The endless bogus phone messages

norricorp

Whether it is "Amazon" telling me that my prime account is being renewed or "BT" that my landline is being disconnected, we all know that it is a call centre scam. But I was wondering how they are making money. If I do "press one now" for the fun of laughing at someone (yes, lockdown is boring), is that going through a premium number? I realise they are trying to get bank account details or a transfer but are there other ways to make money?

iniltous

Pressing ‘1’ simply connects you to an agent ( if the call is ‘live’ , it wouldn’t if you were listening to it as an answer machine message ) there is a myth that pressing 1 somehow connects you to a premium rate number and the scammers make ££’s as a result, but that’s nonsense , answering an incoming call doesn’t cost anything, there is no way for it to do that.
Scammer call centres are just like regular call centres, having ‘staff’ making outgoing calls , when many , if not most of those calls,  will not result in an answer let alone ‘engagement’ with the punter , ( answering and yelling F*** off may not count as engagement)  and is an inefficient use of the agents time, so basically the call centre algorithm makes the calls, if someone answers and presses ‘1’ the call centres ‘system’ transfers the call to an agent ,that way the agent only deals with answered calls, where the punter was concerned enough to press 1, those are the calls that may yield results...obvious they cannot legislate for those people who know it’s a con , and press 1 just to waste the scammers time

MalMonroe

I don't answer my phone. Scammers never leave messages and if friends or family need me they can leave a message and I'll respond, as and when. Problem solved. I really haven't found lockdown so boring yet that I have to actually answer a phone! Bleurgh! the very idea .  .  .  .

Oh, they make money because when people press whatever button to go through to another department, someone there tells them they have to pay so much to do something and then some people think it's true and give all their bank details. Their bank account is then stripped and the scammers get richer.

littlemissbossy

Don't forget the one from HMRC saying a warrant is out for your arrest!