Phone scams

Lece2

I'm quite a suspicious person so don't tend to fall for scams as a rule and am always fact checking on Snopes or looking at forums to investigate so I can advise my friends and family not to fall for things. Coincidentally to what my feedback is actually about today, I received a phone call on my house phone in the last hour from a number I didn't recognise, and it was a recorded message saying that my Amazon Prime had renewed. Well I haven't got Prime and I'd read something somewhere about these scam calls so I hung up immediately and blocked the number, posting on social media to advise friends and family with a link to a news report regarding this.

I've then just had a phone conversation with my mother who will turn 75 in April about something general and she happened to mention something that has happened to her this morning also. She took a call on her house phone from a withheld number and it was a recorded message saying that £600 has been sent abroad from her Nationwide account. She knew it was a scam as she's quite savvy. But she informed me that even for the next hour, she was an absolute mess and called Nationwide to check. She says that deep down, she knew it was definitely a scam and doesn't fall for things like this, but she is so shocked at the change in her now she refers to herself as "elderly". She said that 10 years ago, she never would have let this get to her, but she couldn't control her body's reaction to this and she was shaking and frightened about her account being empty.

As you can imagine, from a daughter who is so close to her mum, this has broken me and I am so angry and almost in tears. My mum has always been a strong woman and I've learnt so much from her over the years, but I see changes in her now she's older and it is upsetting. I know these fraudsters are heartless and target the elderly, and I also know that the autodial from wherever to my mother's number would no doubt have been random and not targeting her personally, but it breaks my heart to know that that has affected her vulnerability, and to people even older, it must be horrendous.

I just really wanted to give my feedback from my mum's perspective on how the strong can suddenly become vulnerable and frightened when they're older, even though they know that these things are a scam.

Pollycat

Doesn't your Mum have some form of call blocker?

hollydays

If it was my mum I think I'd say to her , if that happens again, call me, I'll sort it out.Or call the police for advice if she can't get through to you.
The simple answer is to never answer calls from withheld numbers. If it's that important they can leave a message.Its a message you need to get across in today's world .

pattycake

We were getting very frequent scam calls on our landline. One even in the early hours of the morning which was scary! I activated Sky Talk Shield. It’s a free service with my provider and it’s put a complete stop to these calls.

Pollycat

hollydays wrote: »

If it was my mum I think I'd say to her , if that happens again, call me, I'll sort it out.Or call the police for advice if she can't get through to you.
The simple answer is to never answer calls from withheld numbers. If it's that important they can leave a message.Its a message you need to get across in today's world .

I finally got this through to my Mum.
We had lots of 'but what if the doctor/dentist/optician rings?' conversations.
She had an answerphone and just needed to understand that if any caller really wanted to speak to her, they'd leave a message so all she needed to do was to let the phone ring if she didn't recognise the number.

Lece2

Pollycat wrote: »

Doesn't your Mum have some form of call blocker?

She doesn't. I don't even know how this would work as a lot of numbers from reputable places are withheld.

Lece2

hollydays wrote: »

If it was my mum I think I'd say to her , if that happens again, call me, I'll sort it out.Or call the police for advice if she can't get through to you.
The simple answer is to never answer calls from withheld numbers. If it's that important they can leave a message.Its a message you need to get across in today's world .

I told her to call me in future but she knew exactly what to do and that it was a scam. She hung up within seconds because she knew it was a scam. The interesting part I wanted to share was the reaction that it had on her even though she knew it was a scam. She said that this has only happened to her with age.

The thing is that she's been sorting out hospital issues to do with appointments and conversations with consultant secretaries all morning prior to that, and the hospital numbers actually come through as withheld numbers also, so she assumed the call was from them again.

Again, just to make it clear that she's by no means a feeble woman and her age actually belies how she is day to day.

Lece2

pattycake wrote: »

We were getting very frequent scam calls on our landline. One even in the early hours of the morning which was scary! I activated Sky Talk Shield. It’s a free service with my provider and it’s put a complete stop to these calls.

Good idea. She's not with Sky but she actually doesn't get a lot of dodgy calls really as I also signed her number up to the TPS. If things continue, I will be taking steps with her to prevent this however.

Lece2

Pollycat wrote: »

I finally got this through to my Mum.
We had lots of 'but what if the doctor/dentist/optician rings?' conversations.
She had an answerphone and just needed to understand that if any caller really wanted to speak to her, they'd leave a message so all she needed to do was to let the phone ring if she didn't recognise the number.

I can appreciate this. My mum is extremely independent and it would frustrate her to keep checking up and calling back - particularly I think also the cost of calling back. Also, she's of the generation where she doesn't ignore the door or a ringing phone. Me personally, I'm of the ilk that if I'm busy, the answer phone will pick it up and if they want me, they'll ring back. But she will rush for the phone always as that is the way she is. To ignore a phone would be rude. All family around her age are the same. It's generational I think.

Pollycat

Lece2 wrote: »

I can appreciate this. My mum is extremely independent and it would frustrate her to keep checking up and calling back - particularly I think also the cost of calling back. Also, she's of the generation where she doesn't ignore the door or a ringing phone. Me personally, I'm of the ilk that if I'm busy, the answer phone will pick it up and if they want me, they'll ring back. But she will rush for the phone always as that is the way she is. To ignore a phone would be rude. All family around her age are the same. It's generational I think.

Been there, done that, wore the t-shirt out.
Yes, it is a generational thing.
My Mum is 88 next month and no longer has the problem of scam phone calls as she has been in a care home for almost a year.
She was over 80 when my Dad died so older than your Mum is now when we started.

I didn't say it was easy.
I didn't say she got it first time.

But she did get it.
We did go through a stage where she picked the phone up, yelled 'my daughter says you shouldn't be ringing me' before slamming the phone down.
But we got past that.

AndyPix

Lece2 wrote: »

doesn't get a lot of dodgy calls really as I also signed her number up to the TPS..

Hi, im sorry this has affected your mum like this


Just a little tip though - A scam caller isn't going to politely check if a target is on the TPS or not before they call !!


The TPS is only useful for stopping REPUTABLE companies from cold calling