Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/08/24/uk-readers-beware-of-this-fak.html
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It’s amazing how, with all the variations of this scam, it starts off with some sort of claim of fraudulent credit-card charges (in one case, actually sending a false invoice - presumably so that they’d have yet another way to make money), and then turns into “it’s an internet security issue,” even though that makes no damn sense. I guess it’s a good filter to only select for those people naive enough to give them full access to their computer.
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I’m glad that there are people on Youtube and Twitch raising awareness of these scams. (Kitboga!) There is a whole community of people doing this, calling scammers up, wasting their time so that they’ll be too busy to actually scam other victims. Some of the RP can be hilarious.
Sometimes the commentary can become a bit too racist/xenophobic, so I try to limit my exposure to this scene’s underbelly.
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There should be a law that every unused phone number be directed to an AI that does nothing but pretend to fall for scams.
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Or. You know. Phone companies adjust their systems to disallow spoofing.
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it’s anything and everything these days…
still trying to prep an audio set up to record
robot calls these days 
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In iOS 13 there is a feature called Silence Unknown Callers. With that switched on any unknown calls are sent straight to voicemail without any notification. Robots tend to not leave voicemails but humans who actually need to speak to you do.
It’s solved the issue of robot calls entirely for me (I only recently started using voicemail for this purpose as it was yet another in-tray to manage but I haven’t looked back).
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I get a couple of robo voice mails a week on my work line, which I never answer (I use a mobile phone for work calls). It could have something to do with how they’ve got the phones set up.
It could also be the particular robo callers I get. I end up with a lot of voice mail in Mandarin, or just 30 seconds of static as if the connection were about to drop.
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Then what’s to prevent scammers from purchasing new numbers just to keep ahead of the game?
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Fear not UK, you have this savior of the people to keep you from harm!
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It’s a fake scam? One thing I learned while travelling was that people who warn you unprompted that there are people around who want to cheat you is that they are talking about themselves. But robocalls should be made technically impossible (please) as well as very illegal.
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Or the elderly or easily confused. Like my Dad who is in his 80s and was recently relieved of £9,000 in the course of a gruelling 2 hour telephone conversation from his “internet provider”. What really annoyed him apart from being duped, was that he had thanked the man on the phone for being so helpful.
It seems to me that the banking industry are not taking a preemptive position on this – the sudden out-of-character transaction, especially involving money transfer abroad should be something they pick up, put a temporary hold and start an investigation.
A partial solution in the case of this scam might be to require all texts (SMSs) from transfer or banks be to preceded with a warning that any PIN or code number/word should not be given out especially in connection with an unsolicited communication and then followed with the PIN in a separate text.
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It doesn’t completely, but forces them through a management chokepoint whereby improvements to applying for a new number will cut down on scammers.
Instant message spam used to be a huge problem. Now it isn’t mostly.
Yup. I 10% agree with evilkolbot. Robocalls should be made illegal with no exception. We are sick of them, especially those tech support scammers which sometimes call you 10 times a day! I recently got several calls from 315-791-4443. Googled it up and found some reports filed at https://www.whycall.me/315-791-4443.html easily. People should be very familiar with these scammers by now.
I’m sorry your father had to go through that. If someone totals your car being stupid or careless, it can be traumatic, but to be targeted and manipulated is a really personal violation.
My mom got hit by fraudsters. They played on her confusion, and when she started to get suspicious, they were able to shame her into not contacting anyone else in the family for consultation.
It won’t be too many years before I qualify as elderly and vulnerable. I wonder what joys await me and my ilk. As long as my wife and I are still both cogent, we at least can bounce things between us, which I hope will help.
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I’ve had the occasional call purportedly from my ISP, which is BT, on one occasion, I decided to string them along, as I was at home, and not busy, so I followed their instructions, which involved hitting the Windows key on my keyboard, and completely threw the bloke off his script because I said I didn’t have that key. When I eventually told him I had a Mac, you could tell he was struggling, but persevered, and asked me to type in a web address, which promptly threw up a security warning. So I said to the bloke, that’s odd, I’ve just had a warning pop up, and the line instantly went dead.
Having just kept him on the line for thirty-odd minutes, I felt a perverse pleasure.
The others I usually get are the ones telling me they’re from Microsoft service, and my computer is sending out viruses, so I tell them they’re lying, and they frequently get quite angry, so I ask them how I know they’re lying, and then tell them I’ve never had, and never will have, anything to do with Microsoft, and to go fuck themselves, which also gives me a small amount of pleasure.
Vermin, every last one of them.
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