I have an answering machine message from "MCS". Is it a scam?

These people have just phoned my work. I picked up on the first ring. There was a delay and then it went to the automated "you have a message" message.

I rang back (well, it's not my phone bill!) and have now been holding for over 5 minutes, with cr@p music and them intermittently telling me my call is important etc (about every 30 seconds).

turnberry wrote:

I have had several similar calls, which I answered. They asked for my son and would not divulge who they were, or what the call was about, other than the name MCS. The telephone dialling codes were 0151 (Liverpool) and 0161(Manchester). When I called the numbers back to try to verify who the company was I just got a message 'this number cannot receive calls'.

Report them to OFCOM. They don't deal with individual complaints but the more they get the more likely they are to do something about it. Here is a link to the complaints page. It's listed under "silent calls" but it seemed to work for me.

A call here a few days ago, to call back 0871 ...

Apparently it is one of those companies that offers to help people reclaim bank charges, which might not be all that popular with a certain Mr Lewis, who has criticised similar companies on here

Nobody in this house asked for such information and the number is ex-directory, which means I'm assuming it was random-dialled.

In my opinion the calls are obviously sales-motivated, and are also exploiting people who will not know that the 0871 number will cost them 10 pence a minute, and if the various regulatory authorities say that these calls are not covered at present, then this seems a cynical out-manoeuvre of inadequate rules

Another call from MCS this evening

I've spoken to ICSTIS, Ofcom and the TPS about this, and it appears that this quite cynicallly skips through a set of loopholes, or as I said to one, is creeping up between the cracks in the pavement

ICSTIS say that 0871 is not a premium rate number, and only 090 numbers come under their control; she agreed that the numbers will eventually fall into their remit but refused to tell me when.

The man at Ofcom was sympathetic about these revenue share numbers and said that this abuse was really not foreseen when they were set up, and recorded details towards their feedback on the numbers

TPS were simply uninterested, as only live sales calls are controlled. She didn't care about my assertion that 5 pence a minute is actually not enough money to employ someone unless there is a sales motive at the end.

I've left a message on the voicemail of the man at one of the number providers, asking him to help me have MCS remove our number from their database.

This was after I decided to call them for a few moments on a redundant SIM card with a bit of credit left, just to see what happened, and to ask to be removed from their lists.

The recorded answer assumes that I was returning the call to retrieve an important message, and asked me to wait in a queue as my call was important to them. I hung up after about half a minute

I don't know if the telecom company man's information about the bank charges is correct. The man at Ofcom was rather sceptical that there was any real purpose in the call at all.

If MCS was well-founded, it might actually bother to have its own website to bolster its promotional activities. A Google search already comes up with this thread prominent, but I haven't found real details yet.