Disturbed call recipients have been offered a new toy this month by electricity companies. A plug-in device that promises to save 40% of your energy bills for a not-so-small price starting at £99. The callers are alleged scammers, falsely claiming to be from energy suppliers or regulators, such as “British Gas.” Unfortunately, among the recipients, it is the elderly that are likely to be targeted as Moneyfacts report.
Hello tellows users!
A motley crew of pesterers and swindlers for you this week! There’s no rest for the wicked and therefore no rest for your phone either.
Caller number one, 01913009131, has got it all wrong. The idea with telesales is to keep the customer on the phone long enough to flog the product; this lot seem to have missed the point and will generally get about a sentence out before hanging up on you. This means we’re not 100% sure what ‘The Consumer Helpline’ are selling, but user Taylor gives us a clue…
askin if my partner had an acident last year. told him it was a long shot and hung up
I believe the correct term is ‘ambulance-chasers’.
Caller number two, calling from 02081509083, is a mysterious gentleman who seems to have trampled over colleagues and customers alike to achieve his financial goals. Under a plethora of identities and company names (most of them false, it seems), this caller has created himself a reputation that goes before him.
ryan_235 advises:
don’t touch this guy with a bargepole!!!! dodgy investments and a nasty habit of ripping you off and never paying you back. steer well clear.
pn__ gives us an ounce more insight:
villas, golf courses, murky dealings in Spain… not to be trusted.
If you hear any of the following names: Morgan Forbes/Pearl Island/First Capital Wealth/Hugh Herschell, alarm bells should ring! Remember, these sorts of people make money by being charming, so keep your wits about you!
Sombrely bringing up the rear is caller number three, a company called OTPL, on 0280697934, who are selling – wait for it – funeral insurance.
User Lynne’s experience:
phoning to sell funeral insurance from India apparently, multiple calls per day, very irritating
Like a gaggle of very persistent vultures, they’ll hover over your phoneline, calling you several times a day, for that extra dose of doom and gloom that we all need on an November day.
Keep saving these numbers under ‘time wasters’, or blocking them altogether if you can. Knowledge is power, so if you’re unsure about a caller, pop the number into tellows.co.uk and see what other users are saying about the caller.
Have a great week!
Your tellows team
Your PC is infected with a Virus! – That’s What They Say!
First things first, sit back and relax. If you receive a phone call from company that claims to work on the behalf of Microsoft, it is a fraudulant attempt to drain your bank account. These wannabe Microsoft employees will spin tales about the most malevolent of software and the ways your PC system was infected by it. According to the American computer forum bleepingcomputer.com the fraudsters will try to lure you on onto their website to download a software called Teamviewer. This program enables the scammers to access your PC directly and, therewith, provides them with the opportunity to download and install malware, manipulate your system settings and spy for personal data. However, Microsoft will not call to warn you of a potential viral infection and offer support for free. Microsoft is not ignorant of the scam and was quick to publish an article on their investigation into the matter on their windows blog.
It’s those Indians – Isn’t it?
In most cases the caller entertains an indian accent. According to the Guardian the calls may originate in India. Nonetheless, the collaboration of additional companies is required to successfully funnel the money back to India. Firms such as PayPal are tricked into these dark schemes by forged documents but once the scammer’s accounts have been identified they are shut down immediately. Unfortunately, reversing already processed debit cards payments is nearly impossible.
However, Indian call centres are only one cogwheel in far greater machination. In numerous cases fake spyware lead the PC user to believe that his or her windows suffers dangerous malware by displaying fake system reports. In the next step the software will urge the user to dial non-geographical bound numbers, such as 18005010335 and 01234765093 to contact support and, ultimately, purchase the fake anti-spyware program. The very existence of rogue anti-spyware program indicated the involvement of professional developers aiming at infecting the peoples’ PC for profit.
Knowledge is Power – And Profit as Well !!!
Considerably more dangereous than the infection itself, however, is the fact that the scammers’ target groups are the old and the ignorant. Both of those groups believe in the authortity of the caller and , therewith, deliver themselves into the trap. Since the people’s ignorance is the fraudsters’ greatest and most effective weapon it is imperative to share our knowledge on the topic in every way possible. Tellows.co.uk and tellows.com provide the means to share information quickly and without restraint (as long as conformity with the law is given). This scam is most virulent in the english speaking parts of the world, although similar attempts of fraud have been reported in Germany where fraudsters even mimic the Bundesnachrichtendienst, the german intelligence agency. The scammer’s knowledge goes hand in glove with their profits, our knowledge, however, equips us with the power to deny them every single cent, penny or whatever currency there might be!
Take Care !!!
Team Tellows
Sources:
1. Dealing with Fake Tech Support & Phone Scams – Windows Security Blog
2. Virus phone scam being run from call centres in India – The Guardian
3. Beware of phone telephone scammers calling on behalf of Google – Bleepingcomputer.com