Have you had one of those scam BT callers?

I have received quite a number, but rumble them very quickly and soon get rid of them.

"I'm from the Windows Corporation and your computer has reported a fault.!

"No you are not, Windows is a Microsoft trademark. It has not. You are a crook. Goodbye!", and I hang up before he has the pleasure of doing so first.

Sometimes I add, "Oh, and I have worked in IT security." That sends the blighters packing straight away.

If you see off a number of them in a relatively short time you tend not to be bothered again for some while. They may have lists of numbers they know will not co-operate.

Recently they have taken to using recordings, usually with a female speaker. These are easy to spot because if you try to interrupt, it carries on regardless. A live caller would react.

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The latest was more frightening. Someone left a message from a British-style number, something like 0121... His message was short, spoken in the exaggerated American growl typical of advertising violent films, and just as silly. The first few words were unintelligible, but I picked out "Asia" and "legal" action or problems, then "... press 1 to speak to one of our officers" - of what, I did not hear stated. Needless to say, I simply deleted it.

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That was probably from overseas. It's time BT and other telecomms companies made it impossible for foreign callers to hide behind national numbers.

It's also time the Government did something positive about ActionFraud, too. It has been exposed as a failure, owned by some American firm but presumably paid for handsomely by UK tax-payers. It passes very few reports to the Police (though they are not always very efficient at investigating frauds and malpractice, either). Its web-site is difficult and clumsy, uses menus built on poorly-chosen assumptions, and has no method for accepting scam e-mails for analysis and tracing.

I look forward to their calls now. I like wasting their time. Playing dumb and pretending to press computer keys. When they figure out I am too dumb they give up on me. OR they tell me something is wrong with my windows. I tell them I just had my windows replaced..but do you have a special on doors.

I've had those sort of scam calls from "Microsoft Support Centre", informing me my computer is reporting a "serious error". I work from home and usually have more than one computer running but they're unable to say which it is. ;) I don't understand why Linux machines would report to M$ anyway. Perhaps that's the "serious error". ;)

Another type of scam call I've received recently purport to come from "your [my] energy supplier" or other service providers. Before they can continue however they need me to answer some security questions. Standard stuff like you'd be asked if you called them. In these cases however, they called you so they know who you are but you don't know who they are. Ask yourself, would you give that information to some random stranger in the street? Why give it to some random caller then?

I think we all get them from time to time. My usual response is to start to ask them the full name of their company, it’s registered business address, company registration number, the name and phone number of their Chief Executive. They usually hang up quickly. 🙂

May I know what does BT stands for?