HMRC, Amazon, BT etc telephone scammers

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Sat 27 Mar 2021 08:30
HMRC, Amazon, BT etc telephone scammers - John F

This is a message to anyone with time on their hands - fake stupidity and engage with them. I often amuse myself while doing something else by keeping them on the line for as long as possible, with painstakingly slow speech and random clicking while they think I am downloading their control program. This temporarily saves someone else possibly more vulnerable. When I eventually ask them how it feels to be such a shameful evil human being, they usually hang up immediately but are often amusingly abusive. But my question is, why do they all, without exception, have a south asian accent? Are they yet another phenomenon of the failure of the UK brand of 'multiculturalism'?

If lots of people did this I think they would soon give up.

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Sat 27 Mar 2021 09:14
HMRC, Amazon, BT etc telephone scammers - skidpan

One friend of mine used to have a referees whistle by the phone which he blew enthusiastically once he realised it was a scam call, he hoped the burst eardrum they should have suffered would stop them in the future.

A work colleague used to get a weekly phone call asking for the winning lottery numbers. Despite telling the person (who was obviously ringing the wrong number) that he could not help he eventually gave up and joined in the fun. He asked them what their first number was and confirmed it had been drawn, carried on with all 6 and the bonus ball (think that's how it works - never paid the idiot tax myself) and confirmed that had all the numbers. He could hear shouting and screaming in the background, they probably had a very happy night and a very sad morning the next day.

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Sun 28 Mar 2021 00:46
HMRC, Amazon, BT etc telephone scammers - expat

A work colleague used to get a weekly phone call asking for the winning lottery numbers. Despite telling the person (who was obviously ringing the wrong number) that he could not help he eventually gave up and joined in the fun. He asked them what their first number was and confirmed it had been drawn, carried on with all 6 and the bonus ball (think that's how it works - never paid the idiot tax myself) and confirmed that had all the numbers. He could hear shouting and screaming in the background, they probably had a very happy night and a very sad morning the next day.

We used to get wrong number calls asking for some lady and when we said she didn't live here people got quite abusive. One night we got one of those calls and told the caller that she was upstairs with a client. The caller was quite accepting of that so I think that actually might have been the type of business.

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Sat 27 Mar 2021 09:33
HMRC, Amazon, BT etc telephone scammers - Bromptonaut

But my question is, why do they all, without exception, have a south asian accent? Are they yet another phenomenon of the failure of the UK brand of 'multiculturalism'? .

I think they're in South Asia. Same reason as, when offshoring customer service was popular, you got South Asian accents. India has a decent number of suitably educated people and English is their second, and for many common, language.

I get the odd one with a West African accent - no doubt the same education and language thing applies in Nigeria and probably other countries.

The latest variant tell me, sometimes claiming to be Domestic and General, that the warranty on my washer/dishwasher or whatever is about to expire. Except for the boiler I have, given I'm now retired and have cash to spare, given up on such warranties.

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Sat 27 Mar 2021 10:46
HMRC, Amazon, BT etc telephone scammers - Xileno

Yes it's good fun winding them up, I do this occasionally if I've got the time. I think the longest is about ten mins before they realise that there are only so many rooms in the house where I need to check to find my glasses. I had one the other day who said that I might get a virus, to which I replied I've had my jab, so we had that for a bit before he hung up.

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Sat 27 Mar 2021 10:59
HMRC, Amazon, BT etc telephone scammers - movilogo

I received fake Covid vaccine text. It tricked me believing it was from NHS but URL looked phishy.

Had a laugh when it asked bank details for establishing identity. I filled up with some fake details :-)

The URL is quick one to spot phishing scams. In this case it was nhs.something_else.com

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Sat 27 Mar 2021 12:09
HMRC, Amazon, BT etc telephone scammers - _

The funniest one I have, is

I beleive you involved in an accident?

me... yes.

Can you tell me when it was.

me.... about 1973.

call ends.

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Sat 27 Mar 2021 22:19
HMRC, Amazon, BT etc telephone scammers - alan1302

why do they all, without exception, have a south asian accent? Are they yet another phenomenon of the failure of the UK brand of 'multiculturalism'?

As they are from South Asia...

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Sun 28 Mar 2021 10:03
HMRC, Amazon, BT etc telephone scammers - skidpan

why do they all, without exception, have a south asian accent? Are they yet another phenomenon of the failure of the UK brand of 'multiculturalism'?

As they are from South Asia...

The scammers are actually in the country they appear to be from, that way the UK authorities cannot act against them.

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Sun 28 Mar 2021 10:38
HMRC, Amazon, BT etc telephone scammers - daveyjp

They are south Asian because they are sat in India. Or are you naive enough to believe every call you get in the UK is from someone sat in the UK?

I've seen one scammer who used a call to get all the details of where the scammer was calling from to such an extent he hacked the building's CCTV system and watched the scammer doing his work.

It was an office in Bangalore.

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Sun 28 Mar 2021 10:47
HMRC, Amazon, BT etc telephone scammers - Bromptonaut

They are south Asian because they are sat in India. Or are you naive enough to believe every call you get in the UK is from someone sat in the UK?

For background listen to this long piece about this sort of fraud and number spoofing on BBC R4's Money Box programme:

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000tmb4

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Sun 28 Mar 2021 10:50
HMRC, Amazon, BT etc telephone scammers - Bolt

They are south Asian because they are sat in India. Or are you naive enough to believe every call you get in the UK is from someone sat in the UK?

I've seen one scammer who used a call to get all the details of where the scammer was calling from to such an extent he hacked the building's CCTV system and watched the scammer doing his work.

It was an office in Bangalore.

Some computer experts on You Tube search them out, and using VMs in most cases are able to shut them down and steal what info they had.

some have even tracked them down and got some money back for some people that had been scammed, as in certain cases the scams involve more than a phone call or being hacked, which the victim until its too late has no idea there pc was watching and listening to them

so there are people trying to stop them even if governments are not either willing to, or can ?

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Sun 28 Mar 2021 13:43
HMRC, Amazon, BT etc telephone scammers - catsdad

Re accents, one of the “BT” ones has a recorded message from a very plummy older gent who sounds like a native English speaker. Spoils it a bit by offering to “fix up” the problem.

maybe he is a hostage playing his own game with the spammers. ;-)

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