Yet another telephone scam?

For the benefit of those on Over50sForum who may receive a similar call, be aware!

A call just now on my landline from a female with an American accent, reputedly from 'Amazon Prime', to inform me that their service will be out of action for a certain time (didn't quite catch the time). If I had any queries about this I was to press '1' to speak to a manager.

That is as far as the call went as I terminated it, believing it to be a scam. Maybe one of those that as soon as '1' is pressed the call is charged at extortionate cost to the recipient?

The additional reasons for thinking this may be a scam are:
• I have never bought anything from Amazon
• I do not have an Amazon Prime account
• My telephone number is ex-directory
• I have never given that number out
• I have not used that telephone to make a call for at a least three years
• My mobile is used instead of the landline
• The call was a recorded voice.

Maybe I am being over-cautious, maybe not but worth anyone thinking twice if receiving a similar, unsolicited call, especially if any of the above applies to them.

Re: Yet another telephone scam?

I have had two of these type calls this morning to my landline from what l suppose were scam calls. I never answer them, l just let them go to the answering machine but they never leave a message!

I do use BT 1572 to block them but instead of the calls diminishing, more seem to come through.

Re: Yet another telephone scam?

I have 'Caller display' on my phone. If it rings and I do not recognise the number I do not answer but say to myself (Yes I do talk myself sometimes) If it's important I have an answer machine but there is very rarely an answer left on it.

Re: Yet another telephone scam?

Too right, Baz.
As soon as I get a phone call from any voice I don't recognise I am on the defensive. If they say "Is that Mr.___", I ask them first who they are. If they do not give their name I close the call there and then.

I've had 'missed calls' on my mobile giving a number but no name. Sometimes I text back instead of calling and write "I do not answer calls whose numbers I do not recognise. Text me with your name, company and all details of the purpose of this call and I will decide whether or not to get back to you".
They never call back. If they really need my attention they can write and post a letter.

Re: Yet another telephone scam?

I never receive "scam" phone calls on my landline nowadays. Several years ago, I bought a BT8500 Enhanced Call Blocker Cordless Home Phone and, after a learning curve for both of us, all "suspect" calls are intercepted and either blocked or allowed to leave a message ..... I can hardly believe that I used to get a dozen or more "nuisance" phone calls a day - the BT phone wasn't that expensive and it "made my day" .....

Re: Yet another telephone scam?

I have a switch on my landline - I installed it myself - so I can just turn it off instead of the hassle of unplugging it from the broadband VOIP router. It then just becomes an answering service and I am not tempted to answer it if it rings because I don't hear it. People can still leave a message if they are legit. Scammers never leave messages. Works for us and we have peace. The Amazon thing is a scam for sure. Your first point is enough. If you get calls about stuff you have never had anything to do with..it's bogus.

Re: Yet another telephone scam?

Remember people, using BT's call blocking service or going ex-directory no longer works due to the fact that business are allowed to sell your personal data. If you use your landline to call ANY company or business, your phone number goes into their system as a 'live' number. Once the business has received a large number of data, they will collate it and sell it on to 3rd party companies such as marketing companies, advertising companies and data research companies (mainly universities doing research).

Also, a big part of these scams is with the purpose of finding 'live' landline numbers. Marketing companies and advertising companies will pay a lot of money to those who collect 'live' numbers because they know that when they ring, it will be to a property that has someone known to be living there. So how do these harvesting companies do it. They purchase illegal phone software than scans a range of numbers. The person enters in a range of numbers, the system dials the number, if it gets a 'dead' tone it marks the number as unusable. If the phone rings, the system waits for the phone to be picked up, when it does, it immediately hangs up and marks the number as live. The reason it immediately hangs up is to save the scammers their own money on paying for the cost of the call.

Once they have done this for a few months, the harvesters will then sell the 'live' numbers to who ever wants them, other scammers, marketing companies and advertising companies.

Just because your number is on BT's block list means nothing because you can enter is number such as 0800 000001 to 0800 999999 and it will dial EVERY number. Then once it has finished with 0800, it will then start with 0801 and then 0802 and 0803 and so on and so on.

The problem for the scammers though who use this method is that BT in particular are wise to this and thus keep a check on the network to see if anyone is trying to mass dial. The problem becomes when BT rent/lease out their systems to other telecommunication companies, like SKY, Virgin, TalkTalk, and many others, companies who will not be so vigilant as BT is.

Re: Yet another telephone scam?

I just tell them to %&'@>&% OFF!

Re: Yet another telephone scam?

The problem with that Longdogs is when they are either robots or it's a recorded message, they don't take much notice of that!

Re: Yet another telephone scam?

It makes me feel good though.