Friday, February 5, 2010

Spam phone calls are so much fun!

We got a phone call today, caller was asking for DH by name (first name). I handed the phone to him, and he talked for about 10 seconds and then said "You'll have to talk to my wife, she handles all the money matters in our household." and handed the phone to me. The guy on the phone didn't identify himself, asked me if I was Mrs. DH, and when I said yes, said that DH was due a tax refund of $6,038 and...... That was all the further he got because I told him it was a scam and I hung up on him.
Now, what had given me the idea that it was a scam? Other than the fact that we had already done our taxes for the year and knew we didn't have a refund coming? Well, for one thing, this same voice had called on Tuesday, caller ID had said UNKNOWN NAME/UNKNOWN NUMBER, when he asked for DH, DH wasn't available and I said so, he asked when would be a good time to call back, I said in an hour, and he never called back. Number two, first call today from same voice, was unknown name, but phone number had an area code of 000 (which doesn't exist), when I answered, I could hear lots of people talking in the background but couldn't understand the caller. When I asked who they were calling, they hung up on me. In less than 5 minutes, got another call, which was the one asking for DH and talking about the tax refund (and this time, name and number were blocked). The voice on this second call today was the same as the voice on the call Tuesday.
I really doubt that whoever/whatever will be calling back, since sie is now aware that we are aware sie are a scam and we aren't falling for it. I think the reason sie hung up on me the first time today is because sie forgot to block the number when sie called.
I would say that this is one of those things that falls under "if it sounds too good to be true, it's probably a rip-off." I wonder how long this one has been going around, and how many people have bought into it?

3 comments:

  1. Don't know if it would make any difference in this case, but my wife has found the National Do Not Call registry ( www.donotcall.gov) invaluable for limiting the number of marketing calls she gets, particularly as in the US they seem to have a knack for phoning in the middle of dinner or the show you've waited all week to catch just to offer you new windows or a swimming pool or a big fat loan at 30% APR.

    The US version however doesn't include political canvassing and nonprofits so she still gets hassled around voting time, almost to the point of taking the thing off the hook during the recent Mass elections.

    In the UK we have something called the National Telephone Preference List, which also includes nonprofits and charities and which along with the Mailing Preference List has been invaluable in reducing the bombardment of telephone and postal junk I was getting when I bought his house (last owner was a credit card / competition fiend) to virtually zero.

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  2. All of our phone numbers are on the Do Not Call registry, and I renew that as needed, but it still doesn't block all the spam calls, unfortunately. And it doesn't block politicians or charities at all, also unfortunate.

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  3. We get those 000-000-0000 spam calls, too. I always wonder how they can set it so a nonexistent number shows up on caller ID.

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