Q Talk

[Mindy D]

Hi All. Just alerting others with this post. I just got a call on my landline number telling me that my HP Smartfriend subscription is expiring and I can renew it. I hung up. When I bought my HP laptop the HP Smartfriend came with it as a free perk for a year. I did not remember signing up for it and I’ve never paid a fee for it. I went to the HP site and they currently do charge for this service. You have to enroll. I wanted to be sure I was not going to be charged so I looked all over the website to find a contact phone number. Luckily, I did find the number and called and spoke to a courteous, knowledgeable rep that checked my status and verified that I do not have a subscription. We determined the call was a scam. Just in case anyone gets such a call, you can verify your account status busy calling HP here at 1 (844) 814-1800. This number can be found on the Smartfriend page. The rep also said that HP does not call about customers about this service. In case anyone is wondering, this service is a tech support service.

[gizmogal]

Helpful, thoughtful post with thorough information offered. Many thanks. 

[the mink]

I received a call about this, too. I hope the federal government can crack down on these robo calls. Not only are they annoying and deceitful, some can be frightening. 

[Cats3000]

@the minkThat's what the "Do Not Call List" was supposed to do and we all know how that's working out.  I remember that there's a new plan floating around Congress that's designed to address the problem.  Thing is, if scammers have gotten around the "Do Not Call List", what's to prevent them from getting around what ever the new plan is?

Rather than waiting for the federal government to do sometning, why not get an answering machine on your land line.  Let it pick up the calls and you only intervene if it's someone you know.  We've done that and it does work.

We are now getting junk calls on our cell phones.  We answer, listen to the start of the schpiel, and hang up.  We may start allowing our cell phone voice mail to answer the calls and we'll intervene or call back if we know who it is.

[GinaV24]

I agree @Cats3000 the Do Not Call thing setup by the government was a total lost cause. Even reporting these things to the FCC gets just a shrug from any of them.

Since my landline comes thru my internet provider, I was able to setup a service thru FIOS that essentially routes those junk calls somewhere else -- don't exactly know where and don't really care. For the most part, I get one ring on my line and then the call goes "poof". Some calls still get thru but less and less and if it rings twice, then I can answer the phone.

My cell phone provider has a similar service which is use and quite honestly I simply don't answer any phone number that I can't identify. That has caused a few problems with legitimate calls but I figure if they are real, they will leave a message and I will follow up.

Thanks to the OP for the info about this latest scam. It's always something but I always appreciate getting good info.