Holiday offer M&S, John Lewis, Argos

atco1

I had a telephone call offering me a good deal on holidays in Florida provided I buy certain tickets for attractions and travel. The voice was pre recorded and sounded American and asked me to push certain buttons on my phone for 'free call' more information, needless to say I did no such thing, my immediate thought was SCAM. However the voice purported to be representing M&S, John Lewis and Argos which i immediately thought was odd as they are not linked by any buisness arrangement i know off. Does anybody know whether this is for real or is my original thought more likely?

mpet

I believe this is a Scam. I received one of these calls on my voice mail at work. A few days later on the Radio 1 breakfast show it was mentioned and quite a few people had received similar calls. I may be wrong, but I think it was either a premium rate call or a timeshare thing or both.

If an offer seems too good, it usually is!

crystal_clear

I Believe I To Have Had One Of These Calls I Was Away On Holiday 1st Week Of June And My Son Phoned Me On My Mobile To Say I Had Won A Holiday But He Didn't Know From Whom As It Was Like A Recording. He Was Unable To Talk To The Voice >>>> I Hope He Did Not Press The Buttons On My Home Phone If It Does Turn Out It Is A Scam To Hijack My Phone Line Via Premium Charges.
I Will Let You Know In Due Course If My Bill Shows Any Inflated Calls

Jem8472

I would be very very very suprised if John lewis was doing anything like this. it is not their style and they dont pass on any contact information to third party companys they only use it within JL if there is a problem with anything, as far as i know john lewis do not do cold calling.

crystal_clear

Yet again i received the very same phone call claiming i had won this holiday via a pre recorded message and asking me to enter 0 on my phone then a little later asking me to enter 9 on my phone......... I did neither as i believe this to be a scam to either sell timeshares or hijack my line to premium rate dialler without my knowledge :mad:

saveapenny

You can not delete the message off the answer machine...each time i have a new message that one gets played too

crystal_clear

I AM SORRY S/PENNY I DONT HAVE THE ANSWER FOR THAT BUT I DID FORGET TO MENTION I DO HAVE CALLER DISPLAY AND IT CAME UP LISTED AS AN INTERNATIONAL CALL WHEN I ANSWERED IT .......... HAVE U AS A THOUGHT TRIED TO UNPLUG YOUR MACHINE AND REMOVE ANY BACK UP BATTERIES FOR 10 MINUTES TO SEE IF THAT WILL DELETE IT.... HEY ANYTHING IS WORTH A TRY I GUESS TO GET RID OF THIS BLASTED MESSAGE ........ GOOD LUCK!!!! :beer:

TheLastDictator

I had this message three times. The fourth time it rang I stupidly replied. It says somebody had put my name down for a free holiday in John Lewis and went on to mention their kitchen department. As my parents have recently bought a kitchen from JL I thought it must have been them.

After pressing 0, i was repeatedly told that he call was free and got connected to an american lady offering me a very good holiday for free. The only catch(es) were that I had to attend a timeshare/villa meeting whilst I was there and I had 2 buy a couple of disney passes for £313.

I was up for doing it, I've been in timeshare meetings before and although they are very hard sale and not for the weak I've never fallen for the sale. When she started asking for my credit card details to pay for the passes I politely refused and said my goodbyes as I didn't want to give that info over, it sounded suss to me that they would make me pay for the passes before I'd confirmed the holiday.

So it could be one of 3 things, firstly a telephone scam(in which case I'm in the preverbial doo doo after a 20 minute call!!). Secondly a legit timeshare sale, and though as i said they are hard sell I've seen them give olidays away before or thirdly a credit card fraud company/a scam where they get your £313 then you look at the holiday on the internet and find out the airport taxes and cruise taxes are too much and don't go, leaving yourself with 2 expensive disney tickets!

Unfortunately this was only yesterday so i don't know of the outcome, i'll let you know when the phone bill comes in!! However this morning my Mum phoned me to tell me that she didn't put my name down and that Dad had brought home a letter from work warning people against this scam, with the only variation in the letter saying that you would have to phone 9.

So have i been scammed? The letter said the call cost £20 a minute and was legal from the company so there's nothing the police/phone company/I can do if i was scammed. So I could be out of pocket for £400+!

If it was a scam, something must be done to stop such things, I was clearly told it was a free call so it seems baffling there's nothing the police can do!

Oh well I guess i'll have to wait and see, they do say there's one born every minute!

trisontana

As as been mentioned on this board many times the "£20 a minute call" is an urban myth. The maximum that can be charged for a premium rate call is £1.50 a minute. As for pressing 9 and connecting to a premium rate line that is also a myth. You cannot turn an incoming call into an outgoing call just by pressing a button on your phone. This story has been doing the rounds for weeks. It always happens to a friend of a friend. Nobody has ever produced written proof ( i.e. a phone bill ) that shows these £20 a minute calls.

For further reading have a look at some of the topics on the "warnings and rip-off " section of this board.