Scam calls

Normally I don't reach out in our group outside of anything parrot related but I am desperate enough to today.

For the past two weeks I have been getting a lot of scammers calling my home phone. They are even calling on weekends. I get calls from Washington state about my computer OS needs upgrading, from Illinois of a relative that does not exist that needs money sent to them asap, freeipad.com wants to give me a free ipad, and various others that have seemed to have gotten my number from some source.

This is driving me crazy because they are calling my home 5 to 6 times a day. I would not even answer the phone but I am in process of finding a internship/job and need to be able to answer my phone. While in my office the phone does not have caller ID. My downstairs phone has it so if I don't recognize the number as local I don't bother to answer. It is still the bother that my phone seem to be ringing off the hook with this annoying scam calls.

First I don't know how my number got sucked into this trap. I don't click any odd adds on any site and I am on the "do not call" list thing for sale calls. I don't fill out any forms on line or at all. This annoying calling starts early morning and sometimes goes until into the evening. I want this to stop but don't know what I can do. Anyone else out there ever have this problem and how do I get this to stop. I am near calling the phone company to get rid of the line. This is how much a annoyance this is.

Oh man, I so feel your pain! I have NO idea how my phone number got out there! It's my cell phone, so luckily I have ID and don't answer unless I know the number. One of my coworkers got a call from a Columbia the other day!

When I get a new IPhone I'm going to have them change my number. So annoying.

My home phone gets called ridiculously as well. I am on the "do not call" too, and i have tried different avenues to make it stop but it hasn't worked. At one point, they were all collection agencies (which i KNOW have nothing to do with me, as i have to keep my credit squeaky clean in my line of work), so i caved in and called to tell them they had to STOP because it had nothing to do with me. So a whole bunch of calls stopped but i still do get called at least a couple times per day that are 'junk' calls. I have caller id though, so i just ignore them. It kind of sucks to feel harassed that way!!

If its advertisement I usually tell them to stop calling the first time around. Second time I start to scream at them saying I already told you to stop calling. IF its the same number over and over you can call your phone company and disable that number from calling you again. For me I'd be sure to answer them and give them one chance to correct it. I used to have debt collectors call me too and I kept my credit clean as well. Some of these collectors are rude so I start fighting back, it wasn't me they were looking for.. I told them if they call me again I will have my attorney contact them for harressment. They never called me again....lol

These calls are not your normal collection or sales calls these are scam calls. Calls that purpose is to steal from you. These calls are criminal calls because what they are doing is illegal. I don't know how to get them to stop as I can tell them to pull me from their list and they just keep calling. I can be as rude and abusive as I want and they still keep calling. This is border line harassment for me because it is so annoying. Not that I would ever fall for any of their crap and actually act or send money to anyone I don't know is just insane to think I would actually fall for any of the scams.

If if were not for me actively trying to set up my required 40 hour internship AND am trying to gain employment I would have the land line disconnected. The land line number is the only way Lupe's out of country family and my friend from New Zealand can call us on. It is way too expensive for them to call onto our cell phones. Just two weeks ago I did FINALLY get a cell phone because of so much road rage and I needed to be safer. That is a whole other story of how a car full of 4 men pulled off the highway to follow me. They harassed me and tried to hit my car terrorizing me for over 20 mins and I didn't have a phone to call 911. That was the end for me to no longer have a cell phone on my person.

I am kind of in a bad place of late with how things are going. Between being terrorized while driving on the highway and now being constantly harassed every day by phone I am nearing the end of my rope with any kind of peace. No one should have to live this way.

I really think the government should set something up on the scam phone calls as it is getting more and more worse these days. The scammers are getting good at it too as I had to help someone to call and make a police report today cause he was just scammed yesterday by someone pretending to be calling from the power company threatening to shut the power off. I don't fall for that crap as they try to do that to me once, I said go ahead and shut off my power I don't care but I'm not paying you crap. It's all those internet phone calls. They need to have it set to the point where they can not change their number at will and be able to trace their IP addresses and ban them for good.

Scammers like this are engaging in fraud, and there are agencies whose job it is to look into them. You should report the callers.

I'm assuming you're in the US since you meantion 911, so here are a few links that might be useful.

Report Consumer Fraud & Safety Hazards | USA.gov
StopFraud.gov - Report Fraud
How to Report a Scam

And if you have a record of the people you're hoping to hear from, you could change your number and then notify them of the change.

We get a lot of calls from scammers. They use autodiallers and once they get a response, I think your number gets flagged as a legitimate number, so they keep trying. You can get rid of them for a while, but they (or another mob) will start up again.

If I were you, I'd just attach an answering machine, tell your friends and family and the people you are liaising with about your job to leave a message and that you are screening calls and stop picking up the phone yourself. The scammers won't leave messages and even if they did, you could just ignore it.

Otherwise, use your cell phone for your job applications. Only answer that one directly.

When I had a landline, nobody ever got given the number, so I knew every call was either a scammer or a wrong number if it wasn't diverted from my mobile.

Do get a phone with an answering machine and caller ID so you do not miss important calls. I too am on the do not call list. I have even reported a few to them as well. There some companies who are exempt like charities. I do not answer my landline anymore unless I know who it is. If it is important and legit, the caller will leave a message. So far the majority of callers must be solicitors because they are out of state and do not leave messages. Annoying but better to have them call the landline than my cell. I only give my cell number to family and friends because I do not want the same thing happening on my cell.

They may look like "out of state" calls but they could be coming from anywhere. Our "do not call register" has no effect against the scammers, because they are scammers so they couldn't care less, but also they aren't in Australia for them to be bound by it anyway. If you ever talk to them they pretend they are in Australia, but they're not. The "do not call" register only works against reputable (even if they have annoying marketing practices) businesses who follow rules, not against criminals out to fleece you.

If your number is listed, you'll get calls from all over, some might be scammers, some might be marketing. Even when unlisted, you'll still get the overseas scammers because they just use autodialers to dial any combination of numbers.

I do not answer the phone if I do not know the number. If it is important they will leave a message. Be aware on a regular phone some will try to come up unknown on a caller ID. I did have a scammer call it was a automotive message saying this is the last time they will warn me of a late payment on my credit card (I do not have one). I called the number back and it said it was disconnected (hmm). I noticed it is not as bad on my cell phone as it is on a regular phone. The sad thing is these scammers are getting good enough that they could trick some people (especially the elderly).

I know it can be frustrating but as strudel said they will stop after awhile. In my case I get less and less of these calls then when I first moved out on my own.

oh that is horrible

my husband has gotten a few telemarketers to stop, not sure if it would work for scammers...

he just simply makes up ridiculous stories and totally creeps them out. phone goes quiet for quite awhile ORRRR.. he also has started asking THEM questions instead and plays their game right back at them. since they dont listen to "i'm not interested" or "please dont call again" and they do. so he just plays pranks back on them. gives you some amusement and might confuse them enough to have second thoughts (depending on what you say lol my husband has a knack for purposely making people feel awkward.)


how can you tell the difference between a scammer and a telemarketer? i know we've gotten calls telling us that we've won a trip or if we were interested in stuff like that. my husband will ask them something silly like if they have pet rhinoceruses there and such... one time asked about riding warthogs... oh it throws the speaker off alright lol but then in the end, he tells them no and hangs up and they dont usually call us back lol.

DallyTsuka said:

i know we've gotten calls telling us that we've won a trip

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We've just had a couple on the news who "won a trip and new luggage" and they went to Canada and got suspicious when they were coming home and the bags seemed heavy. Turns out the "prize" was just a scam and they were carting a whole heap of drugs in their "won luggage".

DallyTsuka said:

my husband will ask them something silly

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Last time I had the "Microsoft" call, I let them go on with their rubbish and asking them a whole heap of daft questions before telling them that I didn't have an internet connection. I don't mind giving those callers grief, they are crooks, but even though I find them annoying, telemarketers are just doing a (IMO horrible) job so I would just politely decline.

we've had some pretty persistent telemarketers who just would never stop calling--those are the ones that got pranked lol

once ive had one refuse to let me hang up. i'd say i'm not interested and try to hang up and she'd be all like "No! listen i have this this and this" "sorry ma'am, i dont want it, i have to go now" "wait theres also this and that." like lady, being pushy dont work. i hung up on her.

i dunno, maybe i deal with a lot more scams than telemarketers, because i get a lot of pushy, persistent and rude telemarketers that dont listen when we ask them nicely to stop calling lol.


but what does separate a scammer from a telemarketer? what is the most key difference? so i know, as now i wonder D:

I know where you're coming from. Happened to me before, too. Didn't know where they got my number. But what I did was contact the telephone company and got the callers blocked one by one. I did that for 3 days and then the calls stopped. I guess that got all their phone numbers blocked.

By the way, I reported their phone numbers to Report Phone Number to CallerCenter.com too. It's not only to raise a warning but with about 100 000 visitors on the website daily, let's see how those nuisance callers would feel when they start getting a surge of annoying calls.

The one's scamming around here lately is they pretend to be the power company and want to pay them right away over the phone or they'll shut off your power. No power company will ever do that as they'll send out notices instead. They'll give you plenty of time before shutting down power.

I have gotten to a point if I get angry enough with the same party calling, I will answer the phone, listen to them and ask how they got my number and that I am on the do not call list. I tell them not to call again and that I will report them to the Do Not Call agency.

The worst is around election time when candidates want your vote. It's amazing to notice that virtually all calls stop right after election day.

I normally don't pick up, but one time when I did it was a lady asking me about my house loan I was like..... I'm a college student who lives at home, I don't HAVE any house loans. hahaha