Scam call - HMRC criminal investigations

I remember I kept one of the phone for a good while, she wanted me to invest in some money club or something.

Anyway, I started asking her if I joined would there be parties, and if it would be by a swimming pool, what drinks would be served, and if they would be served by women in Bikinis, etc - similar line of questioning carried on for some while.

To be honest, I got half the impression she knew I was winding her up and didn't care
 
Had this a couple weeks back (even posted about it here :p)

"This is HMRC... press 1 or we will be sending to your house immediately police officers to arrest you."

Talk about things escalating quickly! I'd barely had a chance to pick up the receiver before they were threatening me!

The robot voice is mildly entertaining tho, especially due to the accentuation of random words which make it sound more like a comedy skit.
 
I used to quite regularly get “BT” calling me at work telling me there was a problem with my internet connection. They were generally under the impression that they were calling a residential number so usually got a little confused when I told them I’d pass on a message to someone in the network and security team (I work in the IT department so I have to maintain an element of professionalism just in case it’s a genuine call)
 
I've had a few HMRC ones. But I really enjoy the "I'm calling about the accident" ones. I wind them up and waste as much time as possible.

d_brennen said:
Haven't had one in ages. I just used to pester them about religion until they blew a fuse. Good times :(
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Good shout. I'll try that one too. Can't wat :D

Also if anyone calls me Mr I'm going to give them an earful for assuming my pronoud :D
 
I get those "have you had an accident call" often. One time I told the guy I was in an accident, but it was my fault and I ran someone over and they ended up dying, he still tried to persuade my I can claim for any injuries I sustained. Another time I said I ran someone over bad and they were the ones that got hurt bad, caller asked me if I had their contact details and if I could give it to them lol.
 
Somebody has had their database hacked recently, in the last couple of weeks, I've had all sorts of spam to my email, calls like this and calls from people who have supposedly received a call from my number.
 
wesimmo said:
Somebody has had their database hacked recently, in the last couple of weeks, I've had all sorts of spam to my email, calls like this and calls from people who have supposedly received a call from my number.
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That's funny you should say that. Starting about 2-3 weeks ago I started to get a sheeed load of spam daily to my older email addresses. Almost like the spam filter got deactivated.
 
el_dazza said:
That man is a legend.

My other half keeps getting them, hopefully they'll do it when I'm around and they'll get a gobful :)
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It won’t be easy, as the OP said, it’s an automated voice call.
I’ve had them a few times, “HMRC have opened a case against you, if you wish to speak to the detective/agent handling your case, press 1.”
I’d love to be able to tell a human voice to go attempt the sexually impossible, but they’ve all been automated voices.
I had one of those, “I understand that you were in an RTA that wasn’t your fault”, once, and I said, “Oh yes, I suffered from amnesia after that.”
Excitedly, the guy said, “When was this sir?”
I said, “When was what?”
End of call.
 
Megahurtz400 said:
Rather than giving them a gobful I like to waste as much time of theirs as possible if I can to tie them up from scamming someone who wouldn't be so aware.

I remember when I was in my teens and someone called the landline saying they were from Microsoft, had them on the phone for 45 minutes sounding confused and really worried about the virus in my system.

Only at the end did I say "Maybe I can't find the buttons you're asking about because I'm on a Mac?"

They absolutely lost it and started shouting at me for wasting peoples time :D
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I had the same type of call some years back. I just laughed, said I knew it was a scam and hung up. They rang back a couple of minutes later to ask how I knew it was a scam. They wanted me to tell them how to scam more effectively, what they'd done wrong so they could do something else with the next target. That's some chutzpah. Of course, I just laughed and hung up again, then blocked the number.

Several years ago, I solved the problem permanently by buying a privacy phone for my landline. It only rings for numbers I've marked as being authorised to make the phone ring. Everything else goes straight to answering machine. Only a few robocaller scams leave a message. My mobile phone is a burner that very few people and organisations have the number to. When that number is sold enough times for the cold calling and scamming to reach an annoying level, I'll bin it and get another one. It's less convenient than the new normal way of doing things, but it cuts down on the hassle.
 
I've got an old SIP number that seems to really attract these sorts of calls. What I generally do is push whatever button is needed to get through to talk to someone and then ask them to hold the line for a minute. Then I put the call on hold and carry on with my day. I think the record for one of them sitting on hold is just over an hour.
 
When I get a call from an unknown number I say "Good morning, Broadbury Road Police Station Incident Desk, how can I help?" There's normally a few seconds of call centre background noise and they hang up.
 
the-evaluator said:
I've got an old SIP number that seems to really attract these sorts of calls. What I generally do is push whatever button is needed to get through to talk to someone and then ask them to hold the line for a minute. Then I put the call on hold and carry on with my day. I think the record for one of them sitting on hold is just over an hour.
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There's a variant of that I read somewhere: put the phone next to a speaker playing sound from a porno and see how long they stay. Bonus points for gay porn.
 
I generally don't get many spam calls but recently I've had two, the most recent being yesterday when I was informed that I had been doing illegal activity on the north wales border!
 
I've had a couple of HMRC ones the last week, unfortunately they seem to have gotten more on the ball at spotting when you're just trying to wind them up, and hang up pretty quickly :( Had a similar one a few years ago where I got put through and managed to keep agent "James" on the phone for about 20 minutes whilst he got more and more irate at me.

Interestingly, mine didn't come from the 02xxx numbers, they were actually mobile numbers, and when I called one back I got some confused sounding guy with a northern accent instead of the Indian "HMRC agent", so looks like they are now spoofing random mobile numbers too :(
 
the-evaluator said:
I've got an old SIP number that seems to really attract these sorts of calls. What I generally do is push whatever button is needed to get through to talk to someone and then ask them to hold the line for a minute. Then I put the call on hold and carry on with my day. I think the record for one of them sitting on hold is just over an hour.
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It's a numbers game with these scammers, you probably didn't inconvenience him at all.
 
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