Beware phone number scammers;!...

[Windmill]

Don't you get investigated by the police if you do that?

[tony sayer]

Well this one did;)

Enjoy..

[F]

Not yet...

[Fevric J. Glandules]

I've had one opportunity so far. He stayed on the line and seemed to be thinking about it. I think I ended the call by wishing them luck in finding more honest employment.

Previous attempts to engage them in conversation - very politely asking first if I could have a couple of minutes of their time - to try to find out what their success rate is, all ended in them hanging up as soon as they realised I wasn't a "mark".

[Bill]

A couple of years ago I had a long chat with an Asian gentleman who insisted that I was due for compensation for my accident. I admitted to having recently had an accident, I didn't know the shotgun was loaded and didn't mean to kill my wife with it. Although it was an accident the police had charged me with murder and I was likely to be executed, he didn't query this, so I assume he didn't know too much about UK law. Any way after about 10 minutes of him not realising he was being wound up I had to hang up, it was getting difficult not to laugh.

He phoned me straight back about my shotgun accident and said we must have been cut off, eventually I hung up again. He phoned me back again! I didn't bother answering the phone and he gave up.

My wife was convinced we would have a visit from the police over this, we didn't.

[Tim Ward]

But "Phonepayplus" is blindingly obviously the name of a scam organisation and obviously something you wouldn't touch with a barge pole. (The daftest bit of branding since ... well, forever, actually.)

[Roland Perry]

In message , at 14:32:36 on Sat, 15 Mar 2014, Tim Ward remarked:

They badly needed a change from acronym-city ICSTIS. But I agree that with hindsight something more akin to "Premium Rate" regulator would be appropriate. At they time they expected phones to be used for buying many more things than ringtones (in addition to voice calls).

[John Rumm]

I have had some fun with the one who open with the "we are opening a new shop in your area" gambit simply by asking where this shop will be...

You tend to get the "in your area" repeated, so press for a more specific location on the grounds that you like the sound of it and might actually want to go there! I got to the point with one girl of asking "Do you actually know where in the country I am?" and she said "no, I am just reading from this script".

[Phil W Lee]

Tim Streater considered Fri, 14 Mar 2014

15:12:17 +0000 the perfect time to write:

I'm pretty sure that you can record anything within your own home, with or without the knowledge of any visitor (except activities where they would have a reasonable expectation of privacy, so not in the bedroom(s) [if they have been invited into it/them] or bathroom) but that any visitor would need your permission (or at least knowledge) to do so.

[Duncan Wood]

Was there some more obvious reason than trying to dissuade the public from using it not to make it Oftels problem?

[Roland Perry]

In message , at 23:04:22 on Sun, 16 Mar 2014, Duncan Wood remarked:

Making it separate regulator was better for the public (as was developing, in the subsequent round of increased consumer protection a Telecoms Ombudsman).

Oftel's role was never to be a "trading standards for the telephone", despite getting a lot of complaints from the public that it had little or no powers to resolve. Its job was to regulate the telcos (largely, to protect start-ups from predation by BT), to co-ordinate technical interoperability standards, and manage the national numbering plan; not to regulate those telco's customers who were the people setting up the premium rate end-points (or even to intervene in billing disputes between the telcos they were licencing and their customers).

[Martin Brown]

I usually let all unknown callers and number withheld go to answerphone before picking up. They all drop the line as it goes to ansaphone.

If you have picked up and don't mind tying up your phone line for a while offering to go and get whoever the PPI/car crash insurance fraud advocator asks for is about as good as it gets. It ties them up unproductively waiting for Godot with limited inconvenience to you.

Incidentally anyone know of any effective countermeasures against persistent cold calling offenders who ignore the TPA list (the sort that have zillions of me too complainants about them online).

ICO is less use than a chocolate fireguard.

[Fevric J. Glandules]

Plan? What plan? Or was the plan to make it as confusing as possible?

[Roland Perry]

In message , at 12:58:56 on Mon, 17 Mar

2014, Fevric J. Glandules remarked:

The plan was to make as few changes to people's "STD codes" as possible (given that changes were needed because several numbering areas had run out of capacity), although at one point it was scuppered by public opinion wanting to dial 'local' numbers without a code.

[Phil W Lee]

Martin Brown considered Mon, 17 Mar

2014 09:42:40 +0000 the perfect time to write:

I would suggest staying on the line with them long enough to establish their real identity, researching them online, then returning the favour round the clock and hourly to all their board members home numbers, ideally using a programmed throwaway VOIP service with number withheld (or even better, spoofed to their own office number).

[Judith]

I do not think that that is true at all.

Do you have a reference to back up the claim please?

[Johny B Good]

====snip litany of 'sage advice'====

Thanks Judith for the heads up but he rather gave us that impression with his other posting wherein he offered up the following 'work of fantasy' in response to a posting from Martin Brown:

"I would suggest staying on the line with them long enough to establish their real identity, researching them online, then returning the favour round the clock and hourly to all their board members home numbers, ideally using a programmed throwaway VOIP service with number withheld (or even better, spoofed to their own office number)."

I find that when fantasizing about how you'd like to punish "The Idiots Responsible For The [enter 'Crime Against Humanity' here]", it's usually best not to 'type it out loud'. :-)

[Bob Eager]

I don't think coffee making has anything to do with the law.

[Bob Eager]

I said that much earlier. Do keep up.

[Vir Campestris]

Tell that to a taxi driver or a publican :)

Andy