👮 Scam phone calls and texts

[LeMarchand]

The personal injury ambulance chasers who were calling me after I was rear-ended were very insistent, even though I expressed no interest whatsoever because I wasn't injured and nor were my passengers.

 

I've had them pretty much encourage me to commit fraud in order to make a claim that might earn them a percentage.

[mikeprice]

I'm pretty sure that it's fairly easily explainable, but doing so would take us on to topics that may not be discussed.

 

There was a thing on the news many years ago where the NHS selling injury data to legal companies

 

including - and this is what made the news - data about pregnancy and births

which resulted in women who had had still births and babies who didn;t survive long - getting lots of flyers and calls about baby products

 

It was a big scandal at the time and is supposed to have stopped

maybe it hasn't??

 

 

 

NOTE - not a political post - please DO NOT reply about political topics!

[mikeprice]

I don;t know if this is a phishing thing or not

 

But yesterday I got a 2FA type message with a single use code

 

which is find except that I didn;t ask for it - I just ignored it

 

and today Mrs mikeprice has also got one

 

makes me wonder.........

[Norphy]

Yeah, after my accident I had a company claiming to be from the insurance company who pressured me to try to claim compensation as well. They actually coached me on what to say. In the end, I said that I wasn't comfortable with claiming anything as no one was injured and it was a very low speed accident. The really annoying thing was that these cowboys contacted me before the claims department did, so initially I thought they were dealing with the actual claim. But no.

 

The amount of pressure they put on me to try and claim compensation was absurd, it's no surprise insurance prices are so high if people succumb to this sort of nonsense.

 

For the record, my insurance company was Geoffrey Insurance, a company owned by BISL who own Budget Insurance, among others and are underwritten by a company called MarkerStudy. Complete cowboys, took more than a month to settle my claim and three weeks just to contact me. This is what happens when you go for the cheapest product on price comparison search engines.

Edited October 19, 2023 by Norphy

[6Foot2]

I don;t know if this is a phishing thing or not

 

But yesterday I got a 2FA type message with a single use code

 

which is find except that I didn;t ask for it - I just ignored it

 

and today Mrs mikeprice has also got one

 

makes me wonder.........

 

Sounds like the same sort of message that I got from "O2" today (see earlier posts)

[Davit2005]

It's also worth watching Jim Browning on YouTube, who exposes scams mostly coming from India.

 

https://www.youtube.com/@JimBrowning

 

Jim is good along with a few others that attempt to stop the fraud going on and even get peoples money back. But it is sad how some of these scammers act and con the most needy and vulnerable out of thousands.

[mikeprice]

Just found this on the Manchest Evening News

 

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/number-you-must-never-give-27906439

 

There is rather a lot before the important bit but it is one I have not seen before

 

Basically they - somehow - ring you - after just having logged onto the O2 (in this case) web site themselves and saying they have forgotten their password

 

The web site will then send a 2FA message so you can reset your password

 

then they say they are from O2 and to confirm it they will send you a text message

 

which has just arrived - genuinely from O2

 

They then ask for the code from the message to confirm that you are the account holder

 

which you might , not unreasonably , read out

 

at which point they can jump in and log onto the web site themselves and change your password and get upt o all sorts

in this case ordering iphones and nicking them as they are delivered - and you end up with the bill

 

 

quite clever - if you are not on the alert

 

might be worth passing the word around

[6Foot2]

Just found this on the Manchest Evening News

 

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/number-you-must-never-give-27906439 ...

 

Sounds like the same chancers that have been calling me recently.

[mikeprice]

Just put 2 and 2 together

(STOP don;t panic - a teacher doing maths - don;t worry - I'll be fine)

 

anyway - having seen the above 2FA scam I remembered that we have had several silent and "hang up as soon as you answer" type calls recently

 

also - I have had 2 emails with "one time access" code things - normal stuff - says to ignore it if it wasn;t you so I did

 

BUT - putting the 2 together might mean this scam is more widespread than I originally thought

 

just so you are aware

[6Foot2]

Just put 2 and 2 together

(STOP don;t panic - a teacher doing maths - don;t worry - I'll be fine)

 

anyway - having seen the above 2FA scam I remembered that we have had several silent and "hang up as soon as you answer" type calls recently

 

also - I have had 2 emails with "one time access" code things - normal stuff - says to ignore it if it wasn;t you so I did

 

BUT - putting the 2 together might mean this scam is more widespread than I originally thought

 

just so you are aware

 

Sure is widespread; they're taking a scattergun approach: "Call everyone. Those who aren't O2 customers might fall for it anyway. BONUS!"

[mikeprice]

Just put 2 and 2 together

(STOP don;t panic - a teacher doing maths - don;t worry - I'll be fine)

 

anyway - having seen the above 2FA scam I remembered that we have had several silent and "hang up as soon as you answer" type calls recently

 

also - I have had 2 emails with "one time access" code things - normal stuff - says to ignore it if it wasn;t you so I did

 

BUT - putting the 2 together might mean this scam is more widespread than I originally thought

 

just so you are aware

 

Just been checking through my deleted message and all the dodgy "one time access codes" are from Microsoft Account Team

 

so either someone if trying to get into my microsoft account - which I don;t really use - myself - or the scammer are trying to use that for the scam

[6Foot2]

We think that 5Foot2 may have been called by a scammer today. The caller had (some) accurate details about us and the purchase of a washing machine. They wanted us to buy an extended warranty (lasting a further three years)

 

We thought about making the purchase, but after asking one more question, we reconsidered.

 

As this was a cold call, we asked if they would be willing to send out the details by post. They refused. That was where the call ended because, overall, the conversation gave us an uneasy feeling.

[mikeprice]

We think that 5Foot2 may have been called by a scammer today. The caller had (some) accurate details about us and the purchase of a washing machine. They wanted us to buy an extended warranty (lasting a further three years)

 

We thought about making the purchase, but after asking one more question, we reconsidered.

 

As this was a cold call, we asked if they would be willing to send out the details by post. They refused. That was where the call ended because, overall, the conversation gave us an uneasy feeling.

 

Some companies have been caught selling purchase details to outside companies

which clearly results in cold calls from "extended warranty" companies

 

haven't heard of any recently but it might be worth looking up who you bought that washing machine from and seeing if they have had a data "theft"

[mikeprice]

On a similar subject - over the last couple of days I have had about 6 calls about loft insulation

 

all have been from 0116 488 numbers and have refused to say what the name of the company is

 

 

really rubbish call distribution system - had the same bloke several times so they are just wasting his time!

[6Foot2]

...haven't heard of any recently but it might be worth looking up who you bought that washing machine from and seeing if they have had a data "theft"

 

I have just checked and found that the supplier, withheld, has suffered one incident of data theft after our purchase, and three more before that back to 2015.

 

While this may explain the call today, the possibility remains that it was a genuine call However, my gut feeling is that it was malicious.

[mikeprice]

I have had a load of phone calls recently that are different so I thought I would mention it

 

They were all from "Chris" - who has a generic English accent

 

Seems like normal stuff about loft insulation and sending a "surveyor" round

 

 

but they cropped up several times a day and it was always "Chris" and he never seemed to remember me

 

Always rang off after I had asked the name of his company in reply to several question

 

 

ANyway - after a while I realised that there was no-one there - it was some sort of more sophisticated system using a recorded voice with responses - and presumably something to analyses what I was saying and work out if it was what they wanted or not

 

I tried different responses and it went off in different scripts - so "cleverer" that the normal pre-recorded ones

 

anyway - seems different so worth keeping an eye out for maybe!

[Davit2005]

Caller "This is your service provider **, How are you doing today"

Me "Goodbye" and hangs up

[sigma]

I have had a load of phone calls recently that are different so I thought I would mention it

 

They were all from "Chris" - who has a generic English accent

 

Seems like normal stuff about loft insulation and sending a "surveyor" round

 

 

but they cropped up several times a day and it was always "Chris" and he never seemed to remember me

 

Always rang off after I had asked the name of his company in reply to several question

 

 

ANyway - after a while I realised that there was no-one there - it was some sort of more sophisticated system using a recorded voice with responses - and presumably something to analyses what I was saying and work out if it was what they wanted or not

 

I tried different responses and it went off in different scripts - so "cleverer" that the normal pre-recorded ones

 

anyway - seems different so worth keeping an eye out for maybe!

 

 

We get “Luke” for insulation.

 

I have had the washing machine one recently but when I ask which one, they hang up.

 

Yesterday I had the ‘problem with your computer’, couldn’t tell me which computer, and immediately phoned me back from different numbers each time I hung up on them - three times. The last time they were particularly abusive.

[mikeprice]

We get “Luke” for insulation.

 

I have had the washing machine one recently but when I ask which one, they hang up.

 

Yesterday I had the ‘problem with your computer’, couldn’t tell me which computer, and immediately phoned me back from different numbers each time I hung up on them - three times. The last time they were particularly abusive.

 

They have not rung me with the old "tech support scam" for ages

 

quite miss it

 

never managed to actually make them angry - well done that man/woman/person/"other being including Daleks"

[Oaktech]

I've had 4 or 5 recently, clearly an off-shore call centre. All the same number (now blocked) but each time a different mobile provider name...

 

"Good day Sir, I'm *insert generic english name* and I'm calling from *insert phone company* we would like to inform you that we can certainly save you money on your phone contract..."

 

They never get further than that because I know full well there is not a cheaper contract on the market unless I move away from using the EE network, which I'm currently not prepared to do.

 

Another fun one I've had recently was originally to one of the small charities that I support; they, as they've been instructed to, said that they didn't understand what the guy was talking about and told him to call me. Now, they get about 3 of these fake tech support calls a week, but usually as soon as they say, "You'll need to call our support guy..." the callers hang up, but one last week hung on and took the esim number I use for private work stuff, so I got a call about 5 minutes later...

 

"Hi, Good morning sir, this is Craig from Microsoft, we're calling today because your computers systems have been identified as being part of a criminal botnet and we need to get them cleaned up... Now, if you could you just go ahead and download Teamviewer"

 

I played with him for about 5 minutes, pretending to try to get a remote session going while I was in fact walking to the shop to get lunch before I said, "Oh dear, it's just not working, I'll need to drive to site. If you can just give me a case reference and a number to call back on..." At which point he started yelling at me for wasting his time and I hung up laughing.

[6Foot2]

After a rash of calls (as reported above) I've had none since mid-November.

 

I'm not claiming to have cured the problem, but I am happy that it's gone away.

 

For now.

[mikeprice]

I feel bad

I got a phone call from someone this morning

 

It was Daisy

funny how Daisy seems to be such a common name among people from the Indian Sub Continent

but who am I to judge

 

anyway - she works for Virgin Media

and was very worried about problems they have detected with my broadband

 

we had a nice conversation about how I was and how she was

then she explained how they had - verty worryingly detected some problems with my system

and how this might explain how my broadband was sometimes slower than usual

she asked - very nicely - if I had noticed this

I really hadn't but - you know I'm getting on a bit so I might not know about these things

 

anyway - she asked about how many devices I had connected - maybe my TV

which I agreed with - it has a yellow wire going into that back of it

 

she asked about laptops and mobile phones

 

I explained that I won;t have them in the house becsaue they are evil

 

there was a pause

she asked again abotu the slow speed and I said I had noticed that people do speak slowly on some programmes

 

she asked if I was watching these on a laptop

 

so I explained again how I don;t have these in the house because they are evil

 

she asked if other people had problems in the house

 

I told her that it is only me because....

 

then she got cut off for some reason

 

 

I am upset

 

I never got to explain about the witches

 

 

 

 

 

maybe she will ring back

 

 

I want to talk to Daisy again

 

I have thought of more stories for her

 

 

 

For F***s sake don;t talk to a retired system administrator about "problems on the broadband" when he is bored

 

Dragons will ensue

 

and maybe witches

 

please ring back Daisy

 

especially before my wife gets up and I am bored with morning TV

[6Foot2]

A text just arrived from "The Royal Mail"

 

Post Office - We regret to inform you that we are unable to deliver your package due to a missing address. Update address:

 

Short URL (Not included in this Edugeek post)

 

(-please reply Y, then exit the text message and open it again to activate the link, or copy the link in your Safari browser.Or [sic] reply T and return the package to the merchant)

 

Reported and blocked.

[TheHyperTechie]

I got one of the phones that screen calls. Allows programmed numbers, blocks known bad numbers, blocks unidentified callers and announces everyone else. It is brilliant and I have had 1 spam call get through in the time I have had it and that was because I was intrigued so allowed it through. The robocallers get flummoxed as it answers but no one is there to do anything. Can highly recommend.

 

I have this too. Pixel 7 Pro, excellent feature!

[elsiegee40]

I deal a lot with Evri and this iMessage made me think twice. Yes they’d love you to engage with them [emoji35] Needless to say I forwarded it to 7726 spam reporting and blocked the sender.