A new variation on the "Windows tech support" phone call scam?

sheffieldyorky · 24 Nov 2019

All this thing about calling numbers etc. brought back to mind about somebody who I had heard of he had a very nice little earner, it went like this.
He had a number 0898 number , but back in the day these were really premium rate, UK Forum member will remember how high these prices were.
So on the back and sides of his legitimate van he had 0898 etc. with these words.
If the driver of this vehicle is not driving in a courteous many please call the transport Manager immediately on 0898 . . . . . . .
So if you are cut up by the driver or he blows his horn or other occurrences you call this number.
You are answered immediately by a very kind voice who tells you that they will immediately go and get the Manager who is in a meeting but has given orders for him to be brought to the phone forthwith., then nice music is played while you wait for the manager, you end the phone call in your own time after you have got sick of waiting
In the meantime the errant van driver continues driving like a T**t and blowing his horn regardless and all the time coining it in.

Barman58 · 24 Nov 2019

You have to be careful with this sort of number, In the old days it did not take long for most of us to work out that the 0898 numbers were bad, these days the problem is more subtle, many more numbers can be non geographic, and these can have their charges set by the leaseholder of the line - Not sure if the line charges are related to the charge but would not be surprised if the phone companies are partly complicit.

What I would strongly suggest is to check online for the call rates applicable on your service (especially important if you use a mobile/Cell Phone), your own provider will normally have the rates for all the huge range of 03... 08... etc numbers but the specialist sites such as Who Called Me keep an extensive list of Scam and dangerous numbers and can also give actual experiences of others you can just enter the number to be checked it's not just for missed call scams - the perpetrators of these scams ( or crimes in reality) often use the Internet to find potential victims, so why should we not do the same to fight back.

The is a variant of the service above in the US Who called me? | Free Reverse Phone Lookup and I'm sure there are others in other locations

It's time to fight back - what I would like is a variant of the old anti spam mail trick - attach the return envelope to a house brick and pop it in the post so he sender is charged for the postage on a brick

Diosoth · 26 Nov 2019

XweAponX said:

You should ask your friend, were they discussing the subject of the Spam with anyone on Social Media? Because in most cases, that's where they get the info - Since you have opted out of Twitter's Ad system, they mine your actual TWEETS, Facebook posts, even Messenger Messages.

They don't use any social media, they're elderly, the phone is mainly used for texting family, they use a land line phone for actual calls(cell only if needed) & internet is generally limited to checking their bank daily, bill paying, and limited email. They're an unlisted number on the "do not call registry" and for someone to get access to their wifi the thief would have to be outside their house & trespassing excessively as they live remotely away from town. However phone numbers, even private/unlisted still end up on too many databases.

RoWin7 · 26 Nov 2019

"do not call registry" doesn't work anymore. Many phone # are just composed by bots that string millions of integers together.