Hello.

I am new to this site and hope I am posting in the correct place?

I was told about this site after ringing customer services of my telephone provider after a rather 'dodgy' call at a grandparents house.

I have searched both the database and google and had no luck in finding the source of this number: 0845 6041 893

The call was answered by a grandparent who is an elderly women. They knew her name, started with some banter - 'how are you doing', etc... and then told her that her bank 'owes her some money' (the particulars of this part of the conversation she cannot fully recall), she told them what bank she is with, but when they asked for further bank details she said she would not tell them and eventually put the phone down.

Also, it may be a coincidence but about 10mins afterwards another call (answered by myself) explained that 'there was a problem with my (grandparent) computer'. They also knew my grandparent's name. When I explained that there is no problem with any computers in the household and questioned who they were and how they got my grandparents details, once being told they were from 'technical support', promptly hung up - number withheld.

Having failing mental capacity, I am worried that if she receives such a call when I am not there she may give personal details to a bogus caller.

If anyone could give me some information on the origin of this number it would be greately apreciated.

Cheers!

         Aaron.

There are some reports about this number here.

I've not come up with anything else yet...

I would never recomend answering any 'security questions' from any unsolicited call, no matter whom they say they are and how much they seem to know.  Your grandparent did well to hang up on them.

It would seem to be a number operated directly by BT, so you may be able to contact their complaints department and get some results.

Thankyou for the reply.

The information you gave me has been very helpful.

I will see what I can do with the BT complaints department and try to further instill in my grandparent to question any similar call, and never give any detils over the phone.

Thanx again,

  Aaron.

I believe BT have a facility for barring calls originating from withheld numbers. Although this wouldn't have stopped the first call to your grandparents it would have stopped the second and may be a step in the right direction.

A more drastic measure would be to have your grandparents' number changed since clearly some scammers know their name and their present number. Is the present number ex-directory?

lompos wrote on Jul 14^th, 2009 at 7:21am:

I believe BT have a facility for barring calls originating from withheld numbers. Although this wouldn't have stopped the first call to your grandparents it would have stopped the second and may be a step in the right direction.

There are two options.

Anonymous Call Rejection which is £11.75(inc)/qtr.
This allows you to block calls from withheld numbers.  No good for stopping people who release a number though.

The other is called Choose To Refuse and is £9.84 inc vat/quarter.
You can enter a list of telephone numbers that you wish not to receive call from, or key a code after receiving a call, even if it was withheld, and that number is added too.  Callers get a message "The person called does not wish to take a call from you at this time" or suchlike.  Used to annoy my ex- something rotten!!  lol.  Pity she knew my work mobile number too :-(

Of the two, I find the second is the most useful if you are having problems from particular people or organisations, the first if you get lots of withheld calls from multiple peoples.

You will have to ask BT specifically for these by name, especially CTR, as they seem particularly reluctant to offer them.  Presumably because they block calls and thus reduce their revenue!

As this is a BT number, wont they say where the call originates from if asked? :-/

Thanx again for all of the responces/advice.

:)

In particular I am going to look into the 'choose to refuse' option mentioned by 'irrelevant' - once I am able to teach the grandparent how it works I beleive it would be well worth the money.

You would be fully entitled to call BT (as its one of their issued number) and ask to find out who it is assigned to - they may choose to withhold this information but suggest that you will complain to the regulating body Otelo whose address can be found on the web. Alternatively call your local trading standards council and you will need to write explaining - also ensure you have power of attorney for anything your mother may wish to sign for.

I've just called this number and it answers with someone saying that it is "UPI".

Googling reveals this thread on Consumer Action Group as well as other links.

Quote:

I believe BT have a facility for barring calls originating from withheld numbers.

BBC's Dragons Den recently featured a product named True Call. It plugs into the handset and seems to have superior capabilities to BT's Choose and Refuse. It is a one-off purchase rather than rental and is being sold widely. Has anybody direct experience with it? (if so, it may merit a new thread)

lompos wrote on Jul 19^th, 2009 at 7:19pm:

BBC's Dragons Den recently featured a product named True Call. It plugs into the handset and seems to have superior capabilities to BT's Choose and Refuse. It is a one-off purchase rather than rental and is being sold widely. Has anybody direct experience with it? (if so, it may merit a new thread)

There is an existing thread for comments on TrueCall, which can be accessed by clicking here.

TrueCall is currently rather expensive, however there is a good chance that the price will fall if the business expands and is able to benefit from the skills of its new investor.

It will stop anyone who is not prepared to answer the "Who are you?" question from even making the phone ring. It also includes a call recording capability, so once scammers come to realise this, they may give up trying pretending to be someone you are likely to want to speak with. Like any other bit of kit, it needs a reasonable amount of relevant skill to get the best out of it, but it is well designed to be easy to use for the simple features, once it has been set up.

I would strongly advise against Anonymous Caller Rejection in this situation as not all calls without CLI are nuisance calls, and vica versa. All that Choose to Refuse does is to avoid being bothered repeatedly by the same caller, from the same number - you still have to encounter each one once before it can be of any use.