A very dangerous phone scam. Please read.

[Workingman]

This post is a suggestion from Action Fraud, a police initiative to combat all kinds of fraud. Sorry for how long it is.

This morning I had a call from a mobile claiming to be from BT Security Service about my router, blah, blah... When I told the Indian sounding chap that I did not believe BT would be using O2 mobile pho... he hung up.

This afternoon I got another call purporting to be from the same place, but the number on my home phone was:

02038870047 - it is a spoofed number - more later.

It sounded like a friend of my morning Indian friend, so this time I decided to play along.

As we were chatting about all the the horrors that were about to befall me I went to https://who-called.co.uk and typed in the number. Sure enough there were loads of complaints about the scam.

So, back to my Indiand friend. He now wants me to hit the Ctrl+R keys, this brings up the Run dialogue. I now have to types in.... err, I will stop there because the next few things he wanted me to do, had I not only been pretending to do them, could have opened a computer to his control. Not mine, it is well tied down, but you get the idea.

At this point I tell him that before we go further I need yo know where he is calling from.

It is BT Security Services in London.

Big place London can he give me the building name, number, road it is on, postcode?

That caused another hang up.

However, two in one day was too much so I pretended to BT that I wanted to close my account (I am actually with TalkTalk) as it was the only way to get to talk to someone. The lad I spoke to understood perfectly what was going on and gave me the number 03001232040 to speak to Action Fraud https://www.actionfraud.police.uk

The person at action fraud has made out a report to pass on and the police could get in tough. He was especially pleased that I had (pretended to) follow the instructions and report them as it makes the process known to investigators. He was also interested in the number spoofing.

Anyway, as we were chatting he desperately wanted me to pass on some information to you good people about the latest scam - HMRC.The caller threatens financial Armageddon, an imminent visit from the police and a possible jail term if your tax debts are not paid instantly. The fact you were unaware of any tax debts is no defence - pay up or make a down payment and set up a recovery account.

Do not fall for it. HMRC only deals with such matters by post or in person.

Caller ID spoofing. Callers have ways of changing the number displayed on Caller ID and the true number could be anywhere in the world. The 02038870047 number I gave above has the 020 London code, and that is where the caller told me he was calling from, my instinct says sub-continent. If you think you are being scammed this way hang up and call the company on a "known" number from the phone book or a receipt/statement or a an Internet search for a website. Wait five mins to make the call to allow the line to go dead from the previous call.

[TheOstrich]

Thanks for that, Frank.

The HMRC scam usually gathers pace in January and July just before the two tax payment deadlines fall due. I had a (pretty obvious) scam email a couple of years ago one January - click on a link type of thingy, and it's so easy to fall into the trap.
So I try to make it a rule never click on any email links; if I need to action something, go to the relevant website.

The business about waiting 5 minutes for the phone line to clear. Failsafe alternative is to use another phone to call the company direct.

The call spoofing is indeed a problem, and yes, using the Who Called Me website is sometimes quite a revelation …..

[Kaz]

Shocking! Mick had one claiming to be from BT, so he told them who he was and what he does, and strangely they went away!

[JoM]

Fancy that eh, Kaz

Thanks for the warning Frank.

[lissie]

I am with TalkTalk and since they introduced Call Safe I have not had any scam or unwanted calls.
https://www.talktalk.co.uk/shop/security/callsafe

[meriad]

I'm realising there's a certain advantage to being at work all day as most of these scam calls all happen during working hours - and no one will be at home to answer the phone.

Frank, I belong to another website/forum called NextDoor (which is local to your area only) and someone there also posted last night re the HMRC scam; so it's definitely one making the rounds. And sad that many people fall for it

[Workingman]

Lissie, I have Call safe as well, but the databases can not always keep up especially when the scammers spoof 'real' numbers from legit businesses, even though they are calling from Julandor or wherever.

Ria, the man from Action Fraud we very concerned about the HMRC scam and that is why he asked me to pass it on. As you say, at least the news is out there.

[JoM]

Ria, yes...most of our calls come early afternoon.

[Osc]

Last week I missed two calls on the house phone while we were out, both purporting to be from a number in California, and the next day got another, when I answered there was that gap denoting (at least) a cold call, so I hung up. Yesterday, I got the "this is Microsoft, I need to speak to you about your computer" call - hung up. Got a call later from a similar number, didn't answer. Both those calls were made to look as if they came from Irish mobile numbers, which is why I answered the first one, but you look more closely, you can see that there is an extra digit. You just have to be so careful. I know the managing director of Microsoft in Ireland and was tempted to engage the guy and ask him if he could put me through to her, but really I couldn't be bothered.

[Workingman]

Both those calls were made to look as if they came from Irish mobile numbers, which is why I answered the first one, but you look more closely, you can see that there is an extra digit.

Fantastic observation, Osc! And that, dear friends, could be why you get the 'number not recognised' message if you try to ring back. Eleven digits, including the leading 0, is the length of UK mobile numbers without any international codes. Forex 075xx xxxxxx