Scam call from 'Amazon'...

[dutchman]

Had a automated voice call claiming to be from Amazon this afternoon telling me my Amazon Prime account had expired and they would be charging my credity card "30.99" and asking me to "Press One" to speak to a customer representative. They failed to specify which currency I would be charged in, or my customer name, or which particular branch of Amazon they were calling from, etc.

Also I've never used Amazon Prime!

I didn't respond if only because they might connect me to an international premium rate phone number.

[rebbonk]

I don't get many of these, my phone provider offers a very good 'screening' service free of charge.

I'm known to have rather a short fuse when I get unsolicited phone calls and I tend to let rip with good old engineering anglo-saxon language that would make the average squaddie blush. One Friday afternoon I took a call from someone claiming to be from my electricity supplier. Not being in the best of moods anyway, I really let rip and hung up. A few seconds later the phone rang again and the voice said, "Please, Mr Rebbonk hear me out. I only want your meter readings!"

Of course I appologised, but the late Mrs R was almost wetting herself laughing.

[dutchman]

I had a similar experience with a genuine Talk Talk representative.

The poor woman was left wondering what she'd done wrong?

[rebbonk]

I had an obvious scam call from someone alleging to be from Tiscali. I went off the deep-end at them berating them for their abysmal service, reliability and really letting fly as to what I thought about their recent price rises. The poor sap on the onther end of the line hadn't got a clue what to do, or say. It was quite amusing.

Like I say, I don't get many calls like this these days, but it can be amusing (if you have the time) to wind them up.

I used to get a lot of email scams and would spend lots of time amusing myself at their expense. I had one that went on for weeks. It originally started as the typical advance fee scam for a share of illegal money, but ended up with the guy 'falling in love' with me (he thought I was female). I had the whole stream of emails posted on the 911 baiter web site, it really was very funny.

I had another going for a few days, he thought I was an RAF wing commander. The emails stopped rather abruptly when I offered to borrow a Tornado aircraft and fly over and meet him face to face to seal our 'deal'.

[dutchman]

Had two more calls from 'Amazon' this morning! The first was a genuine call warning me a package had been left outside. The second very shortly afterwards was from a woman with an impenetrable accent claiming to be from Amazon Prime but the line went dead before she could speak any further.

If she calls again I'll have a bit of fun with them.

[dutchman]