I just fielded an automated telephone call that said "Thank you for the payment of £500.99. It will shortly appear on your Visa card statement."

Now just imagine your typical little old lady (I am not exactly typical!). She gathers that £500 has just disappeared from her bank account, a payment that she did not authorise. She's seriously alarmed. So I suppose she puts down the receiver, phones her bank and of course she gets the scammers again.

I bet the follow-up is that the "bank" asks for the PIN, then tells her her card is compromised and sends a courier to collect it from her.

PS. They just rang again. This time I didn't answer, just waited silently, and they immediately hung up again. Strangely enough 1471 gave a local number, not a mobile. But I'm not going to ring it.

It amazes me the energy scammers put into stealing from people. If only they put that much energy into something productive....

100% of the calls we receive (here in the US anyway) that ask for money or are themed around money, are scams. Sad indeed.

If you call your credit card company you can't get scammed because they will go over all your charges. Never call the scammers phone number. Always call your credit card company phone number.

I ignore all "cold calls" to me. If there is any question, I call the financial institution directly as you mentioned Crippled. Same thing with email: I use emails as notifications only and never use the embedded links.

What most annoys me is when I am upstairs and hear the telephone ringing downstairs. I run down, get there just in time to pick it up and it's one of these scammers. Grrr!

I got one recently telling me my ssn was compromised, to call some number to fix it. If I really thought there was a problem with my ssn I would go to the ss office, I sure wouldn't call some number.

I've been told several times that my Internet connection was compromised, that it had been used for spamming and that I was going to be cut off. Also I twice got threatened with imprisonment for non-payment of taxes by someone claiming to be from HMRC. Beats me why HMRC should employ people with American accents.

Yes, very typical is that a scammer will (1) hope that they reach you live and you proceed on their original call, or (2) use their number (or link) to follow-up, versus contact your actual company, be they financial, bank, credit card, service provider, etc.

As others have mentioned, its best to follow up in the official manners that you know of, and use; any of in person, known phone number, or known email/website.Can't help you there except advise things you already know:

• Any subject or any person of relevance, they'll leave a message.
• There are various solutions for having a phone nearby ones self around the household, if you find it to be important to see and answer a call each time it rings.

That is what I've been doing lately.
In late October I was getting as many as 26 calls a day and I still have the phone logs to prove it.
I had already gotten to the point I wasn't answering the phone and letting it go to voice mail. Most didn't leave a message.
Then I started answering the phone, but not saying a word, just hold it to my ear and listen. The majority hang up immediately. If they play a recorded message, I put the phone down and go about my business. They eventually hang up.
I don't know if the "silent treatment" has anything to do with it, but the calls have almost stopped. Some days I get one or two or three and some days none. Some inconsiderate jerk has been sending text messages in the wee hours of the morning, about once a week. At least the phone (wireless service) offers to block the number and report it as spam.

Things to bear in mind:

1. Phones are annoying, intrusive crap. If you run to them every time they ring, it's like answering the door, without checking, to anyone and everyone who knocks. Many people simply feel they simply have to answer a phone - I don't subscribe to that.

2. Local numbers can divert anywhere.

3. 'Caller display' can be spoofed - so in fact, when you call back the number on the display, you may in fact get through to e.g. the legitimate bank or organisation the scammer was pretending to represent.

My own solution is to put the landline phone permanently on silent and when anyone of importance calls, they call the mobiles. The mobiles are better for ignoring the time wasters, cold callers and scammers, you seem to get fewer nuisance calls anyway in my experience and so it's not so disruptive. We have the facility on the land line for callers to leave messages, so if it's important they will.

It's better for your health and it's certainly better than breaking your neck running down the stairs to answer the phone to the "man from Microsoft"...

One and half year ago, I received several phone calls from people claiming to be from microsoft and asking me to log on to my computer in order to fix a problem with my system. Of course, I was sure that it isn't any valid call. I had a couple of such calls last months too!
Sound quality and pronunciation were horrible.

I haven't had a call from a Microsoft engineer for months now. I used to get a lot of them, always men with Indian accents calling from noisy offices.

I sort of assumed that they had died out because everyone knows about them now.

These people are fun to mess with - I wish one would call me so I could annoy them.

There's someone on this forum (I can't remember his name unfortunately) who makes a game out of stringing them along, pretending to be a particularly dumb user who can't find any of the screen buttons that they want him to click on. Then after about 20 minutes, he says, "Oh dear! Do you think it could be because I'm using Linux?"

I love it!