Warning about Scamming

[Judith]

Just foiled a scammer ringing  to tell me the internet has something urgently wrong with it.  She wanted me to log into my computer as a matter of urgency. Got very annoyed when I wouldn't.  Alarm bells started ringing!  I rang off and reported to internet provider. 

[Turner]

It sounds as a bit amateurish scam attempt ...

I´ve only experienced a few calls from English-speaking persons with very exotic phone numbers & quickly stopped the conversation, but never any local ones - except a few legal salesmen from newspapers and pensions.

Apparently, a new trick for callers from abroad is to be able to present a different number on one´s phone screen, but I haven´t seen that so far.

[Gurn Blanston]

My wife, who is retired now and thus home in the daytime, gets calls like this frequently. 2 days ago it was one who said her firewall was broken and she was accumulating viruses at an astronomical rate. He walked her through the process of allowing him onto her computer to 'fix' the problem. She managed to waste a good 15 minutes of his time, since the computer was not even turned on and she was in the kitchen cooking dinner the entire time. Ideally, they target 'seniors', who are reputed to be ignorant and gullible. They hadn't met her before! 

[anothername]

Just foiled a scammer ringing  to tell me the internet has something urgently wrong with it.  She wanted me to log into my computer as a matter of urgency. Got very annoyed when I wouldn't.  Alarm bells started ringing!  I rang off and reported to internet provider.

Never ever do what they say, just hang up.

[drogulus]

    Usually you can sniff out probable scam calls. What I often do when the call ID looks wrong is pick up, say nothing and wait for the hang up click. If I guess wrong and it's a real people I'll get a "hello?".

    What's a wrong call ID? One is my area code but no name comes up. All the people or businesses have names or they are suspect.

    Also I use Nomorobo so I get one ring then nothing for robocalls.

[Mirror Image]

Never ever do what they say, just hang up.

Hang up and, more importantly, block their number!

[Baron Scarpia]

Hang up and, more importantly, block their number!

Regrettably, that rarely works, since unwelcome phone calls usually come with a spoofed caller ID and they will use a different number every time they call you again.

Normally if a call comes from a number which is not in my contact list and which I don't recognize I don't pick up. If it is a real call they will leave a voice mail.

[Karl Henning]

Regrettably, that rarely works, since unwelcome phone calls usually come with a spoofed caller ID and they will use a different number every time they call you again.

Normally if a call comes from a number which is not in my contact list and which I don't recognize I don't pick up. If it is a real call they will leave a voice mail.

Yes, all around.

[kishnevi]

I sometimes get calls
"This is Jim from Microsoft..."
Me: "I know Jim, and he doesn't have a Pakistani accent" 
Hang up.

Usually I hang up the moment I detect it's a spam.  Sometimes I let it go to voicemail, but I tend to pick up since I have a couple of older relatives who call me on my home phone and not my cell phone.  I don't have Caller ID.

The other day, I turned on my cell phone at the end of my work day (I turn it off when I am on the sales floor) and found a voicemail.  Checked it, and found it was a robocall--in Spanish.

[Holden]

I've solved the problem very easily - I don't have a landline. I don't need one as I have cable internet. Anyone who knows me knows to call me on my mobile phone.

[The new erato]

I sometimes get calls
"This is Jim from Microsoft..."
Me: "I know Jim, and he doesn't work at Microsoft" 

Fixed that for you.

[Maestro267]

Simple (though not completely foolproof) solution: Get the numbers of people you know. Anything that's not on your list, don't even answer it. Getting a phone with an on-screen display has been a massive help in that regard.

[Spineur]

About scamming: one of the bitcoin plateforms got 400 millions usd stollen last week .  The very famous postal train robbery in the UK was only for 3 million pounds.  Welcome to the brave new world of technology where money is virtual in all the possible meaning you can imagine.

[Hollywood]

A few months agao we were getting scam calls on our land line here in Austria. We have caller ID and we never answered since the telephone  international country codes were not from Austria (country code +43) or the USA (country code +1). I wrote down all of the country codes that were calling our number and they were coming from Spain, Andorra, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, the U.K., London and Iran. I have this list of these international phone number prefixes posted next to our PC so if we do get any of them calling on our land line we just don't answer them.

[Scion7]

... internet has something urgently wrong with it.

Well, of COURSE it does! Gurn's on it! 

Wow - that was a cruel, unprovoked thrust.
I am ashamed.
Why, why dood I dood it?
After all, the poor chap just got slammed by a hurricane recently.
Have I taken Ted Nugent's " the best time to kick a man is when he's down, the best place to kick him is below the belt " far too literally?
Or is it just the fact that I took another dose of this codeine-laced cough formula?

Or maybe I am just an evil lad? 

[anothername]

Regrettably, that rarely works, since unwelcome phone calls usually come with a spoofed caller ID and they will use a different number every time they call you again.

Normally if a call comes from a number which is not in my contact list and which I don't recognize I don't pick up. If it is a real call they will leave a voice mail.

They using different numbers every time, besides that, we can't block numbers.

[Daverz]

I use an iPhone app called Hiya to send scam, spam and spoofed numbers to voicemail.  I don't answer anything that gets thru if I don't know the number.  If anything does go to voicemail, it's usually just background noise of a boiler room, though I did get one threatening me with arrest.

[Mirror Image]

Regrettably, that rarely works, since unwelcome phone calls usually come with a spoofed caller ID and they will use a different number every time they call you again.

Normally if a call comes from a number which is not in my contact list and which I don't recognize I don't pick up. If it is a real call they will leave a voice mail.

Yes, indeed. If it's a real person trying to get in contact with you, then they'll leave a message.