.

Then when I saw that I was expected to call Steve Stride, the then secretary of (my team) Aston villa FC and ask him if he needs any plumbers or plasterers I thought bollocks to this for a lark, left the phone alone and just made up reasons why they didn't need any.

In hindsight 'twas a valuable lesson but at the time bloody awful.
 
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