The Lemon Fool

I am getting a growing number of calls to my mobile and my home phone. Often it's clearly a bot calling. Sometimes it's a human, but not so often. The frequency of these scam calls is increasing. I get at least one every day. DAK how a fake energy adviser is trying to scam me? I can't think of any ways apart from obvious things like requesting bank or card details etc. But surely these days scammers are more sophisticated than simply asking for those details?

I get a similar call on a regular basis, I even recognise her voice now.

When we get to the local bit, I point out I have several properties, so which "local".....the line gets cut off at that precise moment.

I can never remember her name, but I am going to make a note next time, so I can pipe up at the very start of the call "Oh hello ....."

I also get those occasional calls about my windows device being compromised. I like those ones, it's nice to have some company for 30 minutes when you work alone...and that moment I tell them none of that's working, because I am running OpenBSD.

BullDog wrote:I am getting a growing number of calls to my mobile and my home phone. Often it's clearly a bot calling. Sometimes it's a human, but not so often. The frequency of these scam calls is increasing. I get at least one every day. DAK how a fake energy adviser is trying to scam me? I can't think of any ways apart from obvious things like requesting bank or card details etc. But surely these days scammers are more sophisticated than simply asking for those details?

I too am getting a number of these, and also "We are aware that you have dangerous insulation in your loft". I don't enter into any dialogue with these beyond "Go forth and fornicate".

The exact nature of how they monetise their "efforts" is a mystery to me, and I hope it will remain so. If Ofcom were in any way a proper and responsible regulator, these calls would be reportable and quickly stopped. Similarly, if Action Fraud were anything other than an entirely misnamed box ticking exercise.

Rant over...

Id imagine their monetisation is selling you insurance/services/fixes that "fits" their alleged required criteria that they have just advised you about.

whether there is actual insurance/services/fixes on the end of it once you've paid your premium for their insurance is another thing...

I binned my landline when the fibre broadband went in. No more crap calls (we actually had the answer machine set up to kick in after 2 rings, which mostly filtered out the junk. Anyone important would leave a message and get a call back)

Boots wrote:I too am getting a number of these, and also "We are aware that you have dangerous insulation in your loft".

To which the correct response is
"I know, but crocodiles are incredibly Thermally Efficient.

I don't recall John calling, it's always bloody Jane for me.

DrFfybes wrote:

Boots wrote:I too am getting a number of these, and also "We are aware that you have dangerous insulation in your loft".

To which the correct response is
"I know, but crocodiles are incredibly Thermally Efficient.

I don't believe that's actually the case. Like other cold-blooded animals so big as to have heart and lungs, they need to regulate their temperature by seeking out an optimal combination of sun vs shade, water vs land, etc.

Tedx wrote:I binned my landline when the fibre broadband went in. No more crap calls (we actually had the answer machine set up to kick in after 2 rings, which mostly filtered out the junk. Anyone important would leave a message and get a call back)

Ditto

BullDog wrote:I am getting a growing number of calls to my mobile and my home phone. Often it's clearly a bot calling. Sometimes it's a human, but not so often. The frequency of these scam calls is increasing. I get at least one every day. DAK how a fake energy adviser is trying to scam me? I can't think of any ways apart from obvious things like requesting bank or card details etc. But surely these days scammers are more sophisticated than simply asking for those details?

I wonder if it is because of your posts ("Energy Costs Oh Dear") which would indicate your interest in such things (and any other related energy posts - eg Octopus) ?

How did they get your mobile number though? Maybe I'm just paranoid..or maybe ...

monabri wrote:

Tedx wrote:I binned my landline when the fibre broadband went in. No more crap calls (we actually had the answer machine set up to kick in after 2 rings, which mostly filtered out the junk. Anyone important would leave a message and get a call back)

Ditto

FWIW we do have a landline, originally for my mum to call but also because I do a bit with a charity that involves a lot of old people. I honestly can't remember last time we had a scam call, probably not for at least a year, and probably ony a couple of minor marketing calls since then. Similarly nothing on my mobile, although MrsF occasionally gets the obvious scam text.

Paul

monabri wrote:

BullDog wrote:I am getting a growing number of calls to my mobile and my home phone. Often it's clearly a bot calling. Sometimes it's a human, but not so often. The frequency of these scam calls is increasing. I get at least one every day. DAK how a fake energy adviser is trying to scam me? I can't think of any ways apart from obvious things like requesting bank or card details etc. But surely these days scammers are more sophisticated than simply asking for those details?

I wonder if it is because of your posts ("Energy Costs Oh Dear") which would indicate your interest in such things (and any other related energy posts - eg Octopus) ?

How did they get your mobile number though? Maybe I'm just paranoid..or maybe ...

Thanks. I have no idea how these people have my mobile number. But Mrs BD gets the calls on her mobile too. Registering numbers on telephone preference service seems to be ignored. Maybe it doesn't exist any more.

BullDog wrote:I have no idea how these people have my mobile number. But Mrs BD gets the calls on her mobile too. Registering numbers on telephone preference service seems to be ignored.

People always seem to say this. Perhaps registering phone numbers with the telephone preference service is the problem?

I don't get scam calls on my landline or my mobile. I have never registered my numbers with a telephone preference service. Just saying...

XFool wrote:

BullDog wrote:I have no idea how these people have my mobile number. But Mrs BD gets the calls on her mobile too. Registering numbers on telephone preference service seems to be ignored.

People always seem to say this. Perhaps registering phone numbers with the telephone preference service is the problem?

I don't get scam calls on my landline or my mobile. I have never registered my numbers with a telephone preference service. Just saying...

Same here. My landline number is inherited from the previous owner of my house and I found it was ex directory. I left it so. I don't get many phone calls on it and almost no spams (last one and the first for ages left on my answer phone was about my Amazon prime subscription).

Similarly I get very few spam calls or texts on my mobile. I usually block the number when I do.

BullDog wrote:

monabri wrote:

I wonder if it is because of your posts ("Energy Costs Oh Dear") which would indicate your interest in such things (and any other related energy posts - eg Octopus) ?

How did they get your mobile number though?

Thanks. I have no idea how these people have my mobile number..

they don't have your mobile number would be my guess.

they have a calling system that calls

07000000000 through to 07999999999 in turn.

its presumably just a scatter gun approach nothing specifically targetted.

XFool wrote:

BullDog wrote:I have no idea how these people have my mobile number. But Mrs BD gets the calls on her mobile too. Registering numbers on telephone preference service seems to be ignored.

People always seem to say this. Perhaps registering phone numbers with the telephone preference service is the problem?

or the calls originate from overseas where the TPS has AIUI no jurisdiction.

BullDog wrote:Registering numbers on telephone preference service seems to be ignored. Maybe it doesn't exist any more.

It still appears to exist, and apparently I'm still registered. It just doesn't work though.

Outside of my actual work life, I run a management company that looks after the freehold of a property I have a 25% share in.

We've been getting shafted for a while on the communal utilities and I've known this (as I could access the account online) but I've not been bothered to sort it or look at changing due to other priorities.

Q4 last year, I thought I'd run our usage etc through a comparison site for small business energy usage and it came back that we could shave c40% of our annual bill.

So I thought given they're going to handle the change etc, lets do it - and so the transfer from one supplier to another began - until it was stopped because the new supplier decided our business failed the credit check (?!?) - but the 2nd cheapest option was still way cheaper and that change went without a hitch.

For a period of about a fortnight, I was then bombarded with (ignored) calls which Google told me were coming from the same comparison site together with emails. One of these was about moving our water to them - there isn't any communal water!!!!

Thankfully, my nil replies to anything meant this nonsense stopped within a couple of weeks. I probably ticked a box wrong somewhere but it wasn't obvious and thankfully I have a phone for my "rental business" as opposed to it going to either my work phone or my personal phone (So yes - that means three mobiles as dual-simming a phone would defeat that purpose!)

I've noticed that cold calls have picked up recently, presuming that the boiler roooms are now back up to speed after covid/lock down etc.
I suspect a lot of the cold callers are just sequence dialling, and hope to get lucky.
Also, many of the calls originate from overseas, so work round TPS and Ofcom and the like (although the worldwide telecoms authorities could possibly do something about it, but there's no incentive to do very much e.g. STIR/SHAKEN)

Below is the number of cold calls to my Mum's landline (she died in 2013 and I ported it onto VOIP when we sold her house after her death so as to pick up calls from people who hadn't updated their records etc, which were not many, but it's not costing me anything, and it's occasionally fun to have a chat, as someone pointed out when you work alone it's nice to have some company, and they get really quite upset when they realise they're being strung along!)

yorkshirelad1 wrote:Below is the number of cold calls to my Mum's landline (she died in 2013 and I ported it onto VOIP when we sold her house after her death so as to pick up calls from people who hadn't updated their records etc, which were not many, but it's not costing me anything, and it's occasionally fun to have a chat, as someone pointed out when you work alone it's nice to have some company, and they get really quite upset when they realise they're being strung along!)

Over 300 calls per year at peak? Good God!

I find that almost incomprehensible. What causes that? Something must - I can't believe I have even had 25 calls in the last 25 years.