Plagued by scam calls DON'T POST PHONE NUMBERS

Kalimah · 21-05-2021 4:36pm

I’ve been getting calls from 1529 4275 the last three days. Keep missing them!
Also got the “ Revenue” one with the legal action pending against me. I should have answered that one and strung them along for a bit of fun!

ongarite · 21-05-2021 6:34pm

corkie wrote: »

083 scam: Gardai share list of bogus numbers after major increase in scam calls

""Some of the numbers involved begin with the following digits.

+353 8336
080066
353 01 888
1(647)375

"Gardaí wish to warn members of the public not to engage or share personal information. The Department of Social Welfare will never call you to ask you for your PPS number or bank details."

I got 4 of these calls from different 083 prefixes in the space of 20 minutes.
All went to voicemail with robo-voice claiming to be from Department of Social Welfare warning of pending legal action

ElitesTeam · 26-05-2021 2:58pm

ongarite wrote: »

I got 4 of these calls from different 083 prefixes in the space of 20 minutes.
All went to voicemail with robo-voice claiming to be from Department of Social Welfare warning of pending legal action

I had 3 calls today of the same

Atlantic Dawn · 29-05-2021 12:58am

I'd normally get one of these calls every month or so, this week I have had 10 plus with 3 of them in the middle of the night, why can't mobile operators allow you to block all calls from absolute sh!thole kips of countries? Every time it's a different number, coming from North Macedonia and Cuba.

ClosedAccountFuzzy · 29-05-2021 1:01am

I don’t know why the telcos can’t just parse the numbers and block anything that’s not making sense.

We really need to move to verified Caller ID. As it stands the networks will just pass anything though and display it.

Some of the older aspects of the landline network would be pretty Stone Age computer systems (globally) but things are rapidly moving to more modern technologies that should be able to do more.

The other issue is the international rules and regulations for signalling protocols can be the lowest common denominator and you will find the ITU members will object to traffic being blocked or extra signalling being required.

A lot of interconnection still relies on a set of protocols called SS7 (Signalling System 7) which originated in the 70s, 80s and 90s in should be in the history books, along side ISDN and that early era of non internet based digital communications. It’s not flexible enough or secure enough to be interacting with modern VoIP systems, so it can’t see things like if Caller ID is real or spoofed and so on. Digital but primitive.

Really this needs to be dealt with by the EU regulators and FCC etc getting together and changing the rules.

29-05-2021 1:02am

If you answer them and say nothing they think you are ice cold and they dont call back

fritzelly · 29-05-2021 1:07am

Deleted User wrote: »

If you answer them and say nothing they think you are ice cold and they dont call back

If you answer you are confirming the number is real

ClosedAccountFuzzy · 29-05-2021 1:09am

If you see a weird number that doesn’t look like any recognisable format or appears to be from some odd country you’re definitely not expecting calls from just don’t answer it.

If it’s a real number, just hang up on it when you answer. Don’t waste your time engaging.

Also don’t assume the calls actually originated from the country codes you’re seeing. They’re mostly just entirely fakes with made up numbers.

For example I was getting calls from +53 which is Cuba, but I think it’s just a gateway switch somewhere screwing up a fake +353.

That’s also why blocking countries would be counterproductive end unfair as the calls aren’t even originating on their networks and have nothing to do with them.

29-05-2021 1:10am

fritzelly wrote: »

If you answer you are confirming the number is real

sure if they get a dial tone the number has to be real

ClosedAccountFuzzy · 29-05-2021 1:12am

[Deleted User] wrote: »

sure if they get a dial tone the number has to be real

If they just get no answer or voicemail they may remove it from a list as it’s a waste of time.

They’re looking for humans.

Often it’s even a computer dialling random numbers looking for someone who isn’t a voicemail box or an unanswered number.

So don’t answer and if you do answer just immediately hang up. Don’t even bother interacting.

fritzelly · 29-05-2021 1:13am

Deleted User wrote: »

sure if they get a dial tone the number has to be real

It's logged as answered and passed on to other entities

29-05-2021 1:17am

fritzelly wrote: »

It's logged as answered and passed on to other entities

We were getting land line calls from "microsoft security", the silent treatment worked

Sure they can probably see land line numbers in a phone book

fritzelly · 29-05-2021 1:19am

Deleted User wrote: »

We were getting land line calls from "microsoft security", the silent treatment worked

Sure they can probably see land line numbers in a phone book

Those guys sell their lists to other similar scams
They're not going thru phonebooks lol

ClosedAccountFuzzy · 29-05-2021 1:19am

The other thing to do is respond as if you’re the main reception in a business.

Good afternoon! How can I help you?
I’m sorry, do you know the extension number you are trying to reach?! Which department do you want?

They’ll flag your line as a business and you won’t get called again.

fritzelly · 29-05-2021 1:22am

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

The other thing to do is respond as if you’re the main reception in a business.

Good afternoon! How can I help you?
I’m sorry, do you know the extension number you are trying to reach?! Which department do you want?

They’ll flag your line as a business and you won’t get called again.

That doesn't work - they'll switch scams

ClosedAccountFuzzy · 29-05-2021 1:25am

fritzelly wrote: »

That doesn't work - they'll switch scams

Tends to if it’s a receptionist as they know they won’t get put through. They tend to try to target people directly in companies, or small businesses by dialling extensions directly.

Most of the “war dialled” phishing calls aren’t aimed at business. They’re looking for gullible individuals on their own, often landlines tend to lead them to older people too which is unfortunate and why you should endure you make older relatives aware of the fact they should immediately hang up.

I’d also suspect the volume of calls has increased because people aren’t in offices and are answering mobile and landlines more due to the pandemic being work from home.

JCX BXC · 29-05-2021 1:35am

Our landline at home was plagued with them since COVID arrived, several calls a day to a phone which would regularly sit idle for weeks.

Eventually I answered one, it was a Indian woman with the antiquated 'hello I am from Microsoft and your computer has a virus". I replied with, 'that's interesting because I don't have a laptop or computer". I got an aggressive "f*ck you" down the phone and since then we've not gotten a single scam call.

Very strange.

Ish66 · 29-05-2021 1:36am

Nobody rings me..ever !:D

fritzelly · 29-05-2021 1:37am

Ish66 wrote: »

Nobody rings me..ever !:D

Tell me your phone number, PPS number and name and I'll ring you

ClosedAccountFuzzy · 29-05-2021 2:07am

The main thing I would stress is that you explain very clearly to any more gullible family members that they should just hang up on these calls and never give them any details.

Also to stress not to be frightened by them. They’re just random dialling, thousands of miles away and can’t do anything to you.

I’ve just seen too many people being intimidated by these calls. They need to be just brushed aside like email spam.

For mobiles there are fairly good call filtering services like Hiya and so on. Samsung actually seems to bundle it into the software by default.

lisasimpson · 06-06-2021 6:37am

About 10 /15 years ago i got a load of spam post to the extent even the postman started to comment on it. Ine day i decided to reply back to them. Gave my name as podge and rodge with the adrdress ballydung manor dublin 4 and they soon stopped. Its the only way to deal with then.
My mum used to get the mircosoft/windows calls she would tell them her windows are grand she just washed them and can see out perfectly and they soon stopped

Muahahaha · 06-06-2021 4:36pm

L1011 wrote: »

The poster you're quoting has already said they had their name.

The financial trading scammers have names and partial addresses, from a specific unknown data breach I'd imagine.

I used to get calls from some financial trading boilerhouse in London quite a bit, about once a month or so. They knew my name so it came from some data breach, it might have been the Dropbox one years back as they had my number. For a good few calls I just said Im not interested and can you take me off your list but they never did. After a few months of this instead when they asked my name Id just pretend it was incorrect and say sorry you must have the wrong number., this happened about 3 times till eventually they must have scrubbed my number off their list as the calls stopped.

I think with the financial trading scams if they have your name then refusing to confirm it is a good way to go. These types of scammers dont want to be wasting their own time by calling 'wrong numbers' so by saying it is a wrong number its more likely they will scrub you from their call lists.

dmcm_90 · 09-06-2021 2:16pm

Amazon delivery scam
0499565121

ClosedAccountFuzzy · 09-06-2021 5:49pm

I checked that number on ComReg just to see who is hosting it and it isn’t even assigned to any network. A completely fake number with false caller ID.

https://www.comreg.ie/industry/licensing/numbering/number-assignments-availability/

Muppet Man · 09-06-2021 5:57pm

Hell of a lot of dodgy sms messages in the last few days, including one today referencing a shortened version of my first name which I use from time to time. Number is +353 77 025 9585 which is actually From the country Burundi "+35". Really not sure how they got my first name.

ClosedAccountFuzzy · 09-06-2021 6:00pm

Burundi is +257

+353 77 is an Irish number, but one that doesn't exist as there is no 077 area, it was merged a decade or so ago.

These are all fake caller IDs

I would suggest not posting them as there's a possibility someone's legitimate number may be used by these fraudsters and they'll have nothing to do with the scam. It's just someone's setting their outbound caller ID.

L1011 · 09-06-2021 6:54pm

There is no and could not be any country code +35; the numbering system has to be unique from the top.

Google gave you a list where Burundi was in row 35 instead - its what it inaccurately gives when looking for the non-existent +35 code.

09-06-2021 7:04pm

Muppet Man wrote: »

Hell of a lot of dodgy sms messages in the last few days, including one today referencing a shortened version of my first name which I use from time to time. Number is +353 77 025 9585 which is actually From the country Burundi "+35". Really not sure how they got my first name.

Facebook leak a few years back? Names, numbers and email addresses were stolen.

L1011 · 09-06-2021 8:01pm

Between the Facebook leak, Apache leak and Fastway leak I'd say the majority of people who use the internet in Ireland now have their name, email and phone number out there; possibly with address and current/former job title too.

human 19 · 17-06-2021 8:43pm

I received my first one a few days ago and their spiel was that I had been signed up for a premium service for 79.99 per month. Press 1 to talk to an operator to cancel this. I contacted the phone company who confirmed I hadn't been signed up for any premium service. So keep an ear out for that one. Got another one today and let it go to voicemail. Got a message stating something about illegal activity and, again, press 1. The voicemail service said the mesage came from a number that was the same as my own, with the last 3 digits replaced by "000".

The incoming calls also seem like they come from 083, so I guess their robocaller , as its ploughing through all possible numbers, chooses your prefix as a spoof number so it looks legit in whatever country they are calling. I

ClosedAccountFuzzy · 17-06-2021 9:35pm

Please be careful about posting numbers - I had someone earlier on calling me saying they'd received a spam call from my phone number.

You could be posting a real phone number that has nothing to do with these scammers. They're using any valid Irish number as their outbound caller ID.

The person who called me had a number very similar to like. So I think they're calling say 08X 2xx 1234 and setting their caller ID to say 08X 2xx 1200

patnor1011 · 18-06-2021 10:48am

Who knows where they got info from, there is too many places we leave our details and there is very few companies which were not hacked yet

I am getting calls from UK mostly some financial investment company. Nice female voice she try to look very friendly and no matter how many times you say that you are not interested they will call again. I used to block numbers right after I got call but that is pointless exercise as I had over 30 blocked yet still new number but the same person called.
You need to be persistent and either not answer or decline any offer. It is annoying but from 2-3 calls a day it went down to 2-3 a week and now like once a month.
I sometimes play with them. Like starting to talk about unrelated stuff, asking them questions about whatever topic is on newspapers - mostly covid these days.
I once had her on a phone for over an hour. Well, I wasted their time as I was just having fun and probably saved some another poor sod from getting calls from them.
Ridiculous offers like you can quit your job if you invest just 200 euro you will be getting returns of 200 a week and such. I asked her how come she is still wasting her time calling people why she do not put in her paycheck...

Kids started getting calls from irish mobile numbers and just this morning I got 2 calls from 086 367 XXXX (Xpart was always different).
Prerecorded message that Garda is investigating criminal activity connected to my PPS number and to press 1 for more info.
It is a scam but I am thinking to press that 1 and have a fun with whoever is on the other end.

L1011 · 18-06-2021 10:54am

Irish mobile numbers are issued in fairly tightly defined blocks so its fairly easy for scammers to just generate numbers and they probably exist. If you add in some knowledge of the blocks more commonly used by each network its even easier. Thats where the PPS/Garda/Revenue scams are coming from normally.

The financial stuff who have your name are using leaks.

tphase wrote: »

don't forget to finish the call with a loud blast from a whistle....

Does absolutely nothing. Frequency won't even be picked up by your phones mic let alone survive the data compression.

18-06-2021 4:50pm

patnor1011 wrote: »

It is a scam but I am thinking to press that 1 and have a fun with whoever is on the other end.

I did this and I didn't even get to 4 minutes before the guy hung up on me. No staying power, those scammers. That was my one and only call from "the department of social protection". I do wonder if I was blacklisted.

ClosedAccountFuzzy · 18-06-2021 11:02pm

A loud blast of a whistle is more likely to damage your ears.
Just don't engage with them at all and hang up.

I'm letting weird numbers go to voicemail. If someone wants me they'll leave a message / text me.

Purple Mountain · 18-06-2021 11:05pm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I did this and I didn't even get to 4 minutes before the guy hung up on me. No staying power, those scammers. That was my one and only call from "the department of social protection". I do wonder if I was blacklisted.

Go on, what did you say??...

jimmycrackcorm · 18-06-2021 11:12pm

I got several calls today from several mobile numbers very similar to my own. I.e only the last three digits were different. I ignored a few as I don't answer calls from unknown numbers generally, but when I did answer a couple of them, they just hung up.
I tried ringing their voice mail directly to see if I could hear a leave voice message but neither set up.

19-06-2021 12:12am

Purple Mountain wrote: »

Go on, what did you say??...

They said my PPS number was being used for money laundering and drug trafficking, and I told them I knew that, because that was me.

yrreg0850 · 19-06-2021 3:44pm

There is supposed to be a scam going around from an 087 number. It has only 6 digits instead of the normal 7 after the 087.
I have been told, if you even answer this number money is taken from your account.

L1011 · 19-06-2021 3:46pm

That isn't possible - the taking money that is.

As goes the displayed number - they mean nothing, its entirely fakable, can be any length at all.

ClosedAccountFuzzy · 19-06-2021 3:49pm

Reverse charge / collect call scams are common in the USA. Incoming calls here can't incur a charge.

Only risk around that is if you call a number back and get charged at a high per min rate.

patnor1011 · 20-06-2021 12:53am

Deleted User wrote: »

I did this and I didn't even get to 4 minutes before the guy hung up on me. No staying power, those scammers. That was my one and only call from "the department of social protection". I do wonder if I was blacklisted.

Cool.
I answered that call too as I was getting call every few minutes.
It was the same - department of social protection. So here it go, I press one and very firm authoritative sounding male voice said:
"Thank you for calling department of social protection, how may I help you?"
to which I said "I did not call you, you did. Who are you?"
A heavy breathing on the other end for like 4-5 seconds and then I went on:
Listen, do you seriously think I'll believe you that anyone from department of social protection will be calling people at 6pm Friday evening? Who the f**k are you?
(aaaaand its gone) line went quiet. It probably worked as no more social protection or gardai are calling me from cell phone number nearly identical to mine since then.
On a side note and without intent of insulting anyone my "department of social protection" caller had heavy indian accent and from a noise in background it was call centre, quite a few voices and noises in background.

fritzelly · 20-06-2021 1:10am

patnor1011 wrote: »

On a side note and without intent of insulting anyone my "department of social protection" caller had heavy indian accent and from a noise in background it was call centre, quite a few voices and noises in background.

Nearly every one of these phone scams are based in India - Jim Browning does some great videos of them on Youtube

jos28 · 20-06-2021 6:04pm

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I got several calls today from several mobile numbers very similar to my own. I.e only the last three digits were different. I ignored a few as I don't answer calls from unknown numbers generally, but when I did answer a couple of them, they just hung up.
I tried ringing their voice mail directly to see if I could hear a leave voice message but neither set up.

I received at least 6 of those yesterday. All beginning with the same first 6 digits as my number. I answered the first one which was some sort of recording so I hung up and didn't answer the rest of them

20-06-2021 7:16pm

fritzelly wrote: »

Nearly every one of these phone scams are based in India - Jim Browning does some great videos of them on Youtube

Kitboga is my favourite scambaiter! He doesn't pwn them the way that Peirogi or Jim Browning do, but the entertainment factor is brilliant. That's pretty much how I knew the scammer's script better than he did.

paul71 · 21-06-2021 1:22am

DPS or Gardai call its an easy fix.

You: Is this an official call
Them: Yes
You: Is fearr liom Gaeilge a labhairt le do thoil

End of conversation

Jim_Hodge · 21-06-2021 8:29am

paul71 wrote: »

DPS or Gardai call its an easy fix.

You: Is this an official call
Them: Yes
You: Is fearr liom Gaeilge a labhairt le do thoil

End of conversation

That would be the identical conversation if it was a genuine call too.

tgdaly · 21-06-2021 8:34am

jos28 wrote: »

I received at least 6 of those yesterday. All beginning with the same first 6 digits as my number. I answered the first one which was some sort of recording so I hung up and didn't answer the rest of them

3 of these for me last Wednesday, and one each Thursday and Friday

Duzzie · 21-06-2021 12:10pm

Just got a call from an 087 number. Got an automated recording. "This is the Department of Social Protection" blah blah blah. "Your PPS number is being used for illegal transactions" blah blah blah. "If you dont address the issue immediately, your PPS will be blocked" blah blah blah. I hung up then. Since when would the Department of Social Protection call you on a mobile number??

Mongfinder General · 21-06-2021 12:15pm

Duzzie wrote: »

Just got a call from an 087 number. Got an automated recording. "This is the Department of Social Protection" blah blah blah. "Your PPS number is being used for illegal transactions" blah blah blah. "If you dont address the issue immediately, your PPS will be blocked" blah blah blah. I hung up then. Since when would the Department of Social Protection call you on a mobile number??

What would blocking a pps do? Idiots.

Plagued by scam calls *DON'T POST PHONE NUMBERS*

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Plagued by scam calls DON'T POST PHONE NUMBERS