planenut Posted October 16, 2016 Report Share Posted October 16, 2016 I just tried to telephone a family member for the call to be answered "there is a a fault with this line. Telephone 118820 to be connected by an engineer."I googled the number and it is a scam with which some people have been conned out of anything up to £15 a time. WATCH IT!I then rang the original number again and got through. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian-S Posted October 16, 2016 Report Share Posted October 16, 2016 You miss-dialed originally, the company involved buy up similar numbers to popular ones and put that message on to call the premium rate number for help, a bit like how if you miss-type a popular website you'll often get redirected to an ad filled site. Your family member must be unlucky enough to have a number similar to a popular one, we used to have a number that was one digit different to the local taxi company and got 10+ calls a day before the number got changed. Thanks though, I should probably warn my dad about this, although at 75 he's still pretty savvy and picks up on most scams, he's had a lot of problems lately with his line so might be fooled by it if he mucks up a number. He once had a problem with his computer and got one of these "I'm from Microsoft to help with your PC problem" type calls, he understood it was a scam but couldn't work out how they knew, just couldn't accept it was blind luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
planenut Posted October 16, 2016 Author Report Share Posted October 16, 2016 1 hour ago, Ian-S said: You miss-dialed originally, the company involved buy up similar numbers to popular ones and put that message on to call the premium rate number for help, a bit like how if you miss-type a popular website you'll often get redirected to an ad filled site. Thanks for that Ian, it was on speed dial. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian-S Posted October 16, 2016 Report Share Posted October 16, 2016 Still doesn't mean the phone misdialed or your carrier mis-read the signal, popular to contrary belief modern technology can still make mistakes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pluk Posted October 17, 2016 Report Share Posted October 17, 2016 Did you have any junk calls prior to making that call? Their favourite trick at the moment is not clearing the line after a call, then playing an automated message when they detect any dialing, but as they are still on your line you don't actually make any call at all. scumbags. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
planenut Posted October 17, 2016 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2016 1 hour ago, pluk said: Did you have any junk calls prior to making that call? Their favourite trick at the moment is not clearing the line after a call, then playing an automated message when they detect any dialing, but as they are still on your line you don't actually make any call at all. scumbags. Luckily for me, no prior dodgy call. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian-S Posted October 17, 2016 Report Share Posted October 17, 2016 Hadn't they stopped that? I thought once one side disconnected the call was terminated after a few second now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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