The Lemon Fool

Usual you are about to be disconnected 01765000090

Mine, yesterday, was "from" HMRC telling me to "press 1 to be put through to an HMRC representative" or face immediate arrest warrant being issued.

It was pretty intimidating sounding and I guess some people do press 1 or why would they bother?

Obvious fraud - is there any point in reporting it to whoever?

Displayed number - 01204 326014

Hi, I had one of those 'This is HM (pause to read script) RC Customs' (tautology) suggesting the police were around the corner with warrant. Definitely more intimidating than the usual, but like the 'Your Amzon Prime (which I don't have) is about to be renewed' and 'Your internet is about to be disconnected' they all come to nothing if ignored.

Ray.

Laughton wrote:Obvious fraud - is there any point in reporting it to whoever?

Personally I wouldn't bother, but should you want to:

https://www.gov.uk/report-suspicious-em ... call-scams

Had scam email today "from" John Lewis. The twist? An hour or so earlier I'd phoned the real John Lewis (insurance, which is badged RSA) about a policy renewal, so real email from them wouldn't've been at all unexpected.

But that was coincidence: the scam used a different email address to the one known to the real John Lewis, and was about suggesting my business might become a supplier to John Lewis. A bogus assumption that my business deals in some kind of physical goods!

I've said this before on other similar threads.
I keep a very shrill mountain rescue whistle by the phone.
When prompted to press '1' to get "to speak to an operative" I do so with relish ..........

Unfortunately these calls don't come as often as they used to: thus spoiling my fun

DiviLuvva wrote:I've said this before on other similar threads.
I keep a very shrill mountain rescue whistle by the phone.
When prompted to press '1' to get "to speak to an operative" I do so with relish ..........

Unfortunately these calls don't come as often as they used to: thus spoiling my fun

My mother once had a heavy breather regular phone call. My father was a teacher and his Acme Thunderer whistle probably damaged an ear drum, phone calls stopped

The trouble I find with scam phone calls is that they appear to have originated from a machine, hence whistles & the like don't work.

ten0rman

All of the robo/scam calls I get ring between two and four times, then ring off. So I only answer unknown to me or withheld numbers on ring five or six, voicemail kicking in at around ring 8.
I can't remember the last time I ever answered an automated or human scam call using that methodology. I assume with the two ringers they hope you call back out of idle curiosity?

having dropped my landline I ...so far...no longer get any of these...but I used to get one or two a week

i read many ways to report them...but has anyone any knowlede of whether reporting actually achives anything?
who and where are these people you report to and what track record do they have?

or is it another government 'goodwill' office showing a public service, but achieving nothing?

mutantpoodle wrote:having dropped my landline I ...so far...no longer get any of these...but I used to get one or two a week

i read many ways to report them...but has anyone any knowlede of whether reporting actually achives anything?
who and where are these people you report to and what track record do they have?

or is it another government 'goodwill' office showing a public service, but achieving nothing?

The Telephone preference service only applies to stop UK unwanted calls and these scam calls usually originate overseas. Anyway TPS doesn't seem to stop a lots of rubbish UK calls. Just put the phone down whenever you get an unwanted call.

Laughton wrote:Mine, yesterday, was "from" HMRC telling me to "press 1 to be put through to an HMRC representative" or face immediate arrest warrant being issued.

It was pretty intimidating sounding and I guess some people do press 1 or why would they bother?

Obvious fraud - is there any point in reporting it to whoever?

Displayed number - 01204 326014

What p****s me off is that people often joke about these calls, but if I were to go to all the banks in the High street, impersonating an official of the HMRC and threatening an arrest warrant, I'm pretty sure that the local police (if there are any left) would ask me very politely to help them with their enquiries. What's the difference between a telephone call and me saying the words in the bank with a mask on? Or maybe shouting them from behind a door?

The targets are the old and vulnerable, maybe a bit confused, who won't always be as street wise as others.

We need someone to go after these scumbags and teach them a lesson, preferably with an old fashioned telephone, a large tub of vaseline and consultant proctologist standing by.

Maybe Bruce Willis can star in the movie 'Hang-Up Hard'?


Steve

stevensfo wrote:I'm pretty sure that the local police (if there are any left) would ask me very politely to help them with their enquiries.
Steve

A general belief is that these calls come from Call Centres somewhere in India, so outside the scope of UK policing.

Alaric wrote:

stevensfo wrote:I'm pretty sure that the local police (if there are any left) would ask me very politely to help them with their enquiries.
Steve

A general belief is that these calls come from Call Centres somewhere in India, so outside the scope of UK policing.

It's an issue that's existed for years, boiler rooms et al. Offshoring of assets and services makes it very difficult (expensive) to prosecute without the involvement of the scammers host nation legal apparatus.
Just look at the FSA's success rate for prosecutions over the years in relation to the number of financial scams in operation.

Make all the banks fully-responsible for repayments of funds made to accounts set up by scam criminals.

Scammers will then find it impossible to open or use a dodgy account because the banks will impose more-stringent checks on them.

Unfortunately, as the old saying goes, a fool and his money are soon parted. There are limits to how much you can protect someone from their own gullability.

At least, and it has taken far too long, the banks now have the system where you have to enter the name of the bank account you are paying into to enable you to be surer it is the correct account.

I'm doing well today, I've had 2 calls purportedly from Amazon, same script and probably the same office. Both point to Amazon-like domains:

h t t p s : / / a m z v i d e o 0 . w e b n o d e . c o m
h t t p s : / /a m a z o n s u p . w e b n o d e . c o m

Which appear to be genuine Amazon support pages but aren't. The scammer then asks that you to click on the 'Services' link which leads to remote control software....

Webnode appears to be a legitimate hosting company and I've contacted to them to report the abuse. I'll be interested to see if domains are taken down.

RC

I've reported the two fake Amazon URL's, the more who do it the sooner they get blocked (hopefully).
https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebro ... ish/?hl=en

Thank you for helping us keep the web safe from phishing sites. If you believe you've encountered a page designed to look like another page in an attempt to steal users' personal information, please complete the form below to report the page to the Google Safe Browsing team.

Cont.

ReformedCharacter wrote:Webnode appears to be a legitimate hosting company and I've contacted to them to report the abuse. I'll be interested to see if domains are taken down.
RC

Amazon (AWS) Google Cloud and Microsoft (Azure) all have issues with hosting phishing sites.
The sneaky scammers have worked out that as most of the 'reputational' certification and authentication is done for you with the big boys it makes a perfect quick phishing host that will work (albeit temporarily).
https://www.google.com/search?q=phishin ... e&ie=UTF-8

What TPTB need to do is make the phone system secure from number spoofing. Then consumers could subscribe to a centrally maintained blocking list, much like adblock. And insist that all reputable companies do not start number withheld calls, so consumers could block number withheld calls without worrying that NHS 111 ringing them back can't get through.

We have a landline phone plugged directly into the socket, so that always rings, and a cordless answerphone that blocks withheld and international numbers, so you can tell the call type depending on what rings. And we work on the principle that if its important, they will write...