scam alert on mobiles

Why would you ring back an unknown missed call?

Many people do, as they want to find out who called.

SteveW

In message snipped-for-privacy@brightview.co.uk>, Max Demian <max snipped-for-privacy@bigfoot.com writes

You might if you expected a call from, say, a hospital or a family member you knew was not at home.

I work on the principal that if someone wants to call me, they?ll try again if it?s important. If they don?t try again it can?t have been that important.

Tim

Unfortunately they usually try again when you are in the bathroom, driving or doing something else - today it was as I was placing the superglued grommet strip into a hole that I'd just cut in a metal plate

- literally as I touched the first end of the strip to the metal.

SteveW

So they leave a message on your voicemail (though I've had spam voicemails).

You may want to play voicemail ping pong, but I deal with a lot of calls for business purposes and it can sometimes take days getting hold of people. The last thing I want is more messages that when I return them are engaged, or they are out of the office and then they try and phone me when I can't take the call.

SteveW

And you think that if you ring back the hospital they will know who called and whats its about?

To see who it was.

because my people like me do not have an encyclopaedic knowledge of what phone number is which and when you are still setting up your contacts, you probably do not have them in your list yet. People change phones and there are always new people, ie like me, blind and trying to get to grips with their first smart phone etc. Plenty of rich pickings. You would be surprised how many sightees do not know how to blacklist a number and often worry it was something important, this is human nature. Just because you have a brain the size of a planet does not mean everyone will have. Brian

You are making you into everyone though, a common mistake scammers do not make. What is interesting about this thread is people are not discussing the moral aspects they are instead just covering the person being scammed and in some cases making fun of the victim or explaining how the social engineering of the scam works, which we all know. If more people in the world had better morals and had a moral code to allow them fto make these scammers into the social parasites they really are it might stop them faster. Brian

Yes, if it's not the main hospital (or local GP practice) number which I, by now, recognise.

Someone should invent a way to encapsulate a communication such that it can be sent at the senders convenience and digested at the receivers convenience.

I bet there's a fortune for whoever cracks it.

Quite. But in these social meja days, 'friends' are important.

Something involving a goose feather, stick of wax and a ring....

I was thinking something like an old fashioned letter, but done electronically. It must be possible somehow.

could be a friend who's phone had packined in and they needed to get in touch with you. I've had calls where a friend has borrowed someone elses phone.

I've had quite a few calls from this number 0800 183 6403 8 between 23rd & 30th april.

So, do they think you are a virgin?