Be Excellent To Each Other

First of all (the most recent of these tactics I've experienced), there's this:



I have no record of this guy writing to me before about this. I've not noticed that I had access to "premium" Economist stuff because, well, I've never tried to access it. I cancelled my subscription two or more years ago. This is blatant bullshit. It happens quite often with emails, actually. You get what looks to be an apology for an "administrative error" that likely never happened in the first place, and a sneaky sales pitch alongside it.

"Oh, we're sorry about that error you didn't notice, by way of apology, we'd like to offer you the chance to give us some money."

How are they allowed to get away with this? Rhetorical, of course. But this is nothing. It's spammy email rubbish. I have more examples of companies pulling shit under the guise of incompetence in an attempt to outright scam people out of money.

The PPI Scam.

For example, last week I got a phone call on my mobile from a landline number. Turns out it was a Manchester number. It wasn't an 0845 job, so I answered it. On the other end there was a hell of a lot of background noise and a lady asked for a Mr [krrrrrrrkchhcjch!]. I couldn't hear what she said after "Mr". It later dawned on me that she'd deliberately mumbled the name, but more on that in a minute.

So anyway, I ask "who?". And she mumbles it again. "Who?". She gives up this time and comes out with it. "Mr Simpson" (or something - I can't remember the exact name). I obviously responded in the negative and asked how they got my number. Turns out Mr. Simpson had given them my number and his name! It was a PPI sales pitch of course.

"I'm awfully sorry, it appears Mr Simpson has given us your number in error. My apologies, but whilst we're here, would you be interested in claiming back your Payment Protection Insurance that was potentially mis-sold?"

"No, I want to be removed from your system, fuck off."

I Googled the number immediately after the call and discover that many other people have experienced similar calls. Noisy background, asking for a name that isn't the name of the answerer, then the sales pitch.

Nobody seemed to put two and two together on those nuisance call forums, but I think I have:

They get your number from wherever these cunts get numbers from, and they make up a name. They ring you - it's noisy, she mumbles the name. They're hoping that you'll give them your real name before they have to come clean on the fact that they've made up a name at their end. If you do, they'll simply start calling you by your actual name and begin the sales pitch. If not, they do the apology thing and then start the sales pitch. Win-win. What the fuck?!

The Gas and Electric scam.

This one is so fucking brazen I can't believe Watchdog haven't been involved yet.

We moved into this property 9 months or so ago. We were signed up with a company called Spark Energy. They're fucking awful by all accounts, but regardless, we didn't have a choice because the letting agency signed us up and as far as I can tell, attempting to leave one of these companies is more stress than it's worth.

Anyway, we pay them monthly via direct debit for electric and gas. We're at 68 [Road Name]. They generate our bill and charge us automatically. It's all on their automated computer system. So why, then, do we continue to receive bills for Mr Mark [redacted] (also known as an unlucky fucker, victim of an attempted scam). These bills drop on our doormat the same day every month. The same day we receive our own bill from Spark Energy.

Now I'm about to admit to something illegal here. After a couple of months, I opened one of this unlucky fucker's letters from Spark Energy. Curiosity got the better of me. I shouldn't have done it, but I've tried to have his mail passed on via the letting agency and they don't know where he is now. They go in the bin anyway.

So this letter is a bill. For the same property we live in. For gas and electric. And it's a whopper. It's up to about £700 now. The period of the bill? The date we moved in and started paying for gas and electric until present day. They're billing our property twice to two different sets of people for the same gas and electric usage.

They're getting their money from us. Their system is undoubtedly aware of this. The only conclusion I can draw is that they're chancing Mr [redacted] panicking and paying this bill even though he hasn't lived here since August. I imagine they do this to pretty much everyone on the off-chance that people will just pay it. A nice little earner, no doubt.

So I rang them up and explained the situation. "Oh we're really sorry Mr Robson, we'll remove that from our system immediately." A month later, another bill arrives. I ring again. "Oh very sorry...". A month later, another bill arrives. And so it continues. I've given up. I feel bad for Mr. [redacted], but these clowns clearly don't give a shit.

My primary concern now is the same thing happening to me when we move on from this property.

So, anyone else know of any blatant scams that seem to toe the legal line, masked by incompetence?

I had a call the other day on my mobile for some totally unrelated name. When I said "wrong number", the callcentre drone immediately said "oh, I'm sorry to have the wrong number, but maybe I can help you: have you been mis-sold PPI?"

I'm fairly sure the "wrong number" bit was just a gag to dodge the fact they've either bought a dodgy phone list or (more likely) robocalled all numbers from 07000 000001 upwards.

Complete bastards. They're not even solicitors, either. It's actually against the SRA Code of Conduct to phone people in an attempt to solicit legal trade.

If you read up on the whole "Tesco Law" thing, you'll see that these companies can carry out legal work, but aren't regulated by the SRA (or at least, not as stringently as proper solicitors). That's why they're allowed to do it.

It'll be an automated system with no checks for double billing of a product to two different accounts, nothing more nefarious that that.

I was once on a forum where the guy running it asked for two.... *dragged away from keyboard*

I'd argue that it is in and of itself nefarious because it would be so fucking easy* to implement something to prevent it. It shouldn't be happening. I imagine people up and down the country are receiving these whopping erroneous bills and shitting themselves. I imagine Spark Energy (and undoubtedly every other gas and electric company) receives irate calls about this daily. So why don't they fix their system? Because it's easier to fix the problems for the people who complain and accept payment from the poor old dear who doesn't know any better, panics, and squares the bill without question.

*Any of our codey whizz-kids care to back me up on this?

I think that Economist one is true, though - I've enjoyed access to their online stuff for ages, wondered why and then got that email a while ago. I think they genuinely cocked up and that's why you got the message.

Damn it, people! Can't you let a good conspiracy theory run for longer than, what, 17 minutes?

I really wouldn't sweat the small stuff. I'd be more worried about my attempts to purchase an elephant and bits of a mammoth.

In my name?!

The PPI one is definitely a scam, though. I think the gas and electric one is more incompetence that has turned into a reasonably lucrative scam over time.

I think JBR is in on it.

*looks around suspiciously*

That wasn't a scam, that was a fuck up. I think.

I mentioned elsewhere the call I had where they got my name wrong, so I denied it was me. They were asking about my after-sales experience with my Skoda or SEAT vehicle (I no longer have it). She asked if anyone there had one, I said I used to, and she said thanks anyway and went away.

The ones that piss me off are where you have a service of a company and they think that this entitles them to start passing your number around internally to see if you want to buy some of the other shite that they sell.

When I moved to BT Infinity I started getting dodgy calls as home, there are clearly bent people taking money for names and addresses in the Indian call centres. Amex started calling me re insurance, even though they told me I ticked all the” don’t bother me boxes” they still claimed that in some areas they could still call me with “products or services that might interest me” British Gas were the same. In all cases if you make enough noise and tell them that you are on TPS etc they will leave you alone.

Best one I had was Talk Talk. They were one of the first ISP’s to have a speed checker for the 80\20 FTTC products, after putting in my number to check they were calling me a 8pm at home!

Best thing I find these days is to be ex-directory and don’t give any numbers out to anybody, where I have to it’s my mobile which I can just not pick up.

I know, I know! I was scraping the barrel.

Just had a thought: if I get another PPI call like that, I'm going to pretend to be whoever they ask for and see what happens.

I hadn't thought of that. I'm going to send a planning applciation in regardinging your house to turn it into a zoo. I don't know how big a mammoth might grow to be, so I'm assuming it'd be about the size of a small cow, as cloned things are often short, so that should do. Do you have a garden? A garden would be great. A big garden better, as I might need several elephants. Female ones.

Calling something a scam could potentially land you in hot water, btw.

Pff!

<waves>

Depending on how the systems are built, how long they have been worked on over time etc..., it could be anywhere from relatively easy, to a fucking nightmare. With it more often being closer to the latter than the former.

Whilst we're on the subject of scam phone calls, my favourite was the Indian chap who rang me up and asked if my computer was running slow lately.

I played along and said yes. He then asked me to open the command prompt and enter some stuff. Turns out he was basically walking me through downloading a piece of malicious software (through the command prompt, on the sly), which he would then ask me to locate on my hard drive. Then he'd tell me I have malicious software installed. Then he'd tell me that their anti-virus software (only $59.99!) would remove it.

Oh how CONVENIENT.

I was waiting for this. I played along and very dumb with his instructions.

I was fairly disappointed when he knew why I had a Finder icon in the bottom left corner of my screen instead of a Start button and quickly terminated the call.

The sad thing is, they managed to scam my uncle.

I got a call from a claims scummer on a Manchester number the other day - he had my name right though, and told me where he got it (not that I've ever heard of that company).

I eventually (about five minutes) got him to hang up in exasperation and defeat.

Darn tootin'!

I had a brilliant PPI call last weekend where, despite me assuring them that I'd never taken out PPI on any kind of financial product ever, they then proceeded to explain to me why I could still have been missold it and how I should sign up for their help.

The Indian "I'm from Microsoft, your computer has told us it has a virus" guys are superb fun. I convinced one that the 'virus' I had was seemingly hacking NASA.

Extremely convenient.

Now, Mr Murphy, if you pay me a fiver I will be happy to tell you exactly why in more detail.

I fair enjoy playing along with them. I had one on the phone for about half an hour before it clicked that I wasn't using a Windows PC. He called me all the arseholes under the sun

"HELLO! HOUSEKEEPING! MR AFTERTHOUGHT HE OUT RIGHT NOW CALL BACK LATER BYE"

I just can't stand canvassers or unsolicited callers, of any type. Cheeky twats.
I used to try and be polite but I get at least 2-3 a day either at work and/or on my mobile, which is beyond a joke. So now I just put the phone down on them without saying a single word (or the very second when I realise who/what they are). Just cannot be arsed.

I never get people, just the recorded message about it being a 'free call'. There's always an option to press 9 and get removed from the list, and pressing 9 always causes the computer at the other end to hang up on me. When I get through to a human and have it out with them, they're always, always in complete denial at ever having rung me before, can't ever tell me where they got my number... and always promise to take it off their list. How often do these calls come through? Once a day, since I moved in here in July 2010.

We get those ones on the landline every day. I always press 9. Doesn't work.

Much like clicking unsubscribe to most spam, all pressing 9 does is confirm that they've reached a real person, making the number more valuable when they sell it on to someone else.

I used to sell double glazing over the phone (yeah, I was desperate) and honestly, just hanging up is the best thing to do. It won't bother the caller in any way, shape or form - they are used to much worse.

Alternatively, just tell them a joke. They probably need cheering up.

Yeah, I don't want to deliberately upset anyone, we've all got a job to do and my genuine sympathies to anyone who has to do this - so I won't indulge in stuff like winding people up, bullying them or sending them on a "dead funny" wild goose chase that they've probably heard a dozen times before. Of course, the person that I'd *actually* want to piss off would be their *boss*, not the hapless foot soldier at the other end of the phone, desperately trying to scrape together a few quid doing a job they must loathe. But of course, fat chance the guvnors would ever get their hands dirty; probably too busy hiring/firing vulnerable and/or desperate people on minimum wage and counting the cash from their useless, non-producing, parasitic enterprises.

At work, we've had the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) call approximately four times a day asking to speak to our MD. First call we had, she got halfway through doing a survey for them before having to go out, and now they're being very rude and borderline harrassing us to get us to complete the survey.

We've sent complaints to their abuse department and spoken to higher-ups on the phone and still the people call, and still they're apparently incapable of taking no for an answer.

We're on the corporate telephone preference service, so you would think that we would avoid this kind of call - oh, but the DMA apparently manage the CTPS. D'oh.

http://www.callhating.com/

Some pretty funny telemarketer torturing. Real or not, they're still good.

I'm guessing they'll ask if you'd like to make a claim for being mis-sold PPI.

..........................................