Bogus Phone Call - "Online PC Help"

[atpbx]

I changed my phone number a month ago as the spam calls to the house phone were getting beyond a joke.

The new number, despite only being known to 4 people who knew not to give t out, was being spammed by calls within a week.

I've just disconnected the house phone now, the line is still active just no phones plugged in.

 

[ZXSpectrum]

This, and the silly amount of cold sales calls are some of the main reasons why I do not have a phone attached to the land line.

 

[Rich91]

Thanks, everyone, for your comments.

I am much wiser as to what a scam really is!

However, does anyone know why ISPs, Microsoft, HM Government don't block these crooks and their phone calls.

I registered with Tel Pref Service some years ago so don't get sales people phoning me. Surely a block could be put on their line from India, USA, or where-ever?

 

[bushmins]

Haha i would like them to call me, i would inform them that i am a qualified ICT technican and would be aware if my computer had any problems, and then tell them i am reporting this to somebody to hopefully scare them a bit.

Haha i would like them to call me, i would inform them that i am an African Grey Parrot and don't have hands to use a computer let alone keep a decant job to afford to buy one.

 

[Werewolf]

Thanks, everyone, for your comments.

I am much wiser as to what a scam really is!

However, does anyone know why ISPs, Microsoft, HM Government don't block these crooks and their phone calls.

I registered with Tel Pref Service some years ago so don't get sales people phoning me. Surely a block could be put on their line from India, USA, or where-ever?

ISP's and MS can't really do anything - IIRC they do take out legal action when they can, but it's like fighting a hydra, you stop them under one name and they come back.

The government is generally much too slow to take action, but if you can get the phone numbers or something and report it to Trading Standards it can do some good (I suspect the payment providers probably block the accounts when they become aware of the scam and get enough chargebacks etc).

Unfortunately because of the ease with which the foreign call centres that do this change names etc, and the very limited powers the telephone companies have to block international calls without breaking the telephone networks (IE caller Id doesn't work with many international calls, and these call centres can get a new number faster than they can be shut down).

What it really needs is for the telephone companies, ISP's and the government to all work together and create blacklists that they can subscribe to based on a similar system to Spamhaus etc, but given the lack of international caller ID it's quite hard, probably harder than blocking spam emails where at least you have an email address/content of the email (known before delivery), and most hosts/ISP's take it seriously.

 

[Fiocca]

An old guy at work fell for this on monday...he's £150 poorer as a result :/ He called the bank after realising it was a scam but they wont stop the payment even though its on a credit card.

Must be lots of old people and less computer literate falling for this, it's terrible.

 

[Shoei]

Had one of these calls a while ago, strung him along for a while as we were about to out, then asked which one of the 60 odd virtual machines had the problem. I can't understand why he hung up on me?
same with those stupid "we're calling about the accident you had", last one of those I had, just said haven't had an accident in over 20yrs driving but I said I'd had a boating accident. He got all excited till I said the boat was called SS Titanic. He hung up to.

 

[Grimley]

I've just had one of these calls. I shouted down the phone at them & I hope the caller got deafened, I cant be arsed to wind these scammers up, a short, sharp, loud, and very bad attitiude on the phone followed a swift hang up usually works for me. I've not used a few expletive deleted words yet but there's always a first time.

 

[JBod]

The last one I put "on hold" while I booted my PC (old and slow you know). I gave them the Tetris theme tune on loop, they hung up after 20mins.

 

[Beerbaron]

I love stringing them along until I get bored, they normally hang up when I finally tell them I'm using some distro of Linux or Mac.

Had one of these calls a while ago, strung him along for a while as we were about to out, then asked which one of the 60 odd virtual machines had the problem. I can't understand why he hung up on me?