Another telephone scam

[Enfys]

I hope this is the right place to post this. I’ve just had a call on my landline which is very unusual and I don’t normally answer if I don’t recognise the number. However this past week I’ve had a couple of calls from the hospital I visited when I had my accident so thought I’d answer this one. It threw me for a bit as it was a very polite foreign sounding person enquiring after my well being, And he sounded just like one of the doctors I spoke to before. However, when I questioned him he said he was from “Wellbeing” and they were contacting all the pensioners in the county to see how they were!!! Decidedly fishy, he also said when he spoke to me before I was busy so he was ringing back. I told him in no uncertain terms to go away and not ring again, I’d never spoken to him before.

I checked up on this and apparently there is a scam going around where they try and sell hundreds of pounds of vitamins and supplements to unsuspecting people, so just a warming to be careful. Also the number was a London area code so certainly not in our county. Honestly, they’ll try anything!!

[Oma]

Enfys
it’s getting worse,
I read that Indian call centres are able to use local area codes to make it look like it’s from this country and in your area.
You can’t trust anyone these days.

[Plantaholic]

Enfys, thanks for the warning, I still have my landline and get these dodgy calls. I have had two where the male caller professes to be a policeman. Take care everyone, I would have my landline removed but so many of my older friends still use their landline.

[Gemini]

I will look out for that one Enfys .

We do sometimes get scam calls on the landline. Mostly along the lines of ' There has been a £500 withdrawal on your card/ Amazon purchase' As they say this without asking or mentioning any name I don't know how they expect anyone to believe them!!

Sadly there will always be some taken in by scams.

[Daisy]

Enfys, thank you for the warning. You can't be too careful these days, and the scams seem to change by the day.

On the other hand, I nearly hung up on a caller the other day. He had a pronounced accent and said "Am I speaking to Mrs Daisy?" Just in time I realised it was the new pharmacist enquiring about something perfectly legitimate. I'd have been mortified if I'd made my usual response "Why don't you get a proper, honest job!" and hung up on him.

[Enfys]

I know, this is what threw me, he sounded so much like the doctor I’d spoken to whilst we were away. Then I remembered I’d given that doctor my mobile number so couldn’t hve been him. I’m so distrustful of people these days, which is sad but necessary I guess.

[Daisy]

Enfys, I think that as well. How can you trust people you don't know when there are so many scams about. . It's very sad.

[Nanto2girls]

I'm signed up to Which magazine scam alerts, its free if anyone is interested.
The latest scam are concerning the winter fuel allowance.

https://signup.which.co.uk/wlp-scamalert-newsletter

[Daisy]

Nanto, thank you very much for that link - it looks really useful.

[Gemini]

Thanks Nan2!

[Enfys]

Thank you Nan2.

[Daisy]

Nanto, I've signed up for this - thank you for flagging it up. I see there are other topics you can also get alerts/newsletters about as well. I've signed up for the Tech one.

[Oma]

I got another one today so I played along ,
He said his name was Eric , course it was 🙄

Said he was from our council wanting to know if we needed any repairs done then proceeded to tell me if I paid a one off fee off £9.99 I could get all my repairs done before anyone else and not go on a waiting list.

I let him rabbit on for a while before I told him we were not council property and the houses around us were a housing association not council anyway.
He quickly said oh yes we are association, when I asked him the name of the local housing association he hung up 😁

[Nanto2girls]

They never give up do they.

[Plantaholic]

Well done Oma