Let's Fight Back Against Scammers and Spammers

[fightbackninja]

Re: Let's Fight Back Against Scammers and Spammers

BT Engineer Charges Cold Caller
Richard Herman was plagued by calls from a PPI cold calling company. He asked them to stop calling him but the calls continued. So, next call he warned them that if they called again he would bill them for his time at £10 per minute.
The Nuisance Calls continued and he kept a log and recordings of all Nuisance Calls about PPI received. He informed them that would base his bill for the use of his telephone electricity and time dealing with their calls.
He submitted a bill top the company (PPI Claim line Limited) for £195 which was 19.5 minutes of his time answering and dealing with the unwanted calls.
Even when the company denied making the PPI Nuisance Calls to him it didn’t deter him. He took them to court, but the case didn’t continue.
They settled out of court for £220 and paid him.
Hooray for Richard Herman.
Make them pay for wasting your time.

[fightbackninja]

Re: Let's Fight Back Against Scammers and Spammers

Annoy Cold Callers by Being Friendly and Questioning
For example:-
Caller: Hello. Is that Mr. …..
Me: What do you want? (in a bored ‘heard it all before’ tone of voice)
Caller: My name is Natasha and I’m calling from Lifestyle Choices. I would just like you to help me please with answers to a few questions. It will only take 2 minutes.
Me: (now sounding friendly) So, you’re Natasha and you’re from Lifestyle Choices. Do you do a lot of surveys Natasha?
Caller: If you could just answer a few questions Sir.
Me: Natasha, Do you work for Lifestyle Choices or are you just contracted to them?
Caller: I work for Lifestyle Choices. If you could answer a few questions Sir.
Me: So, Lifestyle Choices – what do they do.
Caller: Can you answer some questions please Sir.
Me: Of course, after you answer my questions. Now, where was I. Oh Yes, I remember. You were going to tell me about Lifestyle Choices.
Natasha disconnects.
Good riddance to another cold caller.

[fightbackninja]

Re: Let's Fight Back Against Scammers and Spammers

Pre-Paid Return Envelopes

Do you get those letters from finance companies saying you have been pre-approved for a loan or a credit card?

Often they have pre-paid return envelopes. Now that’s an opportunity too good to miss.
Send it back to them complete with whatever other sales letters you got that day (don’t leave your address on anything though) or send them back folded sheets of newspaper or any rubbish to hand.
Or you can be creative – fill the envelope with confetti or shredded sales leaflets.
They pay the postage whatever the contents. It’s their envelope – you’re just returning it to them. If we all return the envelopes then perhaps they’ll stop sending out the stupid letters that we don’t want.

[fightbackninja]

Re: Let's Fight Back Against Scammers and Spammers


Susan says “My response to cold callers and scammers varies depending on my mood… Sometimes I just put the phone down. If I stay on the line, I always ask their name and I never confirm my name”.

“I never swear at them because it’s pointless – they’re just trying to earn money.”

“Once I had a guy ring me up telling me I had won some prize and all I had to do to get the prize was answer a simple question. It was obviously a scam so I played along.”

Caller: What is the capital of France?
Me: Louisiana – that’s French.

Caller: No, the capital of France.
Me: Oh a city – New Orleans.

Caller: No. Try again. What’s the capital of France?
Me: Luxembourg – that’s in Europe. Right?

I answered Egypt, New York – anything that came to mind.
In the end, even he was laughing.

Of course I didn’t get the non-existent prize, but I did waste ten minutes of his time.

[fightbackninja]

Re: Let's Fight Back Against Scammers and Spammers

Valerie Deals with Cold Callers


Valerie says she got fed up with cold callers years ago and signed up for the Telephone Preference Service. This led to a big reduction in the number of calls but she still does receive them.


They seem to call her mostly around 6 pm – they wait till they think you’re home from work and some even call her around 8 am when she’s having breakfast. She had three callers in one afternoon.


Valerie pays the extra money each month for caller Id on her phone so she can see who’s calling.


For cold callers, she keeps a very loud whistle by the phone and if it’s a cold caller they get a good blast of that.


If the whistle isn’t to hand, then she simply says ‘I’ll just get Mrs J.. for you’ and leaves the phone off the hook so it continues to cost the caller.


Cold callers can be a real nuisance, but I bet Valerie doesn’t get the same caller twice.

[fightbackninja]

Re: Let's Fight Back Against Scammers and Spammers

Pete Deals With Cold Callers

W. says her boss Pete doesn’t take to cold callers wasting his time.


For example:-


A call from someone claiming to be in computer support: I want to talk with you about your computer.


Pete: No. I don’t want to talk to you about my computer. Goodbye.


A minute later, another caller from the same company: My colleague just phoned to talk with you about your computer


Pete: Your colleague obviously doesn’t understand English –I said NO! What part of NO doesn’t he get? and slammed the phone down.


Pete’s philosophy is don’t waste time on these callers.


Another time he told a caller to stop wasting his time and she told him to be more polite.


Pete said’ Alright I’ll be polite – please bleep off”


Another time, Pete wanted to have more fun and started a sales pitch on selling the caller life insurance. That really confused the caller.


Don’t waste your time on theses callers unless you want to have fun confusing them.

How do you deal with cold callers???

[fightbackninja]

Re: Let's Fight Back Against Scammers and Spammers

Harry Bombards The Cold Caller With Questions


Harry didn’t like being pestered by cold callers and didn’t like being asked lots of irrelevant questions.


And he figured the cold callers wouldn’t like it either.


So, as soon as they started into their scripted questions, he bombarded them with his own questions.


“Who are you”


“Why are you phoning me?”


“How did you get my phone number?”


“Why are you wasting my time?”


“Who said you could phone me?”


“Why should I answer your questions?”


“Who told you to phone me?”


The cold callers usually recognise they are losing this battle and give up.

[fightbackninja]

Re: Let's Fight Back Against Scammers and Spammers

Julie Deals with Cold Callers By Being Caring

Julie is a committed Christian and does not want to make life difficult for cold callers.

Her natural response to such callers is to talk with them.

After their opening pitch, she asks something such as

“I’m curious, why did you choose this job?

Or “Shame, it must be really hard calling people up with a marketing script all day long”

And she is genuinely interested in the answers.

They do tend to end the call but if they stay on and start to talk then Julie takes the opportunity to tell them about her Christian beliefs and how that affects her life.

When busy, Julie does just say No to callers and puts the phone down as most people do, but that doesn’t get your number taken off their calling lists so you will get more calls.

[fightbackninja]

Re: Let's Fight Back Against Scammers and Spammers

The Magic Phone Number

When buying something online or registering online there is usually a form to fill in of your details and quite often this insists on your telephone number even though you know it’s not needed.This is annoying, plus, you wonder what they will do with your phone number. Will they sell it or give it to third parties?, resulting in phone calls you don’t want.


As the forms usually check the number is in the correct format, you need a real phone number to input.


You can use 0333 88 88 88 88 (the last 8 doesn’t matter if the form only allows 11 digits.)
When, they call, those cold call culprits will hear a short recorded message:-


“trueCall38 is handling my calls. I prefer not to be contacted by phone, so please contact me via my email address. Goodbye!”
Problem solved.


Do companies block this number from being entered in the form? No, but if they do then Trucall38 have a display page “Wall of Shame” but none has done so thus far.
Q. Why do companies ask for your phone number?
They rarely really need it, and you don’t know what they are going to do with it. Interestingly, experts say that asking for a phone number can reduce the number of people who complete an online form by 25%. That’s a big loss.


Of course, some companies sell their customers phone numbers on to other companies, so you don’t know who’ll get your number.
Call Blocking
The business behind the website trucall38.com have developed a call blocking device called Trucall that is reported to have been 95% successful in blocking nuisance calls. The technology has been licensed to BT and is incorporated in their BT8500 phone.
Trucall claim that half a million people in the UK are now protected from nuisance phone calls by their technology.


The guys behind Truecall say “We thought that everyone should have the opportunity to opt out of handing over their phone number unless they wanted to, so we launched the trueCall38 number – a completely free service”.
If you don’t want someone to have your phone number – tell them 0333 88 88 88 88

[fightbackninja]

Re: Let's Fight Back Against Scammers and Spammers

Joanne Has a Persistent Cold Caller


Joanne isn’t bothered by scam and spam emails – just presses delete for anything at all dodgy.


And she has fun with the Microsoft support scam phone calls that have been happening a lot recently.


Joanne says “With ‘Microsoft’ scam calls I tend to feign interest. I go along with what they’re saying, let them deliver their speech and then say ‘Oh, I don’t have a pc’. Then they hang up, which I find amusing”.


But she has had problems with a very determined cold caller – Zenith Windows.


Constant calls annoyed Joanne and no amount of explaining she wasn’t interested would put them off. She tried a high pitched whistle – still they called.


She threatened to report them for harrassment – no effect.


She threatened a solicitor’s letter – still they called.


She complained to their head office – no change.


When she moved house, she assumed that would be the end of Zenith calls, but they tracked her down through a previous employer.


Fortunately for Joanne, her ex employer realised the situation and denied knowing Joanne.


When does cold calling become harassment?
When does cold calling become threatening behaviour?


Not good.

[fightbackninja]

Re: Let's Fight Back Against Scammers and Spammers

Sara Confronts a Local Business Scammer

Sara ordered nearly a thousand pounds worth of window shutters and six months later she says


“To date I have not received my shutters and I’m still trying to get my money back”


The business wouldn’t return her calls or respond to her emails.


She says “the only time I get through to him is calling him from telephone numbers which he doesn’t recognise. Since I placed my order he has changed his website and is trading under a new company name. He is still taking orders – and presumably money! – from customers. “


The Fightback Ninja heard what had happened and contacted Sara with an offer to publicise the story on his blog Fightback Ninja Blog and on his radio spot on Brooklands Radio.


Sara didn’t reply straightaway but instead forwarded the Ninja’s message to the company.


And suddenly they wanted to talk with her.


That’s the power of Radio.


Cheats want to stay hidden from the glare of publicity.


Sara says “I finally got a reply from Mr X after I forwarded Fightback Ninja’s offer to do a case study on radio and the www. After learning of his circumstances, I didn’t want to add to his problems.The good news is the credit card company have upheld my claim so I’m not out of pocket which makes me more inclined to draw a line under the matter”.


Well done Sara (with a little help from the Fightback Ninja)


If you are scammed, don’t just accept it. Do whatever you can to get the money back and stop the scammer if possible. Also you should report the scam to Action Fraud.

[Amethyst]

Re: Let's Fight Back Against Scammers and Spammers

So long as we don't have to dress like Sara... looks slightly uncomfortable.

This might be interesting read for you re the talktalk data breach issues ( if you haven't already read it ) https://geoffwhite.tech/

[fightbackninja]

Re: Let's Fight Back Against Scammers and Spammers

Thanks. Will have a read.

never trusted Talk Talk with data or anything confidential.
A company with the world's worst customer service should always be skirted around.

[fightbackninja]

Re: Let's Fight Back Against Scammers and Spammers

Twitter Fights Back Against Scammers

Twitter is enormously successful, but this has meant that a whole community of people create and sell dummy Twitter accounts by the thousands, largely to scammers and spammers .


This is a problem for Twitter as they prohibit use of automation to create accounts and the selling of accounts.


Twitter is always looking for better ways to identify these dummy accounts before they are used for sending scams and spam messages.


A group of researchers approached Twitter asking for permission to purchase credentials from a variety of Twitter account merchants. They got their permission and spent $5,000 over ten months buying accounts from at least 27 different underground sellers.


This totalled some 121,000 Twitter accounts at prices from $10 to $200 per thousand.


When you crate a new Twitter account there are two barriers that should stop scammers but they don’t.


First is the Capcha –which is the picture containing numbers and you have to key in the numbers. Computers are very poor at doing these so it prevents an automatic system from making accounts. However, the scammer pay workshops in China, India or eastern Europe to solve the Capchas.


Second is the need for a valid email address but these can be created automatically on services such as Hotmail, so problem solved for the scammers.


The researchers bought a lot of Accounts from the merchants and identified key qualities that were consistently present. This then enabled the creation of profiles for each merchant.


Twitter then used those profiles to delete large numbers of dummy accounts that had been created.


As the merchants typically built up a bank of thousands of accounts before selling, they then hit problems as most of their accounts had become worthless. The 27 merchants concerned lost a lot of money and their reputations.


The project was a big success. However checks some months later showed that the merchants were changing their methods and the profiles no longer worked so well in identifying the dummy accounts.


It’s a constant battle for Twitter but they are fighting the good fight.

[fightbackninja]

Re: Let's Fight Back Against Scammers and Spammers

Royal Mail Opt Out of Junk Mail Deliveries

Royal Mail deliver letters and parcels to your door every day, but they also drop lots of leaflets and other unaddressed mail through your letterbox.


They have an opt-out service you can sign up to stop them leaving you this stuff, but you don’t see this service advertised ever. They make too much money from leafleting for them to advertise how to stop it.


Royal Mail say their Door-to-Door Opt-Out is a free service that will stop unsolicited, unaddressed mail delivered by the postman. Signing up to the scheme is the single most effective measure you can take to reduce junk mail.


Now Royal Mail has never done much to promote its opt-out scheme for leaflets and as a result few people know it even exists. Yet, the opt-out scheme will prevent leaflets in with your post, these are mostly from household name companies such as Virgin Media, BT, Sky, Talk Talk, Farmfoods, Pizza places, Morrisons and sometimes local companies.


There are two types of junk mail


direct mail addressed to an individual
door to door mail marked for “the occupier”
It’s the second type that this opt out can remove but the first type will always get through. The Royal Mail say that ‘The Occupier’ type mail is only 25% of the total junk mail.


How to Register


On the Royal Mail website, search on “opt out” and you’ll find how to download the PDF form you must fill in and return to Royal Mail. After two years, Royal Mail will kindly take you off the opt out list without reminding you. So you need to regularly re-register.


The Direct Marketing Association says more than a third of recipients respond “positively” to direct mail, so perhaps some of it is useful.