wanted

Got this e-mail today.Dunno if this has been posted before, or if it's bull so you'll have to make your own minds up.


Phone Fraud - Warning from the Police
11 May 2005
We have been advised of a telephone fraud currently in operation -this
applies to home and work telephones, landlines and mobiles.
If you receive one of these calls, upon answering the telephone you will
hear a recorded message congratulating you on winning an all expenses trip
to an exotic location. You will then be asked to press 9 to hear further
details. If you press 9 you will be connected to a premium rate line that
costs approximately £20 per minute. Even if you disconnect immediately, it
will remain connected for a minimum of 5 minutes costing around £ 100. The
final part of the call involves you being asked to key in your postcode and
house number, which has other serious consequences. After a further 2
minutes you will receive a message informing you that you are not one of
the lucky winners. The total bill by then will be £100.
Since the calls are originating from outside the UK, BT and other telephone
companies are left relatively powerless to act. The only safe solution is
to HANG UP before the message prompts you to dial 9,
even safer HANG UP on any unsolicited 'free offer calls'.
There is another scam operating on mobile phones as well. A missed call
comes up. The number is 0709 020 3840, the last four numbers may vary, but
certainly the first four will remain the same. If you call this number back
you will be charged £50 per minute.
People have complained about their phone bills, once they have realised the
cost of the call, but apparently this is completely legal.
So beware, do not call back numbers beginning with '0709'.
PLEASE PASS THIS INFORMATION ONTO YOUR FAMILY & FRIENDS.

warrenm2

Yawn! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12...is_phone_hoax/

wanted

Did you not read the first bit where I said "Dunno if this has been posted before"

Mrs WRX

That is really odd as i got a phone call yesterday and it was a pre recorded one saying i had won a holiday, didnt listen to the rest as i put the phone down. Couldnt be arsed to listen to it. It probably wasnt for £50 a min though! strange coincidence.

CrisPDuk

I've never understood why people ring numbers back when they don't know whose they are, I've always operated on the principle that if they want to speak to you they'll try again, that goes for the stepdaughter and her f**king 'one-bells' too

imlach

This type of stupid email has been doing the rounds for years & years in one form or another.......the question is, what is the point of it??? No-one is gaining from it, it's purely just a hoax. Why does it persist?

Cyberevo

iTrader: (1)

I got one yesterday too, took me all of 2 seconds to hang up.

OllyK

You got an e-mail, you haven't experienced what is described (because as most of the rest of us know it's a hoax anyway), you don't bother to do a quick Google, or look on Snopes.com or even search SN, instead you just post it up. That's fine, it's your right to be a spammer I guess, but just don't be surprised when people don't bother to read your post and just jump on you instead. If you don't engage your brain before posting, why would you expect others to do so?

MJW

LOL, I get that as well - 'well if he sees the missed call from me he'll call me back and I'll save my credit so I can forward useless texts to all my friends'

gsm1

So we could all have a laugh when someone posts it on a forum??

fast bloke

Got one of these ages ago, took the details and reported it to BT. They start off telling you to call a local rate number to claim your prize. When you call the local rate number it tells you if you are claim number blah de blah you have won the star prize and you need to call their head office on 090.............. When you call this number you get put in a queue which never ends. The guy from BT told me it was £4.00 per minute, and that it would automatically cut off after 10 minutes. That said - if you are gullible enough to make the call the first time you will keep retrying

wanted

So why bother to post if your not interested? As you can see from my post count and yours, you've obviously got more time to waste trawling through searches. I haven't, so posted it up.
You can see from the title what post is going to be about, so why not ignore it?

EvilKyote

[b]!!!!ATTENTION!!!![b]

ALL premium rate phone line in the EU are capped at a maximum price per minute. I can't remember the exact figure but it is something like £1.50 or £2.50 maximum per minute. No one can have a premium rate line higher than this cap.

Any e-mails you see about phone scams costing £10 or £50 a min are complete and utter bollox!!

wanted

Thanks m8, a post like this, straight to the point was all that was needed.

Tiggs

if you give everyone a pc and email them all you are bound to get a few morons that dont know their spam from their ****.

EvilKyote

NP

Tiggs

are you sure?

£50 a min sounds sensible enough? £1500 for a half hour chat......i assume thats BT's most popular high cost tarriff.

errrrrr...hang on...no it doesnt!

OllyK

Because while you have internet newbies out there who think it is their duty to notify everbody about every security warning on every medium, by every means possible without thinking to validate it, there will also be newbies who will be panicked in to thinking that it is a genuine post from an informed user who has researched the issue carefully. We were just making the point to the latter group that you were in the former and they should not be worried by you.

A simple suggestion - if you haven't got time to validate it by doing a couple of searches, you haven't got time to post it on a BBS either.

wanted

Ok, that sounds like a better argument than your last post. It was sent to me via someone I know, and it's the first time i've seen it, hence not identifying it as spam although the prices were outragous.

dharbige

And any e-amil you receive containing the phrase "Please pass this on to family and friends / everybody you know / everybody in your address book" is also most likely to be a hoax, initiated by somebody too lazy to write a virus to do the job for them.

warrenm2

^^^ Wot he said!

Abdabz

I got one of these calls promising me a holiday in the carribean if I pressed 9. It was only a week ago to my landline. Thinking it must be a hoax I hung up - 3 mins later picked the phone up and the automated system was still asking me to press 9!
Anyway - check your facts about maximum costs per minute - the call could originate from outside the EU in which case one beeelion sheckles a second would be about right...
I hate chain emails - but having had one of these calls myself Im glad I didnt press 9 (and I normally hate chain emails etc)...
Im registered with TPS so 1471'd the call to establish the number and reported - but suprise suprise - "we do not have the callers details" said the posh BT cow ...

Mrs WRX

I was more amazed because we are ex directory and are on the scheme from BT where your number is not allowed to be used for cold callers. Maybe i should have reported it, but i was just going out of the door and forgot about it. I only listened for about 2 seconds and slammed the phone down, i hadnt entered any competitions so how could i win? I am sure some people do ring the number and it would probably be old people who dont always notice a scam until they get the bill in.

gsm1

My Aunt is also ex-directory and has a permanent called ID block on her number being displayed. She was called recently by some arsehole telling her she had won a camera and asked for her bank details. Either these guys are just calling random numbers or use people to steal database information from their work place.

Mrs WRX

I would have loved to get a call like that, the abuse they would receive would be extreme - along the lines of "**** off"

GaryK

Yep as said the premium rates in the UK are capped and regulated by ISCTIS, you CANNOT charge more than £1.50 per minute for *any* premium rate service so it is complete bollox. In fact we wanted to setup a 25p per min support line on 09 and you have to apply to ICSTIS and fill in about an 8 page document and give example adverts and all sorts its not a very straightforward process.

Gary

EvilKyote

IIRC even if the call originates outside of the UK or EU, ie the US, the CAP still applies! but not 100% sure on that one,

All Torque

Could always use this as an example of how to answer unwanted calls

http://www.office-humour.co.uk/download.cfm?id=2970

wanted

PMSL