Phone Scammers, Really Annoying!

Never answer the landline myself unless I'm expecting a call and my mobiles are setup to block numbers not on my contacts list.
 
3DNow! said:
Hi,

just thought I'd start this, who has experienced this. I' am getting a lot of calls from companies like "energy department services" or like "utility services", they are definitely Indian and calling from India as their accent gives it away even though they claim to be operating with in the UK.

It is getting really annoying now as I get calls of up to 5-8 times a day now. Any suggestions to track/block them or report them?
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You don't own or manage a small business do you by any chance?
 
Dimple said:
How do you add a withheld number?
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On my Panasonic landline handsets, I can blanket block all withheld numbers. On lesser handsets, I presume you can pay BT to do it at their end. Unfortunately however, we've got a couple of legit people that call from withheld numbers (:mad: I know!), and consequently would be hit by the blanket withheld block. So instead we let them through. When the handset screen says that it's a withheld number, we then either answer or ignore based on whether we're expecting a call from someone we know uses withheld.


That said, I find that most of the spam calls we get are actually displaying the number. Most of the time it's a ridiculously long foreign number, and that still works fine on the block list. A few years ago it always used to say "Unknown" or "International out of area", but these days BT must have done something at their end to make the caller identification work properly.
 
TPS do nothing, waste of time as the cold callers ignore them anyway.

My phone can block calls but this works better : CPR All-in-One Call Blocker, cheaper than Truecall and does not stop you using your own answerphone (Truecall becomes the answermachine).
 
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The only completely effective way is using a whitelist - numbers on it get answered, nothing else does. I've set mine to not even ring for any other numbers - I don't block them, but they go straight to voice mail. If that can't be done on your phone, you can buy third party kit to do it (e.g. Truecall). If someone withholds their number but they're a genuine caller, well, that's unfortunate but it's the least bad option available to me. They'll go to voicemail with the rest of them.

TPS is partially effective and will reduce the volume, but it's not a complete solution. It shouldn't be necessary to use a whitelist, but it is because of how thoroughly the phone system is abused by people and and businesses trying to get money from marks they've targetted.
 
Dimple said:
I actually meant 'They wouldn't love that', I was being sarcastic.
If I blocked withheld numbers a lot of people wouldn't be able to contact me.

Like I said earlier I use a very simple method:
If there is the 3 second gap before you hear the caller switch on I put the phone down.
If the caller immediately starts talking about stuff I'm not interested in I just put the phone down.
If it's a scammer I'll keep them on the phone while I do other stuff.
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I wouldn't want to even entertain phone calls like that, doesn't matter if it's 1 second of my time lost. It's something that could be used more productively, I've also never had calls from withheld numbers that are above board. I've no idea why you'd receive calls from witheld numbers that you would even want to entertain.
 
Feek said:
Truecall. Seriously, Truecall. It's the only way to completely block cold callers. I used to get loads, despite being registered with TPS but since buying one a few years ago, I've not had a single one get through.
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Worth noting that you need to register with TPS every year, and it doesn't work if you've given permission to call your number away when signing up to a website etc.

I never give my real phone number online unless I categorically need to. As a result my landline has rung once in the last few months, and then it was someone with the wrong number :)
 
diamount said:
Their numbers are always withheld in my experience, so simply block incoming calls from witheld numbers.
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This is sound advice. I don't have problems with cold callers with withheld numbers blocked, and the network operator marketing numbers blocked as well.

Truecall doesn't stop people ringing you up, some people don't bother if you have it and still press the button to get put through.

A whitelist is another option, all numbers except those on the contact list are blocked, this is useful if you are getting spam from varied non-withheld numbers.

Everyone I know, even my grandmother uses a mobile so ex-directory is simply no longer an issue. It's been my experience anyway that individuals who found themselves blocked by me quickly stopped using a withheld number.
 
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Heh,

So I received a call from the typical 'microsoft support' scam, but blocking witheld numbers I wasn't expecting it to be a scam. It was from a London number (020). Obviously I'm aware with voip services you can rent numbers, with SKype for example you can rent a London number which gives you a number from the caller ID.

This probably gives more credence to their victims and more likely to fall for it.
 
OK, we're getting twice daily calls from India now, always claiming to be from "UK Research". I tell them every time to **** off; Mum is more polite.

(In case you're wondering, I'm 100% sure they aren't a real research company, but some kind of scam).

They won't stop calling, however. Sometimes you pick up the phone and it's just silent, other times you can hear a noisy call centre and they're straight into their spiel. It's always about this time of day too (1800).

We're on the TPS, and which seems to have no effect on international calls. So bloody annoying.
 
HybridX said:
You don't own or manage a small business do you by any chance?
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I do as a matter if fact. Should have mentioned these scam calls are happening on my business landlines.

I have tried my phone company to block them but they are instead selling me a blocking service of up 10 numbers and on top of that it only works when they call then you can add to the block list!

But yeah I got a call from one of these guys about a week ago, managed to get him to confess he was a scammer and then the abuse just started and he started to constantly phone me essentially making my line busy.

Had to get the police involved but as usual no crime ref number and it would be investigated.
 
Fox, if number is shown is withheld then simply let it go to voicemail or simply have numbers blocked completely via your telephone provider.
 
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