Threatening phone scam - police matter?

[Pvapour]

My FIL has had a scam call today demanding income tax (posing as IR.)

Threats of police action if immediate payment wasn't made etc

Is this a police matter?

He's elderly and quite rightly very shaken but I'm thinking the police won't be interested..

[Bigends]

Police wont be interested but Action fraud will be if youve been able to 1-4-7-1 the callers number. Let them know via their website or ring them

[Pvapour]

Thanks Bigends, sadly no number though, we're going to get one of those number ecognition boxes that auto records numbers + this means if number is witheld or not recognised then FIL can put phone down, an easy one to explain to him.

Maybe theres a feature like 1471 that blocks witheld numbers? like on a mobile..

[The Mad Monk]

Pvapour said:

Thanks Bigends, sadly no number though, we're going to get one of those number ecognition boxes that auto records numbers + this means if number is witheld or not recognised then FIL can put phone down, an easy one to explain to him.

Maybe theres a feature like 1471 that blocks witheld numbers? like on a mobile..

What do you do when the hospital call on a withheld number and you put the phone down on them?

[JZZ30]

The Mad Monk said:

What do you do when the hospital call on a withheld number and you put the phone down on them?

NHS trusts (in Scotland anyway) now show a number for this very reason, I believe.

[paua]

New Zealand is currently suffering a deluge of hoax calls. Usually the caller claims to be microsoft support wanting to fix your non-existant computer problem. I deal with this in one of two ways: 1 - shout fk off & die
2 - hold phone up to smoke alarm, push test.
Both methods work.

[The Mad Monk]

paua said:

New Zealand is currently suffering a deluge of hoax calls. Usually the caller claims to be microsoft support wanting to fix your non-existant computer problem. I deal with this in one of two ways: 1 - shout fk off & die
2 - hold phone up to smoke alarm, push test.
Both methods work.

Or you could just put the phone down.

[GreenDog]

My wife works in retail and they've recently had to deal with a case like this.
An elderly gentleman came into the store and tried to buy £150 of iTunes vouchers. The staff were a little suspicious as to why he needed such a large amount and it tuned out he'd been called by somebody claiming to be from HMRC and saying that he had an outstanding tax bill but if he paid £150 today it would avoid interest being accrued. The police came to the store to deal with it and to take the gentleman home.

They also had another incident where a vulnerable lady had been caught up in a honeytrap style scam whereby she was trying to secure a loan in order to be able to send money for her 'boyfriend' in Canada so that he could buy flights to visit her. A company contacted her saying that they'd loan her the money but needed a £150 fee in iTunes vouchers first. They couldn't convince her it was a scam and again the police attended.

[paua]

After the 15th-18th time this week I get more satisfaction my way. Friend who's an IT specialist says " wait while I get somebody...." or ties them up with technical Q's

[pheasant]

The Mad Monk said:

Or you could just put the phone down.

What's the point in politeness - If I can cause enough stress in these scum to make just one give up through depression then I consider it 'job done'.

[BOF]

On the fourth call last Friday I asked the male caller if he would do me a favour?

Yes Sir...how can I help you...

""Put your head between your knees and kiss your arse goodbye!""

Oh - why are you saying this to me !

BOF

[youngricharduk]

Sadly these calls are very common at the moment.

As already advised call action fraud on 0300 123 2040 or visit their website actionfraud.police.uk

This is the guidance HMRC will give you and there is not much else you can do, but no need to worry if he didn't provide any personal details

[paua]

youngricharduk said:

Sadly these calls are very common at the moment.

As already advised call action fraud on 0300 123 2040 or visit their website actionfraud.police.uk

This is the guidance HMRC will give you and there is not much else you can do, but no need to worry if he didn't provide any personal details

Not really sure what you want the cops etc to do. Calls all originate from overseas. No evidence trail ,no jurisdiction. Take what little satisfaction you can by deafening the caller with referee's whistle /smoke alarm or really vile suggestions of what will happen when you catch up with him etc.

[spookly]

After years of never getting any nuisance calls to my mobile (don't use landline for anything other than broadband, no phone plugged in), I have recently been getting ambulance chasers calling up.
I had a minor scrape in a Merc E class over two years ago, I can only imagine they got the details from one of the insurers involved.

I always give them a load of abuse down the phone. It might give them second thoughts about working for such scummy companies, and make it harder for them to find replacements. If you cold call me, then you get a load of abuse... if you don't want it, then don't call me.

[youngricharduk]

paua said:

Not really sure what you want the cops etc to do. Calls all originate from overseas. No evidence trail ,no jurisdiction. Take what little satisfaction you can by deafening the caller with referee's whistle /smoke alarm or really vile suggestions of what will happen when you catch up with him etc.

I happen to agree, however this is the exact guidance that HMRC give to customers who have received these calls. Its like anything the more its reported the more chance something can be done, ie give people especially older people more awareness of theses scams. It's incredible how many people fall victim, especially from e-mails or text messages claiming to be from HMRC advising people they are due a refund.

[fidzer]

If your father in law is with BT, get him to sign up to BT call protect. It does a decent job of filtering nuisance calls, and unusually for BT, it's free.

https://home.bt.com/tech-gadgets/tech-news/bt-call...

This particular scam has being doing the rounds for a while, especially about this time last year. Even if your FIL has a telephone number for who is calling him, there is no guarantee it isn't a spoofed number, originating from somewhere else.

https://www.ftadviser.com/your-industry/2017/06/07...

Edited by fidzer on Wednesday 14th June 12:30

Edited by fidzer on Wednesday 14th June 12:30

[Swampy1982]

fidzer said:

If your father in law is with BT, get him to sign up to BT call protect. It does a decent job of filtering nuisance calls, and unusually for BT, it's free.

https://home.bt.com/tech-gadgets/tech-news/bt-call...

Also, if he was called on a mobile, install Truecaller, basically it works similar to crowd sourcing, anyone who receives a malicious or spam call notes on the database after the call (and blocks it), then the app looks up the shared database and identifies the call to every future "victim"

[Who me ?]

Pvapour said:

Thanks Bigends, sadly no number though, we're going to get one of those number ecognition boxes that auto records numbers + this means if number is witheld or not recognised then FIL can put phone down, an easy one to explain to him.

Maybe theres a feature like 1471 that blocks witheld numbers? like on a mobile..

Google BTSHOP /Look in the likes of Asda. Good one is a Decor 2600 from BT. Gets round the unknowns by asking them for a name.( So likes of business can give a name) .
You can black list numbers by individual number or by area code.
Or you can put it in answerphone mode. Single button call reject.
All you need is CLI from the pone provider.
Very usefull now that parts of India use codes very similar to ours and it shows up as the code .

ETA- works like a mobile in once it has a number stored ( with a name ,of course), it'll show the name .

Edited by Who me ? on Wednesday 14th June 15:22

[Octoposse]

Pvapour said:

My FIL has had a scam call today demanding income tax (posing as IR.)

Threats of police action if immediate payment wasn't made etc

Is this a police matter?

He's elderly and quite rightly very shaken but I'm thinking the police won't be interested..

Report to Police. This is going on a lot, and occassionally they will get a few thousand, often in the form of iTunes vouchers.

Worth reporting so that it stays on the local radar and awareness messages go out via Police, housing associations, day centres, etc.

[paua]

PW said:

paua said:

Take what little satisfaction you can by deafening the caller with referee's whistle /smoke alarm

Into a low quality mic on your phone, over a low bitrate phone line, to a low quality speaker on their phone/headset, and I'm sure they've probably got a finger on the mute/hang up button - the only person you are deafening is yourself.

I think the person in your house/neighbour, screaming, blowing whistles and setting alarms off every time the phone rings is probably much more annoying and antisocial than cold callers.

My nearest neighbor is 400 metres away - no antisocial issue. Your comments about mic/speaker quality may well be accurate, however, it works. The scammer hangs up.
This is an industrial level scam effort - you can hear multiple operators in the background. One elderly local victim lost $30k.