"Tradesmen who knock on residents' doors in Strood and Brompton will now be required to show identification."
Thats sorted then, they can't fake an ID card can they?
But if I don't know what its about, or which area it covers - are the tradesmen likely to? Or Care? And what happens if someone does knock on my door without an ID card? Like JW's?
I've e-mailed the council - watch this space....
I don't think the TPS covers overseas call centers...
My favourite call telephone call is from banks. They normally want to confirm my identity before they'll proceed with what ever it is they want to speak to me about. I refuse, how do I know they are who they say they are and the banks are always harping on about not releaseing personal information...
The last one I said if it's that important write to me. They did, explaining that they understood my position about not wanting to confirm personal information but they would be telephoning me again to talk about whatever it was. er that's not going to work is it...
I've had a couple of calls like that too. After saying they wanted to talk to me about my credit card account with XYZ the lady said she needed to take me through security first. I replied: "You called me - so how do I take YOU through security?!". She acknowledged I had a good point and that was the end of the conversation. I never did find out if she really was from my card company or if it was a phishing call.
On another occasion, a similar call said there had been some unusual transactions on my bank account that they wanted to check with me and started asking me my security questions. I refused to answer and explained that she could be anybody. She gave her name and department at the bank and asked me to phone the number on my bank statement and ask for her. I did so and she was legitimate. I'd simply bought a lot of stuff for the house that day which triggered the security check.
Keep you digital camera handy and take a couple of snaps of cold callers. The more crooked they are the less they like it.
In message , nightjar writes
Just say no thankyou, and they will leave anyway.
I don't knwo what it is about double glazing salesmen - sometimes I think they must be completely thick. We regularly get them at the door, yet our house is fully double glazed and has uPVc doors and patio door. One of the worst I've met, knocked at my parents' house and asked if they wanted new windows, less than four feet from the ladders that my uncle and father were up ... putting in a new bay window!
My father did one day get the better of a salesman who wouldn't take no for an answer - he spent an hour persuading him to have cavity wall insulation, and my father eventually agreed ... provided that he could explain how to put it in the 9" solid brick walls that the whole estate is built from! I wonder how many other people on the estate he'd already sold it to?
SteveW
I feel a little sorry for betterware people. They must be really desperate to do a "job" like this. I just leave their catalog outside and they can collect it if it doesn't blow away.
Any salesmen just get a polite but firm "No thanks" and I close the door.
If you bank's system is so easy to breach by getting you to divulge your security details, then you need to change banks. Mine will only ever ask for 2 characters from any password. It quickly becomes apparent from the context if they're genuine. If they're not (it's never happened yet) then two characters won't get them vary far.
MBQ
I got rid of them by claiming to be Presbyterian - but I suppose the fact that I was covered in mud and clutching a billhook might have had something to do with it.... (I had been clearing a field drain on a rainy/sleety/windy day, and was NOT in a particularly good mood.)
I recently had a very similar call from my credit card company. I pointed out that I had no way of confirming they were who they said they were so I wasn't inclined to continue the conversation. The chap on the other end agreed and asked me very nicely to call the number on the back of my credit card as there was an urgent matter they needed to discuss. At this point he'd got my interest, but when I tried to find out more, he insisted I call the number in order to satisfy myself that it was a genuine call. When I did call back, it was genuine. They were concerned about an unusual pattern of spending on my card and wanted to be certain they were genuine transactions.
Not keen on that idea. That anyone likely to be on the phone to you from a bank has access to a password. The date of birth and mother's maiden name thing, different.
They don't need to have access to the whole password. They're simply relaying information between you and the computer.
But I still always insist on calling them back and going through security that way.
They don't have access to the password. They are prompted to ask for the xth and yth digit or character by the computer and type in the response. They never see the whole password/number. The same system is used when logging in to the internet banking service. You would have to be spoofed quite a number of times for someone to be able to ascertain the complete password/number (it uses one of each).
Date of birth, etc., are for too easy to find out to be used as passwords.
MBQ
I have had a couple like that, and the thought process was similar. I wondered how they would handle verification since neither party knew for sure who the other was. I thought I would go along with it, but watch very carefully what information was exchanged. They had obviously thought it through quite carefully. The first time the question was something like "we notice that you order from two different online supermarkets, could you tell me which one you use the most often". The questions were asked in such a way as it was clear to me that someone could see my transaction history, but gave out no specific details. Again the answers requested would only make sense in context, but were not personal information etc. On that occasion there were a number of fraudulent transactions on the card. Interestingly it was a card that I only ever used for online transactions.
The second more recent one was an automated call - with press button answers. That one started with a explanation that they would not request any account related information from me, but they would need to verify if I was me etc. This is did with a set of reverse multiple choice questions. So they did things like verifying DOB by giving five possible dates and asking me to confirm which was mine. After a couple of questions like that, it then read out a list of recent transactions, and asked me to indicate which if any where unrecognised. Explaining that if I highlighted a unexpected one, they would pass the call to a real person etc.
Apparently, that is where many people get caught out when phoning to back to confirm, although obviously on the ball enough to realise that the caller could be anyone, they phone back on a number provided by the caller rather than getting it from an independent reference like the statement in your case.
Amazon processing one order as five separate transactions on one day seemed to be enough to trigger the last check in my case.
Of course there has, they won't deliver to the illiterate.
I've had one of these calls and the time it took to go through the options was incredible - every word seemed to be said very slowly, with longer than normal gaps between, too much explanation, etc. What should have taken a minute took around 5 and was incredibly frustrating.
SteveW
Two online order to Argos in the same day put a complete stop on my card.
MBQ
In message , Mark writes
Don't, some of them make a nice living out of it, my brother in law included.
The cynical might just think taking an unrealistically long time before you get to a 'real' person is a means of generating additional income from the caller.....
but this was an automated call made by them to me, not the other way around.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.