Marks & Spencer Phone Call - Spam?

[Lyneham Lad]

8.30 this morning my wife answered the phone - "Mark & Spencer here, may we speak to your husband?" No reason given. I pick up the phone (bleary-eyed having been still asleep). Female Indian voice - "Am I speaking with Mr xxx" Yes. "Can you confirm that your postcode is xxx yyy?" Erm, yes. "and can you confirm your house number is zz?" A puzzled yes. Before I could even begin to ask why, she hung up.

OK, if I had had my wits about me and not just staggered out of bed, I would have handled it differently but what have 'they' gained? They had my phone number, address, post code and name - yes they now know it for sure but aren't there fairly readily available means of some sort of reverse look-up where the name and address for a particular phone number can be found? Puzzled.

PS - a 1471 call gave the number as 0208 859 3636.

[ShyTorque]

I had a similar thing some years ago; my mobile phone rang while I was in town (in the bank, of all places). I was suspicious about the caller so I refused to confirm the requested details and rang off. After a few minutes I then received another call from a different person who sounded angry and claimed to be "Doncaster police station". This person refused to clarify who he actually was (wouldn't give a collar number, I don't think he knew what I was asking). He came out with a c-ock and bull story about a person they had arrested who claimed to be me. I told this person I was going to ring Doncaster police station to check this with the South Yorks police - the call was then immediately cut off.

On my return home a few hours later I noticed a message on our home phone. It was from a wholesale company who told me they had just refused to process a suspicious transaction on my credit card - it was for hundreds of pounds worth of...shoes!

I reported the incident to my bank and to the real police; the latter took a statement but I heard nothing more about it.

[jolihokistix]

My phone rang the other morning and an Indian bloke asked if we were indeed XYZ (famous) internet provider customers. "Yes" I said, half-asleep.
"I just need you to start up your computer and go on line while I hold", he said.
"Er, no, I can't do that", I replied.
"Why not?" he asked, sounding irritated.
"Sorry, but I just can't..." At that he suddenly called me every filthy name under the sun, and hung up.

The reason that I could not dial up was that I had just arrived from a trip abroad and had not yet set up the pc, but it was early in the morning and I could not find the right words to explain.

Anyway, what the hell was that???

[FullOppositeRudder]

We've had something of an epidemic of this kind of rubbish over a period of a couple of weeks - two or three calls every day using both my home and mobile phone numbers. I really went off the planet at the last caller (my wife was shocked, and I believe that I surprised myself too).

Nothing now for the past three days - have they all died? Have they really given up on me? Did my tirade work? One can only hope ...

Edited to add: NO they haven't, mid afternoon. phone rings "private number" in the display, there is silence of about three seconds, a brief bust of noise which could only come from a call centre, then the voice ...."Hullo?" Phone is replaced on hook. I am tempted to go out in the back garden and shout obscenities ... Some measure of self control is retrieved, and I go back to what I was doing ...

Except that I can't remember what it was that I was doing ..... :sad:

[le Pingouin]

jolihokistix, they're wanting to initiate a remote session so they can install malware on your system. They'll also probably say they're running a scan, will "find" assorted nasties and offer to clean it for a fee.

[jolihokistix]

Makes sense. Thank you Pingouin!

[spekesoftly]

Nuisance calls are so frequent that I only answer numbers I recognise, and ignore all others. If there's no voicemail message, the call wasn't important.

[Amos Keeto]

Nuisance calls are so frequent that I only answer numbers I recognise, and ignore all others. If there's no voicemail message, the call wasn't important.

Good policy! We keep our phone permanently on answerphone. If scammers hear a recorded message, they know they can't scam you and hang up. If we're near the phone, we listen to see if anyone important starts to leave a message, then intercept it.

[Procrastinus]

Another approach I once heard of was to keep the spam caller on line as long as possible because they are paid by results only.
Answering just 'yes' to every question is great fun!
Try it!

[ExSp33db1rd]

I just put the receiver down by the TV or Radio, whichever might be on, and ... Walk Away !!

[Ancient Observer]

SWMBO and I were fed up with these calls, so installed one of the call blocker sets of phones. Brilliant.

[jimjim1]

One thing to be aware of is that Caller ID's are not reliable. They are reliable if you call somone from your personal phone (the right number or blank is assured) however large phone users can put what they like in the Caller ID.

Before the OUTRAGE:) boils up too far there are sound technical reasons for this.

A large organisation might want to have the corrrect extension number in the outgoing phone call. They get to populate the caller ID field.

A large organisation might want to buy phone lines from more than one supplier and wish to preserve the caller ID irrespective of the Telephone Company that any particular call actually goes out on. They get to populate the caller ID field.

Obviously, it's even more entertaining for calls that at some point go over the internet as normal IP traffic.

Anyway the fact is that users of large numbers of phone lines can put what they like in the caller ID.

It's a matter of the equipment you have on your site rather than the number of lines you have but typically it applies to companies with quite a few lines.

Just something to remember.

[FullOppositeRudder]

There is one aspect of this whole business that I find difficult to comprehend. A look at the locations of those who have commented upon this thread suggests that this seems almost to be a worldwide assault. At the local level here in one of the lesser colonies in OZ, it comes up in casual conversation quite often, which means that it's a common nuisance here also. Somewhere there must a room(s) with an unlimited phone service with thousands of people making these calls to citizens of the world 24/7. This is a growth industry. Factually of course, it's no different in motive to any other attempt to swindle people by any of the other time proven methods over the years - pickpockets to name just one. It used to be faintly amusing; no longer. Fact is that these b@st@rds are blatant liars with robbery / theft as their intention, and as such are a blight on common decency which distinguishes us from earlier types of upright evolutionary forms. But then again, I read the papers, I see the TV news, I watch politicians answering questions, and I ponder. (You get my drift....)

Incidentally, I can report report that despite my earlier elation in reporting that they appear to have forgotten me; it was short lived. Four calls yesterday (sigh). All of our phone calls with a caller ID which is not immediately recognisable are now taken in the first instance by the answering machine.

[glad rag]

Nuisance calls are so frequent that I only answer numbers I recognise, and ignore all others. If there's no voicemail message, the call wasn't important.

As we all gain in years it is vitally important that the messages..
.."I only answer numbers I recognise, and ignore all others"
&
.."If there's no voicemail message, the call wasn't important"

Gets passed on.

These b@stards are devious and pray on peoples psychological weaknesses..

[Nervous SLF]

Another approach I once heard of was to keep the spam caller on line as long as possible because they are paid by results only.
Answering just 'yes' to every question is great fun!
Try it!

I had one of those calls yesterday and just for a change I kept saying "yes" to every question. He finally
realised I was extracting the urine and called me lots of naughty names as I was laughing at him. Actually
it was his lucky day because normally I just blast the thieves ears with an extremely loud personal alarm :)

[togsdragracing]

The last one of these I had, I shouted f-off at the woman and put the phone down. The phone rang again, I picked it up, the same person shouted the f word several times and hung up on me. She got points for that, but no money.

[kenparry]

We used to get loads of these - several per day - and about an equal number where, on answering, there was only silence. There is a huge "industry" of scammers, using autodialling of huge numbers of targets simultaneously. If you answer such a call and there is no rogue immediately available to talk to you, you get the silence.

Our cure is a phone system that filters incoming calls, rings on those that come from numbers in the memory, and diverts all others to a message that allows the caller to respond or to leave a message.

The result of this is blessed relief: zero spam calls. Our phone is from BT, but I'm sure other makes are available.