Cold called but is it a scam?

JohnRo

I've just had my first ever investment cold call.. twice.. get in!!

Phone number 02037736079 - claimed to be from X CORE Capital

First cold call this morning wanting to 'touch base' on the last time I spoke to 'one of my colleagues' which I do vaguely recall fobbing off some months ago.

After the niceties are over I listened for a short time to the patter before the inevitable, incredible offer of an 18.5 % return on investment surfaces.

'wow'

quickly followed, after I expressed some doubt about the very high return and concerns about risk, by a much lower but guaranteed 6% offer.

That was followed by some fairly high pressure waffling. I decided to end the call quite abrupty at that point as the chap didn't seem to be taking the hint that I wouldn't be investing. Far better things to do.

Fast forward five hours and another call from the same number and exact same geezer no less, with his posh jafaican accent, this afternoon.

He's still wanting to 'touch base' on the previous contact with 'one of my colleagues' so decided to play.

The 6% is guaranteed because the company take a 25% share of all the profits, the other 75% of all profits going to me. What happens to the 25% cut when there aren't profits was unexplained but let's not dwell, that 25% of profits they take provides the guarantee apparently.. sure it does.

This was followed by a semi plausible word salad littered with recognisable phrasing that described how a combination of property, currencies, crypto and securities are traded by the team and have returned 18.5% in the first half of this year.

An appeal to greed I assume, accompanied by confidence tricks as he explains that might not be the case in future and that investments can fall as well as rise.. but that their traders are the best in the business and have never failed to deliver high returns.

Anyway, I decided to lead him up the garden path regarding accounts, funding, interest and intentions designed to get us to the nitty gritty, which was, eventually, them looking to snaffle a minimum £50K to £100K or more from me.

More stalling ensued, back and forth about my investment returns and what they are offering before I started explaining I'd be unwilling to make any commitment without seeing some proper documentation explaining what exactly is being offered, at which point the tone changed.

After congratulating me for being cautious and wanting to see documentation the discussion switched to the provision of said documentation on the understanding I'm prepared to commit to invest, at which point I suggested after some very careful consideration and lengthy deliberation on the matter that

..about £50 would be my limit perhaps up to £100 to see how it works in practice and what their results are like.

No prizes, it did not go down well, 20 minutes in and I think the penny finally dropped, polite annoyance and irritation surfaced and a refusal to forward any further details unless I'm prepared to make a serious commiment.

'You're just playing about with me aren't you?'

'Yep'

Followed by passive aggressive put downs and wishing me a good week. Call ends.

How the heck anyone falls for these cold calling shysters is beyond me. If they are a genuine investment company and an advert for the unregulated investment market then 'good grief'

Have a good week.

Asghar

JohnRo wrote: »

'You're just playing about with me aren't you?'

'Yep'

You should have replied with 'You're trying to con money from me aren't you?'

jimjames

Cold call investment = scam

badger09

Asghar wrote: »

You should have replied with 'You're trying to con money from me aren't you?'

Or, to keep it on their level

'well, you started it!' :rotfl:

Wildsound

SCAM - Snakes Claiming Amazing Moneytree

Glen_Clark

I used to get a lot of investment cold calls when I held certificated shares, much less now they are all in nominee accounts, so I guess they got my name from the share registers.
But all the recent ones have been from someone outside the UK claiming to be from 'Windows Technical Services'. Being busy or not in the mood I have just said something like 'get a proper job' or just 'p*ss off' and hung up.
But as I've had about 4 in the past couple of months I'm starting to wonder if I'm being targetted because I'm still running Windows XP?

Clive_Woody

They very idea that anyone would hand over £50K or more to a cold caller because he made lots of nice promises is beyond scary. Greed is a very powerful emotion.

I just get the regular scam calls from Windows or TalkTalk informing me of viruses on my router. Sometime I play along, other times I use harsh words to bid them farewell.

pafpcg

Glen_Clark wrote: »

But all the recent ones have been from someone outside the UK claiming to be from 'Windows Technical Services'. .....
But as I've had about 4 in the past couple of months I'm starting to wonder if I'm being targetted because I'm still running Windows XP?

How would they know it's XP? They are using data-bases of phone numbers and names. Our phone account is in my partner's name (different to mine), so when I answer a call and they ask for "Mr <partner's name>" I know it's a cold call. I used to try to embarrass them by asking them which Microsoft office they were based in, then asking what's the weather like today, then responding with "That's odd, my brother lives in <XXXX> and he told me an hour ago that the weather there was <direct opposite of what they've just said>". To really screw them up, ask, if they know my computer is virus infected, what IP address am I using? Nowadays, to waste their time, but not mine, I just play old and tell them I'll have to switch the computer on first and it's very slow to load and would they mind waiting? Then put the phone on hold and get on with whatever I was doing...

PS: My partner and I have had about ten share holdings in certificated form over the last twenty years - I don't recall ever having a call from a scam investment outfit.

atush

Yeah I get 'Kevin' from Windows all the time. Calling from Bangalore lol.

Glen_Clark

You can wind them up, but they can get nasty and make horrible threats.
To be realistic, nobody is going to track you down and put out a contract on your life just for winding up an internet scammer. But its not a nice threat to receive, and if you are the sort of person who would let it spoil your day, its better to just put the phone down.
Starting salary in an Indian call centre is about $300 a month, say $1.75 an hour, so you aren't likely to put them off making lucrative scam calls just by wasting half an hour of their time.

TBC15

I find the greeting "Sargent Philips, fraud squad" cuts banter down to an absolute minimum.