Idiot Scammers

Leon said :

The Do Not Call register (https://www.donotcall.gov.au/enquiries.cfm) advises recording the date and time, and the caller’s name, company, phone number and other contact details, plus the matters they wanted to talk about.

Also worth remembering is that registration on the do not call list, only lasts for 5 years (previously 3 years), so if you joined prior to 2007, you might find your number has been removed from the list (you might have disconnected the number and the new owner might want marketing calls).

A couple of weeks ago I had the same type of call, Id normally play along but I was busy at the time so theyll have to wait til next time.

I live close to Chisholm. Had two of these calls in less than a week. Male first time and then tonight a female. Tonight as the phone line quality was poor I just hung up.

I’ve been getting these a lot, and it certainly isn’t restricted to Chisholm.
My mum got a call from one of these guys with a very thick Asian accent (even though he insisted he was French), and she couldn’t understand him. She told him he wasn’t speaking clearly and he told her to “go and put some oil in [her] ears”, then she would be able to “hear him loud and clear”.

It’s fun to mess with them, but the persistency of the calls is quite aggravating.
And unfortunately, some people who are not tech savvy (mainly sweet old ladies) actually get sucked into these things. I remain hopeful however, as most of the people who are computer illiterate enough to fall for these scams probably don’t have the skills to follow the instructions for installing the malware.

Thoroughly Smashed said :

Unfortunately the people that make the initial call aren’t scammers themselves, they just work for contracted call centres and most have no idea that they’re involved in a scam, they’re just reading from a script.

That may be true some of the time, but the way this fellow tells it, at least some of the outsourced scammers are fully aware of what they’re doing. That’s a fascinating article, by the way, if you’ve ever wanted a small insight into that suspiciously sub-continental-sounding “Bruce” you get when you call a support number.

alljacq said :

I used to play the village idiot with the vermin, got a laugh from the wife for a while. Now when my caller id says overseas private I simply say three words A F P they hang up instantly. On one occassion they persisted so I kept repeating AFP then I heard the word sh*t and they hung up.

Classic

I used to play the village idiot with the vermin, got a laugh from the wife for a while. Now when my caller id says overseas private I simply say three words A F P they hang up instantly. On one occassion they persisted so I kept repeating AFP then I heard the word sh*t and they hung up.

While I haven’t had the experience that others are reporting, I did – just yesterday – get one of those phone calls that rings for half a ring, and if you answer it (which I did) goes to a dead line.

I awas approaching an out of range area so thought the call was legit. When I got back to my office I called the number only to find it was one of those scams where when you call back, you go to a voice mail that tells you to check out a website.

The last time this happened I was in uni about 5 or 6 years ago and back then I was getting these phone calls at least once a week by the same number.

I thought this rubbish advertising was long dead, so I was pretty angry that I gave them at least half of what they wanted.

I had one a few weeks ago, but his accent was so bad that I couldnt even understand him enough to have some fun.

I’ve only had one of these calls, sadly. I held the guy on the phone for 45 minutes by pretending to be utterly computer illiterate. Unfortunately the people that make the initial call aren’t scammers themselves, they just work for contracted call centres and most have no idea that they’re involved in a scam, they’re just reading from a script. The one I had was very persistent, most of the times I failed to follow his instructions (or reported that the instructions didn’t work) he just went right back to the start. Anyway it’s only when you agree to allow a remote desktop connection that the real scammers become involved and start installing malware on your computer etc.

I’ve heard of people allowing them to make the remote desktop connection and then exploiting the scammers’ own poor security to do as much damage to their payment systems as possible etc.

I am getting the scam calls too. They must have started a Canberra blitz. I think they’re using VoIP so making them wait probably won’t smash their phone bills.