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Scam phone calls?
Ancient IDTV
Posts: 10,174 Forum Member
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I assume they are, anyway..........
1) Frank from Switzerland, Indian sounding accent, loads of background noise. Wanted to know which aftershaves I used. Hung up quick on that one.
2) Woman claiming to be somewhere in Italy wanting to know what I thought of Italian food. I kept this one going for a while. Asked her why she wanted to know that. She said she was working for some pasta company. Told her I don't like such foods, and she actually accused me of lying. End of conversation.
What's the angle here? Obviously dodgy, but how are they hoping to gain anything from this? Anyone else received this sort of call lately?
1) Frank from Switzerland, Indian sounding accent, loads of background noise. Wanted to know which aftershaves I used. Hung up quick on that one.
2) Woman claiming to be somewhere in Italy wanting to know what I thought of Italian food. I kept this one going for a while. Asked her why she wanted to know that. She said she was working for some pasta company. Told her I don't like such foods, and she actually accused me of lying. End of conversation.
What's the angle here? Obviously dodgy, but how are they hoping to gain anything from this? Anyone else received this sort of call lately?
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The call could easily have been from people calling themselve Microsoft technicians saying you had loads of viruses on your PC which they would fix for a charge of course.
Now that is a scam when payment is being asked for.
In this case it's just a nuisance if no money was requested
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/scam
Recorded messages recently or silence and I just hang up, I'm totally sick of it.
I get those calls, too, and I'm kind of used to those.
Like I say, though, what are these people hoping to gain from this? How does someone (probably in India or therabouts) asking me which aftershaves I use benefit them? I don't get it. I doubt they're doing this just for kicks.
She'd then have gone on to other products, insurances, etc. Then garble a paragraph about passing on your details to "partner companies". Finally, you'd be asked for a "password" so you knew calls were genuine. If I let them get that far, I usually say "cold callers are scum".
Then her company will sell your details to hundreds of companies.
You need to learn how to make stuff up quickly...
For "Frank" from Switzerland you should have said "Dusky Lady" - any queries point out that it's advertised on tv (McDonald's £saver) all the time.
Italian Lady, explain that you are gluten intolerant and pasta gives you a dreadful dose of the trots.
Any surverys, explain you only respond in return for payment in advance.
Lots of very genuine market research is conducted in this way (random phone polling).