Yesterday, our phone rang. I saw it was a 011xxxxxxxxxxxx number, and was not going to answer it, but my wife did answer it.

A voice said, “Martine?” to which she said yes. It was about carpeting, or roof tiles etc and she hung up without engaging in conversation.

I suspect it was a scam, of course.

What should I do to neutralize whatever hijinks are planned for her, assuming it is a scam.

The country code comes out to Nepal.

Never say yes when a strange number calls. There have been recent reports of people editing the call to make it sound as if you have agreed to some purchase or service. Not 100% sure how the scam works but just to be safe I never say yes if I actually answer the call.

Q.

Is this Mr. Skins?

A.

Who is this?

Q.

This is XYZ with ABC Co. Is this Mr. Skins?

A.

I am sorry bad cell service, can you just send me an email?

I answer with "What?" Most of the time I just let it right to voice mail. However my wife cannot just let a phone ring.

Never answer unknown numbers.

Interesting email tonight from "Chase" telling me that a $4K payment had been made to Traci somebody. I could click this link to go to the receipt. Try a little harder guys. URL had a .pl extension. Don't think Chase is shipping out emails from Poland.

They're not so smart.

RMD

quote:

Originally posted by rduckwor:
Interesting email tonight from "Chase" telling me that a $4K payment had been made to Traci somebody. I could click this link to go to the receipt. Try a little harder guys. URL had a .pl extension. Don't think Chase is shipping out emails from Poland.

They're not so smart.

RMD

They're smarter than a lot of folks out there, those who fall for their scams.

Thanks for all those. What ought I do, now that the event has occurred?

It’s too late to not answer this call, or not respond “yes.”

I’ve had her notify her credit cards.

Not much you can do now except check your statements for unauthorized charges.

http://fortune.com/2017/03/28/yes-scam-phone-call/

Yeah, I do answer numbers not known unless from another country. I never say YES and if they ask me who this is, I respond with Who is this? Tell me who you are, where you're calling from and I will let you know if I want to continue talking to you and maybe you'll get my name, if you're not satisfied with that, you can suck it. How can I help you?

A very long time ago I was at my folks house and they weren't home. The phone rang and I answered. A guy started right into his sales pitch, and so I let him ramble for a bit. Then I interrupted and said, hey, look, I don't live here ok. I was robbing the place, the phone rang and I thought I'd answer it.

Thanks. I knew about this one, and view incoming calls as a potential source of amusement but not displaying foreign numbers. I won’t give any verifying info to an incoming caller which drives medical callers nuts.

My wife thought it might be from her relatives, and picked it up. She won’t be doing that again.

I've gotten a few scam calls from familiar area codes and numbers, making you more likely to pick up. For example, if your number is 866-455-3234, they call from +1(866)455-3234. Almost didnt catch the +1 which I assume means its coming from out of the country.

quote:

Originally posted by keeotee:
A very long time ago I was at my folks house and they weren't home. The phone rang and I answered. A guy started right into his sales pitch, and so I let him ramble for a bit. Then I interrupted and said, hey, look, I don't live here ok. I was robbing the place, the phone rang and I thought I'd answer it.

lol

When I was a young cop and thought I was funny, I would answer the phone when it would ring when we were searching houses/buildings, "_____ Police, how can I help you". It was always the alarm company, but I thought I was funny.


Now a days, when my phone rings and I don't know who it is, I answer in Spanish. That usually works.

We keep getting calls from Hewlett Packard and there's never anyone on the other end. When I call back, HP answers but claim it's not them making the calls. They say it some sort of hacking and the hackers are checking to see if the line is active ?

quote:

Originally posted by chongosuerte:
when my phone rings and I don't know who it is, I answer in Spanish.

Back in the 1980s AT&T owned a 25% interest in Olivetti, the company that manufactured much of the telephone equipment used in Italy. I was a software engineer at AT&T / Bell Labs, working in a department that was converting some of our AT&T equipment to meet Italian requirements.

My team included a group of visiting engineers from Italy who were in the U.S. to work with us on the transfer of technology. The day they arrived, my new office mate introduced himself: "My name Amadeo Tia. I study English tree month," he said proudly.

He and I decided that we would alternate days. One day would be English day in our two-man office, the next day would be Italian day.

I did not learn as much Italian as I wanted to, but due to his coaching, I am told that I have a very authentic sounding inflection when i do speak the little Italian that I know.

It works well with scammers and telemarketers. Especially when I ask them, in Italian-accented English, what they are wearing.

I think Amy is getting wise to me.

quote:

Originally posted by NK402:
We keep getting calls from Hewlett Packard and there's never anyone on the other end. When I call back, HP answers but claim it's not them making the calls. They say it some sort of hacking and the hackers are checking to see if the line is active ?

Yes, I could call you right now and make it look like I was calling from HP. Or your local police department, the White House, or any other number. It's easy and widely available technology that scammers use. It's called 'spoofing'.

Here's an easy to use spoofing solution that anyone can use:
https://www.spoofcard.com/

I always like to emphasize this...It's the number one best protection against scams:

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:
Never answer unknown numbers.

My standard answer, if I answer, is "who's calling".
I also have a complete credit freeze on all 3 bureaus that costs under $15 and lasts forever or until I unfreeze it. No monitoring required.

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:
Never answer unknown numbers.

Exactly what I do. If no message is left the number gets blocked.

Do not answer unfamiliar numbers.

If you do, you end up on scammers' lists of "live numbers." Then the frequency of the calls increases.

I was getting 2 to 6 scam calls a day on my mobile. I installed Trucaller and the frequency is dropping, but I still get one between 1000-1200 and another between 1400-1600 every damned day.

Another current and common spoof - you get a call from a number that has the same area code and prefix of the number you are using (the last four digits are different).

The idea is that you're more likely to answer a call from a local number.

I got one of those "US Government" calls a couple of weeks ago. The user spoke with a heavy accent - I had to ask him to repeat the name of the department - he still used "US Government Department of xx (still couldn't understand him). As the call was coming in to me on a weekend, I HIGHLY suspected the call to be bogus - and stated it as such.