UK calling
They are pissing me off again.
For a long time we had been getting phone calls with an automated recording telling us that our “Eir internet connection had been compromised” or some such shit, and that we had better press “1” to talk to an engineer if we didn’t want to get cut off. Needless to say I never pressed 1 so I don’t know quite how they would try to scam money out of me.
Then things changed.
Eir is our national telephone company but there are loads of providers so presumably anyone on one of the other services would realise it was a scam. They changed the message to an all encompassing “Your internet connection” etc. The calls continued.
Then they changed tactic again.
This time the phone would ring. I would pick up and after about three seconds silence they’d hang up again. A while later I would get another call with the same irritating female telling me I had missed a call from my internet provider and that my connection had been compromised etc. I presume that the first call was just to test if my number was valid before calling back in order to save them a few bob.
One thing I have noticed is that the vast majority of the calls come from the UK with a 0044 prefix. I haven’t tried calling back their number to tell them to go fuck themselves with a razor-wire pogo-stick as it’s always a different number.
Yesterday was particularly bad.
We had about seven or eight calls from the UK, all hanging up as soon as I answered. Luckily I didn’t get any call-back calls or I’d be fit for the funny farm.
But then they changed tactic again.
The last call I got was the same fucking irritating female recording but this time she announced that my “Amazon Prime account had been compromised” etc.
I don’t have an Amazon Prime account!
*sigh*
A friend’s mother was recently scammed by ‘Amazon Prime’ . She has early dementia and didn’t understand that she didn’t even have an account! she just wanted to help the nice young lady on the phone who told her she would get into trouble if she told the bank it wasn’t her idea to transfer cash. Needless to say they cleaned her out, eventually the bank refunded half because of her mental problems. I get these calls too but just hang up, it’s terrible the way they prey on the vulnerable.
That is what sickens me about these calls. They prey on the innocent and the elderly. Your friend's case was lucky to get anything back as the banks generally claim that if you give your details to a third party then they have no responsibility.
I had many similar calls, and then spoke to Amazon. They said that no 'phone calls were made by them and counselled that "put the phone down at once" was the best solution.
Seems to be a scam by charging exorbitant amounts for the return call, or even obtaining your password to clean out the Amazon -and your bank- account. Look up the Amazon website. I've reported the problem to the Fraud department, who have recently arrested people in Devon and Somerset for this offence.
The criminals will keep trying everything, but how do they know about Prime members? Never, ever, respond to their calls.
They work on the principle that the majority of people will subscribe to the most popular services. So targeting Amazon and Netflix will reap a nice crop. I have had mails assuming I'm with Amazon, Microsoft, Bank of Ireland and Eir for example but the only one of that lot I'm with is Eir. I just delete mails and hang up on phone calls.
I get a lot of these calls and have never had a Prime account so I think it must be random in the hope of catching some.
They are purely random. If they only get one in a thousand then they can be into big money.
Similar scams here in England. Don’t press 1, or any other number, I think it will dial a prime rate number, you will be charged a fortune. Read this on the internet, so it must be right.
Press 1 and you get a nice Indian person pretending t be a microsoft expert who wants access to your computer just before I tell him to do as you suggested with razor wire. Also had the one from the nameless ISP. There must be a few idiots about who actually fall for this. My brother did. He is no idiot. I was telling him about this scam and he went white. I said ring your effing bank now you idiot. He did and they paid him his money back plus his 2 grand overdraft facility which they had also taken. Which he promptly transferred elsewhere. Some people!
The thing that really pisses me off is that with the automated calls there is no chance to string them along or give them a bit of abuse. At least with the Microsoft calls I could [and did] get some satisfaction!
Started getting those automated calls here, pain in the arse they are!
The microsoft scam still happens occasionally. I spent a nice 25 minutes winding the Indian idiot up by playing "the confused Old bugger" heheheh.
Used to get a lot from a company supposedly in Chester in The U.K. The bloke from there ended up threatening to come and sort me out lol
I'm in N.Z. so I told him to come down for a holiday.
Oh and the "microsoft scammers" even phoned a Police station here!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOR6LPeeoeU
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