General Chat

My son has his number witheld because of his occupation, so blocking that would cut him off.
A lot of scam calls start off by asking you to verify your name and address. In that case I just cut them off as I figure that a genuine caller would know that in any case so would have no need to ask.

"The BT 8500 Nuisance Call Blocker is a cordless phone that can block up to 100% of unwanted calls, including:
International and number withheld
Payphones, or where there's no caller ID"

I made my own call blocker which only allows numbers on a white list by using an old fax card and modifying some free linux software. Works a treat. Free.

btw international numbers calling UK landlines will withhold the calling number so when declaring a rule for "number withheld" bear that in mind. Also lots of carers etc routinely withhold their mobile number.

Internet banking has been something I've never
used, don't trust it.
Old fashioned in that way.

another good thing to do is have a separate email account that you use only for important and confidential things like banking

then if you get an email that is supposed to be from your bank (or anywhere else you have a credit card or an account) in your other email account, you know right away that it is a scam because you never gave your bank or credit card or telephone provider that email address

Yes Gmail is good for tracking spam. We never answer the phone, we leave it to go to answer phone and only pick up if we recognise the caller. That way we don't get many spam calls or nuisance calls. Occasionally OH feels mischievous and rabbits on letting the microsof ones think he believes them until they get fed up.
Luckily because I always tell him about any spam repored on here or elsewhere he is very aware and hopefully won't fall into any traps. I too am always suspicious JC.

I have used the Doric a couple of times, that
usually ends up with them hanging up on me
:-D

one nice thing about gmail is it separates 99% of those things out and puts them in your 'spam' folder

and then it tells you: We have put this in 'spam' because it resembles other emails reported as spam ... or: Be careful! with a warning about possible fraud attempts


also ... if you hover your mouse over a link in any of those emails, you can see it isn't really going where it says it is going

(I have no idea how that works on a 'mobile device'!)

It goes against the grain, but I have learnt to be quite abrupt with unwanted callers. I actually told one persistent caller to "GET LOST"!! When I told OH he was horrified! He is far more polite, and although he doesn't fall for their plausible scams, he finds it impossible to hang up on them. :-(

Regarding BT, we usually get emails telling me my payment has been dishonoured and if I give them my bank a/c ******** ! They look very genuine, but there are little errors if you compare them with a genuine BT email/letter.

AnninGlos I think I come from a long line of suspicious women :-)

the problem for any of us, old or young, is when we run into one that's new to us

... like for older people, anything having to do with their computer (we're calling from Microsoft and we see you have a problem that we want to fix, if you give us your credit card number ...)

my mum just tells them she's an old lady and doesn't have a computer!

So do I :-)

Like your mum my radar comes into play but
my OH would never think about it till about 5
minutes after.

I'm 73 and hope when I'm the same age as your mum
I can run rings round them just like her :-)

The problem with some older people is that while they can be very savvy and 'run rings' round anyone, they come from a time when people were kind, people didn't run scams, people were, on the whole, honest. So they never expect anyone is taking them for a ride.

I was just meaning that those are the quick and easy rules to pass on if we know someone who might be vulnerable :-)


they don't call you, you call them, so always tell them you have to call them back

they don't ask you for personal information, you don't give it to anybody who does


the second one makes the first one unnecessary of course :-)


I'm lucky, my mum in her 80s can run rings around anybody who tries to scam her

in her 90s, though, my grandmother still thought there might be a free lunch somewhere that she could get hold of, so she was a little bit vulnerable to 'free offers' ...

JC appreciate your info and I do know the solutions
to these calls but I was thinking of those that do not
and wanted to pass on this latest one to them.

You are also correct about the preference service
and I forgot about that ( senior moment)

Thank you once again :-)

the solutions to those calls are so easy


if someone says they are calling from a company you do deal with, say you will have to call them back and you need their number, and talk to them *only* when *you* have called *them* ... after checking with the company that it is their number

if someone asks you for your personal information ... anything at all, name, address, credit card number ... *just say no*


those are the rules that everyone should know and follow

your bank never, ever, ever calls you 'to verify' personal information

never ... and the govenment doesn't either :-)


Emma the reason the preference service doesn't work is that even though the calls may look like they are coming from within the country, they are really coming from somewhere else ... could be India, could be the United States ... and there is no control over callers from other countries

Same here Det been on that one for years,
waste of time imo, never worked yet.

Good luck - let us know if it works out. We're on the Telephone Preference Service list but still get unwanted calls from UK organisations.

When questioned, they've said they've gone through the phone book.

Telephoned BT as had a call asking for details about my account
with themselves.
Nothing to make those who are not fully aware that they were being
given a 'friendly' call from BT when it was to verify their name, address
and telephone number.
Lady at end of phone informed me that BT would be giving me a call
in a few days, asked her why BT would do that, she said standard
procedure.
I informed her she was talking rubbish and put phone down.

BT informed me that several scams are under investigation and asked
If I wanted to go on to a scheme that stops me getting these calls free of
charge, this will start tomorrow.
You may know of this scam but some may not. Just wanted to inform you all :-)