BT scam call

[Bill]

I thought it might be worth mentioning, as I haven't had this type of call before. Phone rang. Synthesised voice said my name and then said this is BT. Your broadband will be terminated tonight. Press 1 to do something, press 2 to do something else ( can't remember what the options were).

I hung up. 1471 said "we do not have the caller's identity".

The voice was clear with a faint hint of Dalek. Much easier to understand than most foreign scammers.

I wonder what would have happened if I had pressed 1.

[Steve Walker]

Presumably automatically connected to a premium rate number or charged a fixed sum for connecting to it - like the over-the-phone TV competitions.

SteveW

[Brian Gaff]

Probably a human being would have been put on. This is a way to save time because so many people hang up so it only alerts then to a real caller if you hit one of the buttons. Key1 for scam 1 or key 2 for scam three, key 4 for voting on your favourite scam and a chance to be in our prize draw to get on a mug list. Brian

[A_lurker]

I've had a couple of similar ones just recently -- as you say, they seem to be a new style. One was from 'Shirley' from 'Internet Service Provider'. Apparently, my IP address has been compromised and 'we need to change your IP address and *router*'.

Made me wonder whether, if I responded to it, they would go so far as to actually send me a nice new compromised router...

[Kipper at sea]

Same call here, something wrong with out BT line. We haven't had a BT line for years. 1471 number not known

[Bob Eager]

How would that work, then? I think not.

More likely a way of getting you to talk to a scammer's call centre.

[Andy Burns]

Not possible to be charged as a result of an incoming call, other than

0800-REVERSE.

Possibly tells you an special BT 0898 number you can call to "save" your broadband from disconnection

[Michael Chare]

I usually ignore such calls, but I recently had one where the caller wanted me to visit a website which would have allowed him to take control of my PC. The caller claimed to be from BT, a company which I no longer have a relationship with

[alan_m]

Even "genuine" BT marketing calls are not from BT but from their 3rd party marketing partners. These people have no knowledge about what you may already have from BT.

It's much like dealing with the foot in the door energy selling scum that used to visit. "I'm from YOUR energy supplier" "Hmm?" "How would you like some cheaper energy?" "Yes?" "Who is your current supplier?" "You have just told me that you are from MY energy supplier so you should know - good-bye"

I have very strict policy of not buying from any cold caller, email spammer or giving to any doorstep charity collector who often have homemade laminated identity badges to try an con the gullible that they are collecting for a good cause rather than for themselves. I've also noticed in the past year some very dubious charity collectors outside of some supermarkets who will be wearing hi-vis jackets and shaking a day-glo coloured bucket. They all seem to be collecting for some "generic" children's charity.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Bill presented the following explanation :

You would have been exterminated lol

[Bill]

Well, my broadband was not terminated last night, if this gets through.

What was impressive about the scam was the quality of the synthesised voice and that it used my name. It must be synthesising each call.

I'm probably way out of date with the technology as I have no interest in Siri or her friends.

[Tim Streater]

Me too neither. I've also stopped picking up mail on my iPhone as it's insecure.

[Jeff]

It is in fact much more secure than anything else you can use due to the sandboxing.

[Tim Streater]

Spammers have this trick whereby they send you a mail containing URLs which request the download of a 1px x 1px image, and they encode your email address in the URL. That way, when their email is displayed on your device, the email tells the spammers that you have at least opened the mail, and that, therefore, the email address they have for you is live and in use. Meaning that they send you more of the same.

When writing my email client, I observed this phenomenon while debugging the app, and so arranged that if you are only previewing the mail, URLs to download images are disabled. That way it's your choice whether the images are downloaded. Unfortunately, Apple's Mail app on the iPhone doesn't seem to care and in fact doesn't even seem to prevent spam in any way.

Of course, it's not only spammers who use this trick. Your favourite advertisers probably do too. But the net result is I'm back to just using the desktop for reading email, and only with my own email client.

[Theo]

[Jeff]

But you are free to use any app you like on your iphone for email and so you can run yours on it if you want to avoid responding like that.

Makes more sense to have your own app on your iphone instead.

[Tim Streater]

Mine is a desktop app.

I'm coming instead to the conclusion that having an iPhone makes no sense.

[Jeff]

But can very easily be an iphone app.

More fool you. It is in fact by far the most secure smartphone around.

[Tim Streater]

I'd have to redo it and I really can't be bothered.

Too small. And I've had it six months and have yet to take a picture.

[Jeff]

Not the + ones.

Sure, but it can be handy when the shit hits the fan and some fool runs into you and tries to bugger off after that.

And handy for very basic stuff like shelf prices when shopping around instead to taking notes etc.