Community Chat

[scotttie]

On 1/27/2014 Predsfan said:

On 1/27/2014 beammeupscottie said:

I got a call once. The guy had an accent. I told him I am no fool and his call was nothing but a scam. He called me a mother-----------

I talked to him last year. Pleasant chap.

The accent made it especially thoughtful. The soft ""o"" where the ""u"" should be in the jackpot word.

[scotttie]

On 1/27/2014 brii said: I will go through spurts of calls like that. I answer and then hang up. I certainly would not get into it with them.

When I'm in the mood I have a blast messing with them. I'll say ""Peggy?"" Is this Peggy?? They'll say ""no""and I'll say ""I want to talk to Peggy"". This goes on for a while and my whole family is rofl. Some of the telemarketers play along and we all laugh.

[dooBdoo]

On 1/27/2014 Dagna said:

On 1/27/2014 dooBdoo said:

<em>pippa</em>, I'm sorry this has happened to you. I've had no problems like those you mentioned. Did Target have this particular landline number and email address on file for you as their customer?

Good advice about never providing information to callers. However, I never answer if I don't know the caller ID#. I let it go to voice mail, do an Internet search on the caller ID# to see if there are reports on it, and block it.

Security experts advise that you <em>do not answer</em>. If you answer you let the caller (whether a robo-call or a person) know the number is a valid one. It will then be used again and possibly sold to others for telemarketing, debt collection, and scams.

If you have voice mail, how do you stop it from answering calls you don't expect?

I can see why you'd ask that, Dagna!

To be honest, I got frustrated with them a couple of years ago and managed to eliminate nearly all of the bad calls -- there might be one every couple of months now. For a while, when I was working on it, I completely inactivated voice mail (most of our important personal or emergent calls have the cell phone #).

In the process, I've found most of the callers only allow a few rings and don't try to leave a message. We have the system set to the maximum # of rings (I don't remember the number) and if it does pick up it's silent (no recorded message to trigger a notification to the caller). Friend and family know this, but most of them don't use our land line #.

[dooBdoo]

On 1/27/2014 Predsfan said:

dooB ... I've told my DH not to pick up on those calls but he gets so aggrivated with them sometimes that he does anyway.

pippa ... we've been getting those calls daily for years. I don't think the hacking was the reason for them, perhaps they have just gotten around to your area. Try to ignore them if you can.

I can understand that, Predsfan! My DH and I used to feel that way, too. But diligently working on it, and practically eliminating all the nuisance calls, made it worth it to ignore the varmints.

If we make them mad, we can almost guarantee they'll call more often and give the # to as many others as possible. That I did not want to do.

[YouCantSayItHere]

On 1/27/2014 Abbondanza said:

On 1/27/2014 YouCantSayItHere said:

I always answer these calls. I've met so many nice new friends from Africa and Eastern Europe since I've started doing this that I feel blessed. Of course, they always seem to have so many problems with their banking systems over there that, frankly, it's disgusting.

I just recently agreed to help out my new friend Yuri with a transactional banking issue he was experiencing. Not only am I helping him out but I'll get to keep a commission too!! Very exciting.

You meet many new friends answering telemarketers calls?

Wait, they're telemarketers? Uh-oh. Dang it.

[YouCantSayItHere]

On 1/27/2014 croemer said:

On 1/27/2014 YouCantSayItHere said:

I always answer these calls. I've met so many nice new friends from Africa and Eastern Europe since I've started doing this that I feel blessed. Of course, they always seem to have so many problems with their banking systems over there that, frankly, it's disgusting.

I just recently agreed to help out my new friend Yuri with a transactional banking issue he was experiencing. Not only am I helping him out but I'll get to keep a commission too!! Very exciting.

You are one lucky individual, if you keep this up...why... be assured your wealth will be immense.

That's almost exactly what Yuri said!! But, be careful. I just found out that Yuri might actually be a telemarketer. Fortunately, I'm sure I'll have plenty of income coming in from my HerbaLife business (eventually) to make up for any I lose with Yuri.

[dooBdoo]

Seriously, there's a dangerous one targeting cell phones right now, just seems to have cropped up in the past couple of weeks. And this one will cost you $$$:

_____________________________________________

'One Ring' scam: new variation on old phone trick

Jan 21, 2014

Heads-up cell phone users: Scammers have cooked up yet another phone scam. It's not a robocall. It's not a sales pitch. In fact, with this scam--when the phone rings, there's no one on the line.??

It's called the "One Ring" scam, because the scammers program computers to send blast out thousands of calls to random cell phone numbers, ring once, then disconnect. The objective is to make you curious about a call you missed and return the call right away…?The calls reported by consumers so far this month are from the Caribbean Islands of Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda.

If you call back, you're calling a premium rate number that connects you to anything from advertising, to music, to would-be psychics, and even p0rn0graphy. The longer you stay on the line, the more charges rack up on your phone bill, and the scammers get part of the money.

(Area codes: 473, Grenada; 767, Dominica; 876, Jamaica; 664 Montserrat; 649, Turks and Caicos; and 268, Antigua and Barbuda.)

The scammers are set up as businesses, with permission to bill you through your wireless provider. According to investigators, the inflated per-minute or per-call charges can run in the hundreds of dollars. Since the scam originates overseas, the international phone numbers are not regulated by laws in the United States, and the scammers make sure the numbers are difficult to trace.

?If you think you've already fallen for this scam, alert your carrier right away and keep an eye on your cell phone bill. The earlier you document the fraud, the better your chances of having some or all of the charges removed. But again--the best thing to do if your phone rings and you don't recognize the number--is don't answer. And do not call the number back."

http://www.komonews.com/news/consumer/One-Ring-241398311.html

[dooBdoo]

Unfortunately, we have a couple of new trolls on the thread. Perhaps Webbie wll take note.

[Yuban3]

On 1/27/2014 dooBdoo said:

Seriously, there's a dangerous one targeting cell phones right now, just seems to have cropped up in the past couple of weeks. And this one will cost you $$$:

_____________________________________________

'One Ring' scam: new variation on old phone trick

Jan 21, 2014

Heads-up cell phone users: Scammers have cooked up yet another phone scam. It's not a robocall. It's not a sales pitch. In fact, with this scam--when the phone rings, there's no one on the line.??

It's called the "One Ring" scam, because the scammers program computers to send blast out thousands of calls to random cell phone numbers, ring once, then disconnect. The objective is to make you curious about a call you missed and return the call right away…?The calls reported by consumers so far this month are from the Caribbean Islands of Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda.

If you call back, you're calling a premium rate number that connects you to anything from advertising, to music, to would-be psychics, and even p0rn0graphy. The longer you stay on the line, the more charges rack up on your phone bill, and the scammers get part of the money.

(Area codes: 473, Grenada; 767, Dominica; 876, Jamaica; 664 Montserrat; 649, Turks and Caicos; and 268, Antigua and Barbuda.)

The scammers are set up as businesses, with permission to bill you through your wireless provider. According to investigators, the inflated per-minute or per-call charges can run in the hundreds of dollars. Since the scam originates overseas, the international phone numbers are not regulated by laws in the United States, and the scammers make sure the numbers are difficult to trace.

?If you think you've already fallen for this scam, alert your carrier right away and keep an eye on your cell phone bill. The earlier you document the fraud, the better your chances of having some or all of the charges removed. But again--the best thing to do if your phone rings and you don't recognize the number--is don't answer. And do not call the number back."

http://www.komonews.com/news/consumer/One-Ring-241398311.html

Thanks for the heads up!

If my phone rang once, and then stopped, I would just think that someone had the wrong number.

It would never cross my mind to call back.

[dooBdoo]

You're welcome, Yuban3!