My wife took a call 2 days ago from a withheld number and the chap said "oh sorry, it's Rob from Rotherham, I didn't realise you were out I'll call later"

(my wife is a photographer so regularly gets calls from clients etc and her number is on many websites on the Internet).

The day after she received 2 more private number calls and let them go to her answer machine. 1 message simply had nothing, the other had random indistinguishable mumbling.

That night she received a text message from a number stating "Hi Sue, I'm in the bath but can happily text". (my wife isn't called Sue)

She ignored it

15 minutes later another one saying "Hi, sorry, wrong number".


This morning she received another withheld number call and left it for her voicemail. The message said "Hi it's Rob, are you in? I'll come over to see you, my number is xxxxx xxxxxxx".


This could be a simple case of the wrong phone number or it could be someone being a prick. I've tried to call the number from my own phone, and work phone and get no answer. There is also no voicemail on that number.

When I get home tonight I will try and call the number from my wife's phone, but if there is no answer what can I feasibly do?

I know I can put an App on her phone that will block all withheld numbers, and delete any text messages from this number before they come in but as it's her business phone that unfortunately isn't really an option as clients regularly call from work etc with withheld numbers.

I know some would not consider this abuse, but my wife spends most of the day working by herself and this is starting to freak her out a bit.

[Edited on 2/5/14 by daveb666]

Best for her just to ignore them, they just look like a bit of a hit and miss thing, nothing worrying there is there?

My wife gets worried by this kind of thing as it happens every now and again, however I look forward to them.. on the land line that is. If its our mobiles we just ignore them.

And, I think the problem is when you post your number for all and sundry to see your bound to get some crank calls, best to be expecting them and deal robustly with the calls. Texts can simply be ignored and deleted.

Good luck

It's the "I'll come over to see you bit" that she's worried about as, due to her business our address is also on the net.

Have you typed the wifes phone number into google to see where it comes up and on what websites?

quote:

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Originally posted by davidimurray
Have you typed the wifes phone number into google to see where it comes up and on what websites?

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I get lots of these stupid calls, and I believe that what they are for us for you to call them back at premium rates. I had 4 this week, checked the number and all were using UK std codes. Same with the 'new' parcel delivery scam, they le4ave a card in the door sayin g they were unable to deliver and would you call to re arrange delivery, again, premium rates to somewhere in Liberia/Ghana/ take your pick...Moral, if you dont know the number, dont return the call, if it is important they will call again...

Ditto the above, I'd expect it to be a scam getting you to call an expensive number.

Google his number and the code - some still start 07.

Its a premium rate number scam. When someone calls the number they think they are hearing a ringing tone whilst waiting for someone to answer- however the call has been answered immediately and what they have been listening to is just a recording of a ringing tone. The longer the caller hangs on for waiting for an answer the more they end up paying at some inflated rate.

If it was a premium rate I would suspect it would come up on google.
Could well be a genuine error, hes realised hes got it wrong, then either forgotten to delete/change the number or gone back to old messages and hit reply.

Premium rate numbers are relatively easy to setup these days so the scammers can rely on being able to get away with it for some while before someone flags up the number on a site thats popular enough to be found by Google.
Likely as not 50 to 100 people will be scammed before anyone thinks of putting the number on a website anywhere (Dave has not included the number in this post for instance). Lets face it most people dont even look at their phone bill.

I used to work in telecoms fraud detection. It's not like the nice old days where the only UK premium rate numbers used to be printed in the phone book along with the number for the speaking clock.

Thanks for the replies,

the number is 07526 456763.

I tried this dinnertime to call it 20 times in a row (with my own number withheld). No answer and a message after 6 rings or so saying "The person at the number is currently unavailable please try later".

I've read the post about this being a potential scam, but my phone never indicated that an actual call had been answered as there was no timer, so it can't be that?

It may be a genuine mistake but all just seems a bit weird really.

[Edited on 2/5/14 by daveb666]

I think that's a standard O2 mobile prefix so unlikely to be a premium rate scam..

ETA 070 or 076 would be premium rate...

http://www.ukphoneinfo.com/mobile-phone-numbers


[Edited on 2/5/14 by stevebubs]