I'm suspicious, does this sound legit?

[gotrocks]

Well, I just received a "canned" phone call telling me to press "1" if I want to stop child ****. yada yada..... press "1" to help stop it now.
This makes 3 or 4 in the past few weeks. Did not keep a log.

Well, that makes a red flag pop up in my mind.

I hear from time to time about giving unknowns access to ones phone line and then get a bill for long distance calls all over the place.

Have any of you received a similar call?

When she finished she does give a toll free ??? number 877-266-6277
I haven's called it and can not find any info on google search.

What's you take on this.

 

[RoyJackson]

I just hang up on calls like that...no button pushing, just "click". It may be legit...but I doubt it.

Here's another one: 213-596-4717. That's what you'll see if you have caller ID. If you pick up, it'll connect you to a telemarketer...an Indian (not native American), I think. Not sure what they were selling, but now I just let the answering machine pick up on it.
Anyway, I'm on the "Do Not Call" list, so telemarketers are prohibted from calling. That stops most of them.

BTW, Gotrocks...I've heard of the same thing. Your call turns into a pay call (900 number) to Nigeria. It can cost several hundred dollars and, since the person who was called had to push a button to accept the call forwarding there's not much you can do about it.

 

[Bird]

I don't guess we've gotten that particular call, but for any call like that, we just hang up; no way we're going to be pressing other buttons as a result of instructions from someone we don't know.

 

[woodchuckie]

I may be getting left behind on the new technology but any time I get an automated phone call I hang up. You can tell they're using an auto dialer because they are slow in picking up on their end when the computer tells them one of their random numbers went through. They answer my hello with hello. Even the collectors use things like "press 1 if your owe me money".
I can't stand it.

 

[texasjohn]

You must, must, must be very suspicions... even if you agree with the general theme of the contact... be it via phone or email. If THEY contact you and YOU didn't INITIATE the contact... be afraid, very afraid.

Terminate the contact as quickly as possible, doing nothing that will let the "others" know you even exist, if that is possible.

Comments from others.. I echo them... problems include calls you get charged for, etc.

I get probably 500 spam emails daily... I'd be in a complete ditch if I didn't have spam software to sort out the good from the bad.. and even so, about 10 get thru the filters daily. Spambayes and ZoneAlarm combined are a big help with Outlook. I get these because I have a site that gives out an email address, which I want people interested in Texas History to know and be able to respond to.

The latest scam is an email that says something like "a friend has sent you a greeting card" ... I've been seeing these for several months.... today on TV they were talking about how this is phishing.

Net is that these days, sadly, you should not ever, ever, EVER, do anything that exposes any of your personal information to anybody, for any reason unless you absolutely can't help it and your need for what they are providing is critical.

Tens of thousands of folks are losing their identity these days... and others are getting all their money, literally.

Did you know that it is possible for someone to send an email and request a reciept when YOU read it. Yep. And, typically the browser is set to AUTOMATICALLY send that reciept. Thus, people can send out emails to lots of addresses and build a list of legitimate addresses from the replies.

Hint: set YOUR browser to NOT reply to those rquests... but to inform you when they occur.

OK... rant off... sorry for getting carried away...

 

[Bird]

The latest scam is an email that says something like "a friend has sent you a greeting card"

I got one today that said a "Mate" has sent you a funny greeting card, to click here (a link) to see the card. Of course, I just promptly deleted it.

 

[gotrocks]

Well what do you know, I went to the phone co. site and sent a "complaint" about this call.

Just got and e=mail reply:

"it is a ligit call about stopping Child ****."I'm still going to hangup in the future.Just wanted to follow up so everyone would know what happened.

 

[EarPlug]

The web site WhoCalled.us is a good place to look up these phone numbers. Here are the results for gotrock's 877-266-6277 and Roy's 213-596-4717.

Jack

 

[Bird]

Folks, even if the calls are so called "legitimate", you might want to learn more about them before taking any action. The "legitimate" ones are usually asking for money; usually a "charity" of some kind. You'll even get callers who say they're the "State Troopers Association" or a local police association asking for money for officers' widows and orphans or some such. Well, they're legal, but I wish they weren't. The fact is that it's just a professional fund raising company that's calling you and the State Troopers Association, local police association, or whatever agreed to allow the use of their name in exchange for 10 to 15% of the take; sometimes and even lower percentage, but almost never more than 10%. I guess I'd recommend hanging up on those folks, too, although personally, I ask lots of questions and keep them on the phone awhile. In many cases, you can even get them to admit to the percentage that actually goes to the organization they claim to be representing.

 

[Iowachild]

I got one today that said a "Mate" has sent you a funny greeting card, to click here (a link) to see the card. Of course, I just promptly deleted it.

I'm getting three or four of those a day now. Must be the newest angle.