Another Microsoft scam

sdfuk said:
Some bloke has just posted this on another forum

"A card is posted through your door from a company called Parcel Delivery Service or PDS suggesting that they were unable to deliver a parcel and you need to contact them on 0906 6611911 which is a Premium Rate Number. If you call them on this number and you start to hear a recorded message, you will already have been billed £315 for the phone call. Please be aware that the Premium Rate number may change but do not call any number stated it was a card from Parcel Delivery Service."
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And you seriously believed that? Wow.
 
stoofa said:
It's quite sweet - but posting these kind of stories don't help.
This one dates back to 2005 when a company were operating a scam (although the figures quoted have been raised somewhat), but the company and numebr were shut down.
Ten years and the rumour still exists....
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Only yesterday the Police here in Fenland said cards are being pushed through local doors similar to this scam.

Ringing the number costs 200 quid, so although the original scam might be dead similar ones are still running.
 
sdfuk said:
If you call them on this number and you start to hear a recorded message, you will already have been billed £315 for the phone call. Please be aware that the Premium Rate number may change but do not call any number stated it was a card from Parcel Delivery Service."
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John40 said:
Ringing the number costs 200 quid, so although the original scam might be dead similar ones are still running.
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At up to £3/minute how are you billed £315/£200 before you hear the recorded message?
 
Redgie said:
I once asked one of these guys how he lived with himself knowing he was scamming old ladies out of their pension money. He responded telling me he was only doing his job, and asking me how I slept at night being rude to someone for their work. Pretty deluded for them to actually think they're doing a job.
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People in Wales, Scotland, and the North East (always seem to have said accents) are just doing a job when they work for those terrible PPI and accident claim call centres. Are they deluded too? Or just doing what it takes to earn a crust?

Many of these foreign scammers are employees too. He probably wasn't lying about that bit, and the rest... well, that's what he's paid to do.
 
Making phone calls which a lot of people find irritating (PPI, accident claims) is not the same as phoning up to deliberately try and scam someone out of money.

It is perfectly possible to work in a PPI Call Centre and go home at night knowing that the worst thing you've done is annoy a lot of people by offering a service which they're not interested in receiving. Admittedly there may be an opportunity to exploit people to some degree, but that doesn't have to be the case.

The same cannot be said about a scammer - their sole objective is to exploit.

Perhaps people from down South struggle with such basic things?
 
div0 said:
The same cannot be said about a scammer - their sole objective is to exploit.
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My point was that many of them are employees just doing what they have to do to earn a living. Their objective is, in fact, little different to anyone else doing a hateful job - so when that guy said he was just doing his job: he was. They're just pawns.
 
cheesyboy said:
My point was that many of them are employees just doing what they have to do to earn a living. Their objective is, in fact, little different to anyone else doing a hateful job - so when that guy said he was just doing his job: he was. They're just pawns.
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It's really not the same thing. One is illegal, the other one is just really irritating.
 
Heliospherez said:
FYI.

You cannot be billed anywhere near £100,200 or even £300 just to call (connect) to a number - even if it's on the ISS :D
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You've clearly never made a call from a phone on a plane :) The fact you have to swipe your credit card before making the call is the big giveaway that you're about to get shafted :D
 
Just had my first "Microsoft" security call. Yay!

Led the first chap along for a bit and then feigned inability to find my Windows key, so got passed on to a "supervisor". Led him along too. It took a long time to get to the Teamviewer page, unfortunately, what with my computer crashing and restarting and me typing in the wrong address a few times.

When it got to the point of hum actually instructing me to install Teamviewer I just said "right, so you want to use this to remote into my PC so you can...?"

He had a go at covering up and then gave up "no, not directly, but... ah right, so you realise we're just scamming people. ok [hangs up]"

I was quite surprised he was so matter-of-fact about it in the end.
 
ElliorR said:
So how do Microsoft get away with calling people to try and scam them?
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I lol'd way more at this than I should have. I can almost see Gates and Ballmer sitting next to each other phoning people trying not to snigger.

But anyways...

I've had a few of these calls, I usually just say hold on one minute and put the phone on the side, wait until I hear a voice and then say just give me a minute, I'll be right with you. Repeat until sufficient time wasted or they hang up. Previously I questioned whether the guy on the phone was religious and that if he was, he must truly believe he would burn in hell for scamming people out of money, got called a bloody ******* and he hung up.
 
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Start every call with from a stranger with 'Sorry one moment, give me a second. *pause for a second and hit any of the numberpad keys for the beep* 'Before we continue this conversation i just need to inform you that i record my calls for legal reasons'

If their request sounds sketchy, ask for a registered business address and number. The calls wont get much further if they are sketch. If they are trying to be clever and give a legit number and address, hangup and call back because the connections not great.
 
strumpusplunket said:
He had a go at covering up and then gave up "no, not directly, but... ah right, so you realise we're just scamming people. ok [hangs up]"

I was quite surprised he was so matter-of-fact about it in the end.
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When I strung one along for a while he got abusive and sweary once he realised and we had a long argument where I did things like put a curse on him :D. He kept phoning every day for quite a while to abuse me, I had only put the phone in to test the line but I kept it in for a while after that because it was not only amusing but it also meant while he was on the phone to me he wasn't scamming an OAP or something.
 
Em3bbs said:
When I strung one along for a while he got abusive and sweary once he realised and we had a long argument where I did things like put a curse on him :D. He kept phoning every day for quite a while to abuse me, I had only put the phone in to test the line but I kept it in for a while after that because it was not only amusing but it also meant while he was on the phone to me he wasn't scamming an OAP or something.
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I was a bit disappointed to be fair. I'd planned my ending line to be "oh... a question has popped up on my screen... hold on... ah yes: how many people actually fall for this ****?" But I gave it away by letting on that I knew what Teamviewer would allow them to do.

He was very calm though. Even slightly amused it sounded like. It was like he could see the funny side of having been strung along.
 
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