These phone scammers are truly despicable.... surely something can be done?

Ectophile

Sandtree said:

Ectophile said:

Sandtree said:

Ectophile said:
There is no way that an international call should ever have a UK number.  Anyone trying that should be blocked at the point of entry to the UK.

If they are using a UK provider, via VOIP, then the UK provider should be responsible for generating genuine phone numbers.

So you want your bank to appear on your phone as a call from India, South Africa or wherever their call centre is? You do realise that when you go on holiday overseas with your mobile you still use the same UK number no? Are you saying your mobile should stop working whilst you are abroad then @Ectophile because its allowing an overseas caller to have a UK number?

Secondly, how will anyone know where a voip call is originating from? When last on holiday I would VPN into my home network and call using my VOIP. My VOIP provider would have seen the connection coming from my home IP despite the fact I was in a different country. Are you saying I shouldnt have been able to make that call? Do you think your mobile gets a different number when you are abroad? There are millions of services out there that will act as proxies to make it appear your request is originating within a different local than your IP would otherwise suggest.

This only considers the matter of a hosted VOIP solution. PSTN gateways are hardware that can be bought and setup 

If your mobile supplier can bill you correctly when you're roaming overseas, then they can check your phone number too.  That should be a solvable problem.

If the banks want to use overseas call centres, and require them to use plain telephone lines, then that's their problem.  The caller ID should either be genuine or just "international".  If they use VOIP between the overseas call centre and a UK base, then they can apply the correct number on exit to the phone network.

When I first got caller ID, it was quite common to see calls marked as "unknown" or "international", instead of showing a number.  Surely it can't be that hard to remove the caller ID from suspect calls.

Bogus caller ID is becoming a serious problem.  We don't need excuses that it's too hard to fix - we need solutions.

So you are saying its ok for you to display a UK number whilst you are overseas but not ok for others to? Bit of double standards there!! In almost all cases I would say everyone is being billed correctly when other phone systems are calling from somewhere other than their caller ID too and therefore by your excuse that means its all fair play.

Whats the "correct number on exit to the phone network"???? That makes no sense at all. And I am sure you are aware that even the likes of BT these days are using VOIP as part of the core infrastructure so even a PSTN to PSTN call probably goes via VOIP.

20 years ago absolutely most call centres in the UK showed up as an unknown number, connection to family overseas was more difficult with calls being echoy or lagged etc. Technology has moved on thankfully and now you can FaceTime your cousin in Australia for free rather than £3/minute with a 10 second lag. A small side effect of technology moving on, along with behaviours, is that a minority leverage that technology for negative motives.

Rather than whining about excuses it would be better to come up with real world workable solutions. Unfortunately I suspect there will also be whining when its decided only UK originated calls can have UK numbers and so you cannot use your mobile abroad any more.

What I am saying is that a phone provider should have a legal duty to check the caller ID of any calls originating from one of their customers.  If they can tell that the number is genuine, for instance if the SIM card assiciated with a mobile call matches one of their customers, then that's fine.  If not, the caller ID should be removed from the call.

The "correct number" is simple.  Any business will have been allocated one phone number, or a block of phone numbers, when they subscribed to a phone contract.  So an office with many phones and a private exchange may be allocated a block of numbers 01234 56xxxx.  So it's legitimate for them to be making outgoing calls with numbers from 01234 560000 to 01234 569999.  If they make a call with a number 01987 654321, then there is something wrong.  The telephone company should strip the caller ID from the call, and contact the company to find out what is going on.

I can't understand why you think this is so difficult.  All exchanges are fully digital these days and run by computers.

pollypenny

I had a really strange one last week. My mobile rang, but it seemed to be displaying my own number.  I hestitated but answered and a woman's voice said 'Hello, I had a missed call from this number.'

i just answered that it must be a mistake. On checking, I saw that the number was just one digit different from my own. I had not rung it, of course. Just a bit odd. 

Crag30

We  get these regularly sometimes 5 or more per day. Many of them claiming to be Amazon regarding a purchase we never made, or Prime renewal (which also we don't do).
Then there's HMRC, Washing Machine Warranty, Call Blocking Service, Internet's going to be switched off, Computer has a virus.
Having a brother overseas prevents us from using Call Blockers.
I prefer  the non recorded messages, as you can  upset the caller speaking to you   

Mistral001

GDB2222 said:

The OP says that something should be done to protect the vulnerable. Well, there is something that we all can do to protect the vulnerable. right now, without any change in technology.  Simply, answer the call, and engage the caller in a conversation, as lengthy as you can reasonably manage, and of course don't give out any true information - just be inventive. If everybody did this, the whole scamming operation would become uneconomic.

There is a risk of the scammers getting some useful information if you engage with them in any way, no matter how careful you are.  I would follow the official guidance and leave down the phone.     

Silvertabby

Crag30 said:

We  get these regularly sometimes 5 or more per day. Many of them claiming to be Amazon regarding a purchase we never made, or Prime renewal (which also we don't do).
Then there's HMRC, Washing Machine Warranty, Call Blocking Service, Internet's going to be switched off, Computer has a virus.
Having a brother overseas prevents us from using Call Blockers.
I prefer  the non recorded messages, as you can  upset the caller speaking to you   

Thankfully, we don't get that many - perhaps an average of 1 or 2 per week?  Mr S is a retired IT tech, and had great fun with the 'I can see a problem with your modem' chap.  As a retired pensions administator, I was looking forward to tying a 'free pensions review' type caller in knots, but it's never happened.

Sandtree

Silvertabby said:

Crag30 said:

We  get these regularly sometimes 5 or more per day. Many of them claiming to be Amazon regarding a purchase we never made, or Prime renewal (which also we don't do).
Then there's HMRC, Washing Machine Warranty, Call Blocking Service, Internet's going to be switched off, Computer has a virus.
Having a brother overseas prevents us from using Call Blockers.
I prefer  the non recorded messages, as you can  upset the caller speaking to you   

Thankfully, we don't get that many - perhaps an average of 1 or 2 per week?  Mr S is a retired IT tech, and had great fun with the 'I can see a problem with your modem' chap.  As a retired pensions administator, I was looking forward to tying a 'free pensions review' type caller in knots, but it's never happened.

Always chat to the write off your debt types and discuss my Coutts overdraft, AmEx Centurion charge card, Handlesbanken loan, Ferrari Finance HP.... most twig on fairly quickly and hand up on me but did get to the end of my list with one and he was still keen so I did mention that I was surprised that he hadn't asked about my yacht finance yet