New scam to beware of

Is there really a space in BT's (genuine) url?

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No

... If I understand correctly, spaces cannot be used in any eMail address or URL

MichaelG.

I treat them as a bit of amusement. I try to sound like an old fellow who isn't quite sure of what is going on, at 77 I suppose it's not too far from the truth. Usually the computer is upstairs and switched off so a slow climb with much puffing then a long boot up time, oops forgot my glasses and they are down stairs so another lot of huffing and puffing. Next is finding they key they normally want me to press, very sorry can't see it so they try to explain where and what it is. By this time my wife and I are trying not to laugh loud enough to give the game away. Eventually I will get bored talk normally and tell them what they are in no uncertain terms or they break the call. The best I've had is about 25 mins having been passed from one supervisor to another and they can get quite annoyed when they realise that it is them that have been conned. One even phoned back to ask why I had wasted their time, needless to say he was told explicitly what I thought of him and reminded him that they had paid for any phone charges.

It amuses me to string them along and all the time that the lowlifes are talking to me they are not attempting to con someone that is vulnerable.

I find this site quite useful as anyone who has been cold called can leave the number that called and a description of the call plus a flag that indicates, in their opinion, the type of call from annoying through to dangerous.

Martin

I just checked my spam box - only one message there. It was from Royal Mail regarding them being unable to deliver a large letter from the Crown Court (or something like that). I don’t know when it arrived, but was dated November 27th.

I had to chuckle - there was (in brackets), after the Royal Mail address, another bit in smaller print which read something like spam-safe or [email protected]. I can’t be sure, now, as it was already on its way to be permanently deleted...

Its the first time, ever, to receive an email telling me they couldn’t deliver. They usually pop a card through the letter box (and I don’t think they actually have my email addy, either🙂 ).

I wouldn’t respond to an email from a courier, even if I was expecting a parcel. But some must fall for it, I suppose.

Had several calls recently purporting to be from BT Openreach, no such thing as far as I know, either BT or Openreach, said I was in danger of losing broadband and wanted to make some changes. Put phone down and BT call blocker on for that number.

I don't claim to know it all but you can usually tell if a call is a scam. Working in industry we get many emails supposedly from legitimate sources but grammar and strange phrases is usually a give away.

Even so watching programs like watchdog you begin to wonder what we can trust these days, on the other hand some of the people you do see on these shows, apparently intelligent people, you can't help thinking what on earth were you thinking serves you right. Greed plays a big part in silly decisions.

I'm 78 so not all oldies are a soft touch.

Bill D.

A very well spoken lady from the UK called me and told me that a cousin of mine passed on a while ago, and left me one hundred and fifty five thousand pound which a haven't claimed yet if i would furnish her with my bank details and id number she will do the transfer. Problem is my cousin left England 18 years ago and died 5 years later in Canada as a pauper. Not all South Africans are idiots

As Martin W i do tend to treat the scammers as a sport.

I’ve had 30 minutes on the call sorting out problems on my computer whilst having a Bath with the scammers getting increasingly more angry at me misunderstanding what they want me to do.

But the one i had today was a first and I’d love to know what me giving them the code ends up as. Funningly enough

the same sort of call happened about 2 hours later and hovering over the email address didn’t offer up any other real address ...and yes I’d put a space in the address by accident

i had a new one the other day supposedly from the delivery people DPD. It was a text which said they had tried 2 times that day to deliver a parcel but could not as I was not in to sign for it. They said I could collect it from the depot where it now was ( in London about a hundred miles away) and pay £60 or I could pay a fee for a delivery later that day. the fee was £2.20.

I was in all day and I know that DPD currently don't ask for signature and let you know before the delivery that they are coming. A bit amateurish but they had copied all the DPD format so looked OK at first glance.

Just deleted the text

Ian, I think the code is there to make it look more official, probably use the same code for every punter they call. What would be amusing would be to give them a deliberately different code and see if they notice!

I just had the DPD one. It was from "DPD UK <[email protected]> " the link in the email started  "keramopt.biz/.login/dpd.co.uk"  just hover over it to see the link.

BTW with any of the big companies like BT you can do a reverse DPA on them to check their bonafides. Although they may not have your account open when they call the should know your account number, they should also be able to access your account and tell you the amount of your last bill, and when you last had an engineer visit even if it was 5 years ago.

Edited By Bazyle on 02/12/2020 19:26:13

Edited By Bazyle on 02/12/2020 19:43:59

John H

i did give them the wrong code 3 times each time they said that it was wrong

I do wonder if the email and 4 digit code actually comes to me from bt that the scammers are originating..then it comes to me as the registered email address and they need the code that bt have sent me to progress?

"... If I understand correctly, spaces cannot be used in any eMail address or URL

MichaelG."

Spaces can be used in URLs but they are substituted with %20 when processed, at least for the internet. Email addresses are a different animal.

The only useful info to capture from a dodgy email is the X-SourceIP: embedded in the email header which gives the true IP address of the computer the email was sent from. Email addresses visible in the email itself can be and usually are fake.

I had a couple of text messages (not emails) last week supposedly from the Halifax saying that unauthorised transactions had taken place and I need to click a link for more info. I'm not with the Halifax. The messages were deleted and the numbers blocked.

Ed.

Edited By Ed Duffner on 02/12/2020 19:52:27

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As the Pantomime season approaches ...

“ Oh Yes there is !! ”

**LINK** : https://www.openreach.com

MichaelG.

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Thanks Ed ... but that’s a bit too philosophical for me today

MichaelG.

Michael,

Wot do u mean, pantomime is on most of the year - @ Palace of Westminster!

I usually 'move on' after a contract ends - gas and elec., phone and broadband. One year, went on hunt for new power supplier and one claimed to be much cheaper but compensated by using higher, incorrect useage figures, still coming out marginally lower bottom line. Clever trick! Told him to use my figures which he did. Cut a long story short, after much buggering about he wanted me to go ahead and supply Bank details. I had guessed long before, that it was a scam, so told him I wasnt going to and why. He phoned me on a different no. several times each week with me cutting him off and blocking his no. All finally ended when on last call he apparently used my no. but last digit wrong and I blocked no he used. I am sure you all realise that the hope was I would automatically block my no.!

Dodgy calls in 2019 so bad that I asked for and got phone contractor to change the no. It was OK for a while then it all got bad again. Changed to new supplier and peace at last but it's the only good thing I have to say. Another fly in the ointment they havn't got awful customer service, it's simply non existent in my experience. In my opinion their phone and broadband is the poor relation of their ultimate owners and only want my £18/month. Make most of it, M., contract nearing end, will move on.

Just had a text message stating "Your EE account is on-hold. Your action is required message on Express Entry row: " and giving a link to which apparently went to www.eeuk1220.com.

So I went on the REAL EE site and found their reporting procedure, which apparently works for any mobile provider in the UK, so may be useful to you all. You forward the text to 7726 (free of charge) which then responds with a request for the number that sent the text. Send that, and job done.

Found further info about this on the Which? website.

Rob

A few days ago I had a call from "OpenReach" saying there was a problem with my broadband connection at which I asked when they were coming to get it repaired as I had been waiting for the last two days and nobody had appeared (Not true as everything was working OK!).

The guy asked me to log on to my computer and enter a website address but I asked how I could do that when my Broadband was down and I was waiting for Openreach to come and fix it! This flummoxed him completely when a invented a repair code for him and asked for an update!

This threw him off his script completely as he then asked me to log on six or seven times and he always got the same answer from me that my Broadband was down and I was waiting for the enginer to call. I then told him to wait until I had checked something out and he was still on the line when I returned and told him the Openreach engineer wanted to speak to him! Well he dropped the line instantly and I had about 10 minutes of entertainment.

Michael

Oh no there isn't!

About half way down the page you have linked to is a "It's Openreach not BT Openreach" and an explanation that they removed the BT about 2 years ago.

Rod

Rod - it's behind you!