Re: [LUG] Scammer's Attitude

On Tue, 15 Jun 2021 at 17:13, Gordon Henderson <gordon+lug@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The first way is to opt out of the phone book. This is sometimes called
"ex directory". If your chosen telco does not offer this, then move to one
that does.

Sorry Gordon, going to have to disagree with you here. This will not do anything.

At this stage, it doesn't matter if you hide your phone number, nor if you use the telephone/sms preference service. The TPS has failed completely, it is not fit for purpose except to occasionally fine legitimate british firms for not checking against it when cold calling.

Scammers are wardialling, they have been for years. They throw a few hundred dollars at a virtual phone service and autodial away. Two modes that I know of - a sucker's list of numbers (traded from other scammers), and simply dialling blocks of numbers - landlines and mobiles. It costs next to nothing to call several hundred thousand numbers, invalid numbers don't get charged, and they will use that credit up in a day or two then move onto another supplier or account as it gets shut down.

There is no way to prevent it entirely.

If anyone can tell me differently, I'd be glad to hear it.

Don't do what I did, which was to block incoming calls from unknown numbers - that works great, until you forget it's blocked and the doctor calls you about something important and you wonder why your phone never rang because the number was unknown or withheld.

> Finally, which really ought to be firstly is EDUCATION.

I do entirely support that view! This technique prevented someone I know being scammed today (Typical "Hi, it's the boss, can you do me a favour?" - bespoke tailored spearphishing)

Sadly, it's a very difficult thing to teach. Not only do we, as a technical breed, sound like we're over-emphasising a problem and get greeting with scepticism, but humanity's global availability has made us very contactable at near zero cost or risk. I don't know what the answer is, and I very much suspect nobody else does either.

On Tue, 15 Jun 2021 at 17:13, Gordon Henderson <gordon+lug@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Tue, 15 Jun 2021, Neil wrote:

> Anyone on the list finding an increase recently in this scam rubbish?

No, however for the past 20+ years I've had efficient ways to deal with
them.

The first way is to opt out of the phone book. This is sometimes called
"ex directory". If your chosen telco does not offer this, then move to one
that does.

If you think it's a good thing to be in the phone book in 2021, then stop
reading at this point as you're beyond help.

However if you've not opted out then it's probably too late as scammers
trade/sell lists between themselves, but it may stop new scammers in the
future.

Next, opt out of the public voting register. You still need to register to
vote but there are 2 lists that our government will give/sell to anyone
who asks for it and one has the full details and the other just your
names. Opting out will remove your address at least.

On-going, use the TPS. https://www.tpsonline.org.uk/ This is a FREE
service and you can use it for all your numbers, landline and mobile.

This won't be effective immediately but may take some time.

However as before if the scammers already have your number then they will
sell it to others and some just don't bother, or pretend to be
"marketing", etc.

Also ask your telco for caller ID, however caller ID can and is spoofed
now. There is nothing more than a "gentlemans handshake" style agreement
about passing calling ID from one telco to another. Once upon a time there
was a level of trust and you simply didn't trust some telcos who placed
calls into your network - that level of trust has long gone. It's almost
impossible to police anyway.

So while caller ID may be helpful, it may not.

I'd also suggest unplugging your landline and moving to mobile. It costs
scammers fractionally more to call a mobile number, so they tend to not
bother. Telcos have deals for residential callers to give them so-many
"free" call minutes to mobiles now, so if your friends/family complain
tell them to move to a telco which does this. If you can unplug your
landline, then look for an ISP that supports SOGEA - your current one
might - this is copper without the voice part, so broadband only. Obviously
if you're on FTTP you can simply drop your copper phone line.

Finally, which really ought to be firstly is EDUCATION. Educate your
family to recognise scam calls immediately and deal with them. The best
way is to simply hang up. Do not try to negotiate with them. I take the
silent approach in that I answer the call but do not speak until they do.
More often than not their automatic systems will hang up before they
connect a human to the line. Sometimes if I'm bored I'll say "Hello?" then
wait, but lifes too short.

And scam emails? Why on earth are you not running an email spam checker or
using an email provider that does this for you? You do not have to use
your ISPs email provider - there are many others but note that the better
ones may not be free.

Good luck.

Gordon

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