The new telephone ‘scam’ has arrived. I received a call from a ‘representative’ of BT, informing me that he was dis-connecting me because of an unpaid bill. He demanded payment immediately of £31.00, or it would be £ 118.00 to re-connect at a later date. The guy wasn’t even fazed when I told him I was with Virgin Media, allegedly VM have to pay BT a percentage for line rental! I asked the guy’s name – the very ‘English’ John Peacock with a very ‘African’ accent – & phone number – 0800 0800 152 0800 0800 152.
Obviously the fella realized I wasn’t believing his story, so offered to demonstrate that he was from BT. I asked how & he told me to hang up & try phoning someone – he would dis-connect my phone to prevent this. AND HE DID !! My phone was dead – no engaged tone, nothing – until he phoned me again.
Very pleased with himself, he asked if that was enough proof that he was with BT. I asked how the payment was to be made & he said credit card, there & then. I said that I didn’t know how he’d done it, but I had absolutely no intention of paying him, I didn’t believe his name or that he worked for BT. He hung up.
Did 1471 & phoned his fictitious 0800 number – not recognised. I phoned the police to let them know, I wasn’t the first! It’s only just started apparently but it is escalating. Their advice was to let as many people know by word of mouth of this scam. The fact that the phone does go off would probably convince some people it’s real, so please let as many friends & family be aware of this.
This is good but not that clever. He gave the wrong number – it should have been 0800 800152 0800 800152 which takes you through to BT Business. The cutting off of the line is very simple, he stays on the line with the mute button on and you can’t dial out – but he can hear you trying (This is because the person who initiates a call is the one to terminate it).
When you stop trying he cuts off and immediately calls back. You could almost be convinced! The sad thing is that it is so simple that it will certainly fool the elderly and vulnerable. Obviously, if this scam is real, once they have your credit/debit card details, there is nothing to stop them cleaning out your account.
Thanks to Carl for this.
Had a similar scam happen to me today but this time it was gas suppliers!! Thanks for the heads up.
Ooh. Normally I tend towards ignoring these kinds of warnings as they are mostly hoaxes, but this one checks out, it’s covered on Snopes and BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8263637.stm
Wil be spreading the word.
This scam was on our local news a few weeks ago.
They “cut you off” by just not hanging up. On landlines only the person who makes the call can actually hang up, if the person who has been called hangs up it just mutes their end of the line.
Man, that’s very simple. Harsh scam.
This is simple to recreate, all you do is ask them to hang up but you put the phone on silent/hold you hear them trying to dial the phone and hang up… you simply hang up and redial and the illusion has taken place… SIMPLE!!
When someone phones you, it’s up to them to hang up to clear the line. It’s very likely that when you hung up to test if he had ‘cut you off’ he had mearly put his handset to mute so there would be no sound heard on your end. After you hung up he then also hung up and called you back.
It’s an annoyance when someone phones you anc doesn’t hang up properly as it can tie up your line.
Yikes, bloody hell!
thanks for telling us,
i lol’d at the fact he didnt care about you being with bt
That is rather sad. Home phone lines will be dead in a few years anyway, so there will be 1 less scam there (well, lots less).
I go along with the ethos that if they phoned me, then it’s most probably a scam. Just say you’ll call them back on the number you’ll find form their homepage, and not one that they give you over the phone.
Thank you for letting us know. They picked on the wrong person there. Tweeted.
x
Awww. this is just nasty.
Be careful, people. They’re getting more aggressive with their scamming!
It always amazes me, that if those people who spent all their time trying to think of new ways to defraud the vulnerable, actually put their creative talents to positive goals, they would probably amass much more money, and legitimately. After all, they wouldn’t have to worry about being scammed, as they should be pretty good at spotting it.
Nasty. But I’m safe…don’t have a working landline!
Would hate my grandparent’s to get caught though….
Coops, you ought to just tell him who you are. Then he’ll be all like ‘wtf you are NOT Derren Brown’s PA’ then you can get Derren to hypnotise him over the phone. You can then patiently wait for him to wake up, and say ‘Now that is way better than any scam you could ever pull. Get the fuck out. Have a nice day.’ and then hang up.
Tis what I’d do in your situation to be honest.
A failing of our phone system
If I ring you, even if you put the phone down I still ‘own’ the call. You can’t ring out till I put MY phone down. Try it
This scam has been doing the rounds for a couple of weeks now. Props for not falling for it.
No wonder the random recorded phone calls I sometimes get from America never get off the line when I put down the handset. Its stupid that a phone should still be connected if one side has ended the call. It could lead to security problems if you don’t put the phone down properly
i guess this will take me atleast 30minutes to explain this to my nan
Umm … this is pretty sad. The Canadian phone system had this problem also until the 1980s. Now it doesn’t matter which party terminates the connection. Once a phone is put down, the connection is dropped.
Hopefully the scammer is caught and beaten with a frozen eel until he learns his lesson.
Haha, if this happens to me – when it gets to the bit where they “cut me off” I’m gonna say “quick, steve, I’ve got one of those scammers on the line, get a trace on the call for when he phones back, quick!” I wonder if they’ll call back…
If anyone does get it, pretend to dial a number when you’re supposedly disconnected, then wait a moment before suddenly going BOO! very loudly. Laugh. Tell them not to stay on the line too long and hang up.
Try not to get bullied in these situations, doesn’t matter how you’re approached; on the phone, via text or email, just use the fact that they’re asking for money as a trigger and think “is this legal?!” “is it likely?” it probably isn’t.
Also remember that if BT could cut you off tomorrow and legally charge you £140 for reconnection, they wouldn’t be too bothered about reconnecting you today for £40…..
I seem to remember back in the day, that the preferred way of dealing with nuisance callers (silence, heavy breathing etc) was to blow a whistle loudly into the phone’s mouth piece.
I imagine it would be just as much fun using the same method to get some revenge with these guys?
This scam was featured on snopes.com in September: http://www.snopes.com/fraud/telephone/btscam.asp
… It would take me at least that long too… but also, I would have to repeat myself, and end result she still wouldn’t understand.
thanks, i’m gonna let everyone i know about it
thanks for the warning! how dumb must he be to try get you with such a scam lol
Thanks for the heads up will post to freinds.
I actually think that is the number that rang our house yesterday night.
But here the sma has a lil’ problem… phone company numbers here are three digit numbers :S
I don’t get it. Is the scam the phonecall, or the story? Hmm….
Thanks for the warning Coops! The word shall be spread.
Oooo I hope they ring me… you could have so much fun!
See how long you can keep them on the phone, start telling them your life story, obviously a totally unreal reality, try and make friends with them, and convince them they need to work for another company, start telling them jokes.. endlessly, one after the other.
…or even better, tell them that you need to get your daddy.. and then boot up an Arnie sound board and have lots of fun shooting one liners down the phone at them through your PC speakers.
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/97003
Speaking of which, maybe a mind control/derren brown sound board would be fun to make
“It’s the winning ticket!”
When someone calls you if they dont hang up at there end , you cant get a line he can also still hear you. Will warn my mum who gets upset and would fall for this ta for the info.
@jameshogg- I think better karmic revenge would be to get Derren to hypnotise the guy and then ask him to send all his ill gotten gains to the police!
I had a similar scam recently by text telling me to call one of my utilities on a premium number. The automated voice asked that I typed in my phone number as proof it was me (which given it was a mobile they should’ve had already, though my brain wasn’t firing properly that morning).
Once I’d typed in my number the automated voice repeated it back with some crucial mistakes “If that isn’t the correct number press 2… please dial again”. I did this about 5 times before I was certain I was being had, so I reported the number it came from and called Orange to get it struck off my bill. Orange said they’d do it this once, but not again.
Thanks for the warning.
One point, though. You say this would certainly fool ‘the elderly and vulnerable’. Not sure of what your definition of ‘vulnerable’ is, but why assume that ‘the elderly’ are all credulous simpletons? This is ageism, pure and simple.
Thanks for the warning – there’s been a spate of scams similar to this for a year or so in Cornwall… will spread the word xx
Hm, I’d say if you hang up it will disconnect the connection no matter whether he on the other side will not hang up?
Are you sure it wasn’t Derren? Ehehe … an new improvisation .. of that african guy, you know who I mean.
Sending fake invoices to companies .. also a scam that happens quite a lot.
Note ……………………………. when you call someone from landline to landline they cannot hang up on you. Well they can, but when they pick up the phone your still there. So this chap probably just put his hand over the receiver to hide any noise he might make. Left it for a few minutes, hung up and recalled the person back. To the person he called it would sound exactly as described, no noise no dialing tone, nothing, dead. It is an old old scam.
OMG thanks for the warning, will have to tell my grandparents as they would def be fooled by this! How can people be so mean!?
thank sfor that Coops, im going to copy and paste it into email and send it to everyone i know including my grandparents (they would be caught out by something like this).
evil evil people!
I’m such a pushover, so if it wasn’t for this blog I would have probably fallen for this… Thanks for the heads up.
I bought a whippet puppy recently and nearly got persuaded into buying Kennel Club Insurance for her – MEGA EXPENSIVE! The guy on the phone sounded like Derren when he hypnotises people…
“And as you sit there on the phone listening to my voice you will find your wallet is opening and you feel the need to pay for a full years insurance rather than the free six weeks we are offering, and as you do this you will feel happy and content and at ease”
Mr Coops, crime buster!
My 13 year old sister recently had her new mobile phone attacked by dozens of spam text messages (Things like, ‘Reply now to receive the new Virtual Hallmark Postcard’.) She deleted all of them, but they just kept coming, even in the middle of the night! Then we realised that her credit kept dropping every time she received a text. They were charging her for every text they sent her! Eventually, we managed to get the texts blocked, because it turned out that all 45 of them had come from the same number!
Hi ,
Thanks for the heads up. I would only pay when I dial the billing line , not when some random person phones and just asks for the money or if they can verify my account details from the company then I be more inclined to believe them.
I seen this scam yaers ago, but wouldn’t fall for things like this. I like the American bloke that got sick of nuissance calls and decided to have a bit of fun with the guy on the other end of the call, he pretended he was a police officer investigating a murder scene at the house and was wanting to know how the guy knew the murder victim and such, it’s on youtube and very funny as the caller starts to get very worried.
Also I have found that the auto generated sales calls work on a similar way where if they phone you and you don’t hang up it keeps the line open and the poor sales person can’t make any more calls until you hang up, they get very annoyed after a few hours!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5z4Vs26-TI
Oh dear. I’m 68 and a grandparent. Do you think perhaps I’m old and vulnerable – maybe a bit loopy and stupid too. Any advice would be appreciated.
Well as far as I know I can hang up the phone here in North America and not have someone pull what they did with the mute button. A hang up is a hang up. Unless I am missing something with respect to how he did it. Still good to warn people about it in the UK!
i heard about this a while ago. i hate cold calls as it is. i get about 5 per day. it sounds pretty agressive though. i had a call a month ago where the bloke said i had been selected to win a holiday through having a good credit card standing or something credit card. i questioned every thing he said, including where he got the info from bout me and that i didnt have a cc nor anyone at my house! he then asked if i was some sort of security and i said why are you worried? he actully said yes!! then i went, if your not doing anything illiegal why should it matter. it was pretty funny really but he got really agressive because i wouldnt give in!
Nothing is sacred anymore, my grandparents would fall victim to that scam. Horrible people in this world today.
Gem x
haha It was probably FONEJACKER! that would be freaking hilarious!!!
I got given an exact copy of this message at work a few weeks ago. These sort of things make me so angry.
I received a text a few days ago from an ‘unknown sender’ which was saying that I was entitled to some moneyback (from where, I don’t know) and to text back and say ‘yes’ if I wanted in or if I wanted to opt out to text ‘stop’. That got me suspicious right away…..how can you opt out of something that I haven’t said yes to yet? I just ignored it. Another scam, most definitely.
LC x
I seem to be getting an increasing amount of emails from ‘Nigerian princes’ asking me to store some money in my bank account. The fact that I keep getting them kind of says to me that people are still falling for them. Who are these people?!!
God will strike them down! Oh wait a minute…
I’m thankful to you for pointing this out to us all, it sounds like a pretty clever ruse! Thieves and scammers are always a couple of steps ahead of law enforcement and prevention aren’t they? I have to say it is a bit of a mistake on BT’s part to not fix this massive design flaw in their communications system! You should be able to hang up from either end!
I’m not too sure Alexander Graham Bell had this trouble!
This is not a new scam, just a revised one.I recieve all sorts of scams, but what I say to the caller or the person sending me an e.mail is not printable and I have not lost a penny .
Hi wrore earlier but tired meant to say if a land line calls your land line and does not hang up then you cant get a line to call out until they hang up so they can hear you dialing trying to get a line. sorry c
I heard a great tip for this and ALL other calls from blag people. It works too. The answer is both simple and fun.
Here’s what you do.
Answer the ringing phone by saying “Detective Spencer, Fraud Squad”
Thats it. They never stay on the line to talk.
Another great one is to say “Jellystone Park, Rangers office…can I help” That way if the caller persists you can simply ask him “Have you had a problem with a bear taking your picnic basket sir?”
Or how about putting on an African voice and saying….”Dave….you’ve just made an internal call…stop it”
Just remember that you can annoy them too. Look forward to the next call and have a laugh.
Why are so many people replying to this post are explaining what happenend all over again ?
I get it, and your post already tells HOW the scam works.
This is a rethorical question … obviously.
Thanx for the tip Coop.
Why would you pay for a non billed charge?
Common sense would force me to ask him to send a bill.
Big companies never demand instant payment.
Great story!
I just had them call Gave some guff about the computers not working so they needed our details, gave them Lembit Opik’s name, this could be interesting…