Your landline is being compromised from California -

So what's the scam? To get you to give them your credit card?

I don't understand the OP issue, but I got a sleazy scam call from some company paying Century Link to have access to CL numbers.

I got a message on my voice mail starting with "Urgent! We left you a message you didn't respond to. This is about your Century Link phone service."

First off, the phone never rang. These assholes inserted the message on my voice mail without actually calling me. Then they went on impersonating being from Century Link when they are a completely separate company. They wanted to sell me a magical service that could block all spam calls, be the callers used fake numbers or other tricks to disguise the caller, and somehow this company could detect all those without blocking some of my clients. I doubt it. Probably they diverted my calls and asked people to prove they were legit callers.

That would suck with my business, people are calling for urgent medical problems.

And not only that, more than half the junk calls I get are from Century Link subcontractors claiming I could get a cheaper service through them (it's a scam, you don't get a cheaper service). Were these jerks who were claiming to be able to block all unwanted calls going to block Century Link sales calls?

Not likely.

Sorry, Rant over.

I'd wager that 3/4ths of the incoming calls to my landline are robo spam callers. My favorite is the one where I apparently "recently stayed at one of their hotels" and they want to give me a combination 7 day cruise/4 day Disney vacation/free airfare. Was I still listening after her sales pitch?

(Hint: never, ever, say yes. To anything.)

Oh, goodness. I get calls from private or spoofed numbers 3-4 times a day. They're all claiming to be Telstra's Technical Office and are informing me that I have a problem with my computer. I occasionally engage. I ask them to address me by my name or to send me an email, both of which they should be able to do, if they're really from Telstra. Sometimes I ask them to identify my IP. I once asked why, if Telstra's equipment is sophisticated enough to spot and localise issues to specific computers, they can't do anything about all the 'ken scammers. But mostly I hang up.

WE'VE TRACED THE CALLS! THEY'RE COMING FROM WITHIN YOUR HOUSE! GET OUT! GET OUT NOW!

BenPanced said:

WE'VE TRACED THE CALLS! THEY'RE COMING FROM WITHIN YOUR HOUSE! GET OUT! GET OUT NOW!

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I wish my landline worked that well.

We simply never answer the phone if we don't recognize the number. Ever. If they leave a message and it's legit, we get back to them. If a number calls multiple times without leaving a message, we block it.

Dennis E. Taylor said:

So what's the scam? To get you to give them your credit card?

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Not always. They want you to have some traceable interaction with you so they can charge you with a service - through your phone provider. That's either via pressing some buttons or having you call them back.

As for Microsoft Tech support from India or Pakistan, I tell them to wait so I can get the house owner, pinging them every two minutes or so. "Yeah, I see him. He's coming. Wait a few." My record is 45 minutes.

-cb

Esmae Tyler said:

I'd wager that 3/4ths of the incoming calls to my landline are robo spam callers. My favorite is the one where I apparently "recently stayed at one of their hotels" and they want to give me a combination 7 day cruise/4 day Disney vacation/free airfare. Was I still listening after her sales pitch?

(Hint: never, ever, say yes. To anything.)

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I get this one at least once a month, and on my cellphone (I don't have a landline). As soon as I hear "Hi, I'm Karen, and I'm calling because you stayed with us..." I just hang up.

I think the best scam I got was someone who said they were from my bank and were wanting to consolidate my loans with a great interest rate because I was such a good customer. Then they asked me how much I owed. I asked them "on which accounts" and they said, "uh, we don't have that information. You need to tell us your accounts." Yeah, right. If you're the bank, you should know that.

We don't have a landline.

Depending on my mood I'll answer the unidentified calls. If it is the usual "free trip" etc call, I just say no, hang up, block the number, and delete from my recent calls list. Last week it was my MIL's medical alert company. I don't know why they called me, they're supposed to call my husband. But they are now identified in my contact list.

MM

Donkey said:

[FONT=comic\ sans\ ms]I told a scammer from India that he needed to come up with a better line, because this one couldn't possibly still be working on people. (The one about being from Microsoft Tech Support, and your computer is infected.) He asked me what I thought a better line would be. True story. At least I got a laugh out of it.[/FONT]

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I once led a guy on for a while. Finally, I admitted I was running Linux. We were both laughing our faces off when I hung up.

My land line is history. Not missing it. Nothing but scams and one person I was tired of hearing from.

I used to get lots of calls from scammers. The last conversation went a bit like this:

them: hello, ma'am, this is BT calling, hackers are trying to hack your internet. I need your BT account number so we can fix it

me: what's my name?

them: ma'am, they're hacking your computer right now. I need your BT account number

me: if you were BT you'd know my name and my account number

them: but they're hacking your computer

me: what's my name? If you were BT you'd know my name and account number already. what's my name?


I can't remember how long it went around in circles like this but it ended when they hung up and they haven't called back since.


My next plan... as soon as they start speaking, if they haven't asked for me by name and I don't recognise them, to say "Thank you for calling Neandermagnon. Please be aware that all calls are recorded for training and monitoring purposes."

"We're sorry. All of our machines are currently busy at the moment. At the sound of the tone, you'll be forced to speak to a real human being."

BEEP!

Honest! No scam. Go to Post #16641 in Office Party, "Old Fart's and Pouffes Bar, Grill, and Hogewey Infirmary." View the photo and obligate yourself to send $3.99 to a program to help defray medical costs of old soldiers. No finer way to waste your money and take care of your scam obligations.

Free conversion of £ to $ for UK members (especially those in Scotland)

We used to get lots of spammy, scammy phone calls. Then I started asking the callers to sing with me, and dropped into a bit of Oklahoma! and just kept going until they hung up on me. And now the calls have stopped.

I think they were just shy about singing in front of strangers. Bless them.

Well, when you started belting out bits from Pore Jud is Daid you probably frightened them off.

I had another one today. 800 number from Nevada. According to this robot voiced lady, I'm being targeted by the IRS. I'm Canadian living in Canada. Go figure. The police is on the way to arrest me. All the way from Nevada, I assume. I need to call her back at a specific 800 number which was different from the one she called from.

*sigh*

-cb

Marissa D said:

Well, when you started belting out bits from Pore Jud is Daid you probably frightened them off.

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They LOVED that one. Also, the alto line to all the songs has a very special edge to it especially when it's LOUD.