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[kitz]

I wonder how many would fall for this one.   

https://www.facebook.com/cheshirepolice/photos/a.10150898851014015/10157612290119015/

Some of the typos are quite funny - and there are several.    When it got to the part about setting your pocket on fire I started thinking this has to be an April Fools Joke.

[kitz]

Just did a quick google

https://manbehavingdadly.co.uk/2019/06/28/heres-the-truth-about-that-scam-letter-about-exploding-debit-cards/

[sevenlayermuddle]

Oh dear.

Meanwhile the real scams go on, unabated.   I had a call last week, a professional-sounding lady with the sort of US-Indian accent that is common in some banks.  The calling number looked like a correctly formed UK number. She wanted to alert me to the fact my Visa card had been used for a substantial and suspicious transaction, and to make sure it was genuine.

Before we got to the bit where she confirmed my identity with the usual security questions,  I asked her how much money she planned to steal from me?   ‘click’, line went dead.

[kitz]

My mother phoned me in a panic on Thurs saying she'd received a similar call from her bank wanting to confirm a transaction for £600.   When she started asking further questions they put the phone down on her.  Like you she said they sounded Indian.   
Just for her piece of mind, a phone call to her bank confirmed that there was no such transaction and that it had indeed been a scam call.

[sevenlayermuddle]

Worth mentioning of course, that calling the bank to check whether a call is a scam needs to be undertaken carefully.   It's not unheard of for scammers to simply pretend to hang up, whereas actually they keep keep the line open, maybe even playing a fake dial tone.    Instead of calling the bank, the victim is just resuming the conversation with the scammer.   

Not sure of current protocols but in the days I was vaguely involved in related technology, the line would be disconnected as soon as the calling party hung up, but was merely suspended, staying connected for a timeout (a further 2 minutes I think) if only the called party hung up.   This was a feature useful where there were several hard-wired extensions. It allowed a subscriber who had picked up an incoming call on an inconvenient extension to hang up the first handset, then make their leisurely way to another room, and pick up the call again on another handset. 

[4candles]

Not sure of current protocols but in the days I was vaguely involved in related technology, the line would be disconnected as soon as the calling party hung up, but was merely suspended, staying connected for a timeout (a further 2 minutes I think) if only the called party hung up. 

That changed a few years ago, to tackle the problem of scammers holding the line. The call now terminates in 2-3 seconds when the called party clears.
You can still do the "changing etensions" trick by pressing 'Recall' (or a well-timed flick of the switch hooks), whereupon you'll hear interrupted dial tone. The calling party will hear an announcement along the lines of "The other person knows you are waiting".
Now clear down, and incoming ringing will start. Go to your preferred extension and pick up to resume the call.

[sevenlayermuddle]

I did not know it had changed.   It’s difficult to test, at least there’s no point testing it with a mobile phone as I don’t think that would ever have ‘worked’.  Mobile airtime being a precious resource in the early days, that would not be squandered awaiting call resumption that probably wouldn’t happen.   

I’ve a feeling on-hook suspension only ever worked for calls starting, ending, and handled entirely within the BT network, so it may never worked for incoming International calls.   But I might be wrong, these days, I usually am.

All that apart, I’d be loathe to trust that a scam call had disconnected just because I’d hung up the handset.  Even if it is meant to do so, modern (post 1980s) call signalling is only software, and all software has bugs and vulnerabilities...

[burakkucat]

My technique is not to clear-down the call but to wait from the caller to give up yabbering away to the "null device". Once the caller has cleared-down, the exchange equipment should notice my "permanent glow" (PG) status and park my line, for the eventual attention of the "howler".

Once I have finally cleared-down and then intend to make a call, I perform two further steps: (1) a call to 1471 (2) a call to myself. Knowing what should be the results of those two steps, I can then be confident that the line is "clear". 

[sevenlayermuddle]

This has become an interesting debate, even if straying somewhat from the jokey spirit of Kitz’s opening posts.

Being slightly pedantic I can’t help theorise that, if on-hook suspension did still work,  a clever scammer could design his apparatus so as to avoid Burakkucat’s tactics.   The scammer could wait s few minutes and then generate his own howler, which he’d stop on receipt of a ‘Suspend’ message (when victim hangs up).  Upon ‘Resume’ (when victim goes off hook) he’d generate a fake dial tone, which would be stopped upon receipt of dtmf tones.  He’d then start analysing the dtmf digits, recognised sequences being then be met with an emulated response.

To be clear, whilst theorising about the risks, I don’t think I have ever actually, on any occasion, felt personally alarmed by the ‘scammer still on the line’ scenario.    But if I were ever worried, would it not be best to simply pick up my mobile and call myself at the suspect line, exchanging a few words to make sure it was really me, after which I’d assume the scammer had scampered?