a new lie

Another day, another cold call from some scammer.  But with a new (to me) wrinkle.

Phone rings, is answered.
Them: “We have money for you from PPI insurance.”
Us: “Have you heard of the Telephone Preference Service?”
Them: carried on with their script.
Us: “Who are you?”
Them: unintelligible mumble.
Us: “Please give me the name of your company, and their registered address.”
Them: “I can’t do that, it’s against the Data Protection Act.”

I bet you never knew the Data Protection Act said that!  (Hint: it doesn’t.)  Honestly, it just beggars belief.

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what's the point of the TPS?

We're registered with the Telephone Preference Service, because we don't want scummy spam phone calls.

It doesn't help with everybody.

Today, at 11:16, the phone rings, and then plays a recorded message at me.

0151 909 1965 : go take a running jump.

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more scammers

So not long after the scam phone call, the phone rings again. It's British Gas -- they get to call me because I'm actually a customer. But they're not trying to sell me gas, they're trying to sell me insurance. Or a maintenance contract, as they call it. When I said I wasn't interested, the guy said "not even if you had a £800 boiler breakdown?" Gah! That's just as much trying to invoke fear to make me buy something as was the virus scammer.

Then, a bit later, a third phone call. This time, something to do with market research. "Have you heard of the Telephone Preference Service?" I ask them, "because I'm a subscriber". "Oh, very sorry -- you've come up on a national database -- you should take it up with the TPS". Yet curiously, when I went to the TPS website and re-registered, just in case my previous registration had evaporated or something, I was informed that I was already registered.

So, not just cold-calling scum. Lying cold-calling scum.

Robert Heinlein has an apt quotation: "Waking a person unnecessarily should not be considered a capital crime. For the first offense, that is." I believe the same sentiment applies to cold callers.

Oh, and in case you're wondering why I kept answering the phone and at least engaging in an initial conversation -- I was waiting for a business call from a colleague. That was the fourth call. Fortunately, I didn't bite his head off...

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"Windows support" -- not

Just had another scam phone call -- someone with a strong Indian accent claiming to be calling from "Windows Technical Support" (or something close to that -- I wasn't taking notes), and saying that they had received reports of problems with my computer, that it had a nasty virus I didn't know about, and had I noticed my machine running slowly lately?

I was a tad bored (writing a tedious document will do that to you), so I strung them along a bit, to see what they were really after. They said they could prove who they were because they had my computer registration number, and only the registered owner and Microsoft would know this (along a bit of gobbledygook about how this happened).

I said I thought they were a scam and that they were trying to sell me something. (I didn't ask how Microsoft knew my phone number to contact me about the problem.)

Aggrieved, they offered to prove they were legitimate by telling me my machine's registration number. I should turn on my machine and look at its registration number myself, and compare them.

I said: "But you've just told me my computer has a virus. So how do I know that virus hasn't downloaded the number to you? You having the registration number is therefore no proof that you are who you say you are."

Pause. Then they repeated of all the stuff about only Microsoft knowing the number.

So I repeated my reason for believing that their having the number would not constitute proof that they were who they claimed to be.

Pause. Then a slightly plaintive: "so what can we do, then?"

This was not providing me that much amusement value really, so I terminated the conversation, then Googled "windows phone call saying they know your computer id". Top hit was “Windows Support” Scam Worsens / Money Watch. From the comments it seems many people have much more stamina than I do for keeping scammers hanging on the phone.

Scammers are scum.

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Update 12 July 2012:  Aaaand I got a comment, from sanjay gupta-bot, on this post:

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Spamming a blog post about spammers.  Gah! 

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