The figures are for one week in 2017 and show the huge volumes of nuisance calls happening.
BT has analysed the data from its call protect service, that lets people block nuisance callers, to generate these statistics.
| Number | Categories | Volume | Proportion |
| 1 | Accident claims | 12,211,599 | 41% |
| 2 | Personal details (Scam) | 5,439,781 | 18.50% |
| 3 | PPI | 1,892,479 | 6.40% |
| 4 | Computer scam | 3,593,103 | 12.60% |
| 5 | Debt collection | 2,212,713 | 7.50% |
| Other | 4,131,102 | 14% | |
| Total | 29,480,477 |
This email is titled “In Just 2 Weeks You Can a Mind of a Million Dollar Jeopardy Champion”
So, it’s obviously a ridiculous scam.
Then it goes on “Have you seen the film Lucy?”
I have seen the film and it’s very good but the point is that the star takes a drug and it unleashes hidden powers in her mind. It is of course pure science-fiction.
The scammer wants us to associate that idea of mental growth with what he’s offering which is a “top-secret and highly controversial brain training trick” created by a 104 year old ‘off the grid’ professor that has been proven to unlock hidden brain power and effortlessly improve memory, focus and concentration in as little as 14 days.
It also claims to protect against Alzheimer’s.
Then comes the warning part of the scam to demonstrate its validity.
“It’s shown to be so powerful that high IQ organisations like Mensa have banned their members from using it”
Now, my super power brain powers tell me this is just a pathetic scam.
Lucy was a good film but pure science fiction and no-one should believe such rubbish as a trick that unlocks “hidden brain powers”.
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So, what’s the dumbest scam or spam on the Internet this week?
If you’re a trained carpenter or at least very experienced and proficient at woodwork then you might consider making a wooden boat. Clearly even a one man boat is a major piece of work for which you need the right tools, workshop space and a significant commitment to completing the build.
But there’s a moron who keeps sending out spam emails offering 518 boat building plans – step-by-step guides plus videos.
“It’s a simple yet BRILLIANT process to build boats … quickly and effortlessly”. “Anybody can do it”.
He claims to have just finished his second boat last week ready for a fishing trip.
Is there anyone dumb enough to believe that building a wooden boat by hand is effortless?
I hope there isn’t
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So, what rubbish emails and calls have there been to Brooklands Radio station in the last few days?
An email claiming to be from NatWest Bank Online Team warning me they were unable to process a bill. However the email is from [email protected], is full of spelling mistakes and the sender doesn’t know my name so it’s not from Nat West.
A proposal to sell us a campaign of 3 million online advertisements at 98% discount. Wow – someone is desperate to sell. No thanks.
An offer to do photographic image editing at best prices. But the email is from a Hotmail account for someone claiming to be a Business Development Executive at a large international company which has no name. I don’t think so.
Mr. Yuan Shu – an executive at a financial institution in Hong Kong wants me to help manage very large sums of money for him. Shame his email address is Gmail and he’s a lying b*stard.
A leading neuroscientist at Brown University in America has uncovered a spectacular benefit of everyday cooking oil – it cures Alzheimers in 21 days. These are pathetic lies targeting vulnerable people. There’s a special place in Hell for these scammers.
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Charities have long been an established part of life, carrying out everything from hospice care to cancer research to caring for orphaned children to seeking responsible treatment of animals etc.
In Britain there are well over 200,000 registered charities and estimated to be a lot more that aren’t registered as they are too small.
Charities have a good name and do a good job but in recent years in the UK, many large charities became too focussed on collecting money and using unscrupulous methods to do so.
From reports of chuggers (the charity collectors in the street who stop you and wont let go till you’ve signed up) to the ones that trade names of donors so they can each cold call more people to those using boiler room tactics on cold calling. Some people have reported getting hundreds of such calls per week and being frightened to leave their phone connected.
There is now the Fundraising Preference Service.
You can register online at https://public.fundraisingpreference.org.uk/
Or call 0300 303 3517. You register yourself (or another person) so as to not be bothered by the charities you elect to block.
You need to supply your name and address and pick which charities to block. That’s all there is to it.
You can register someone else on the service and they will be sent a message informing them of the registration. This is so that carers and family members and neighbours can register people unable to do so themselves.
Most of the charities have learned to behave better following the bad publicity but this will hopefully make them more responsible as well and stop a lot of the unnecessary bothering of people that still goes on.
In its first days, the FRP was receiving 114 requests per ho0r so you can see this service is very much needed.
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The radio station received three fake dating requests in one day.
From Dinara, Tatyana and Ksenia.
Content such as
“Hi. How have you been? What is your name? Where are you from?
My name is Ksenia. I like to chat with you. What do you think of that?
That one was a short message and had an email address supposedly for Ksenia so the email recipient could reply and start up an online relationship no doubt leading to a scam.
The other two messages were basically adverts for a Russian dating service which again leads to a scam.
e.g. Hello sweetie.
How does it feel to be a loved one. I wish to feel it someday.
I am Tatyana, an educated middle class girl from Bryansk, Russia.
I am a doctor and earn a decent living. I am hard working and honest to my profession. Which implies I don’t have much free time. So I want to tell you straightaway that I am in search of my life partner.
The email leads up to a link to a Russian dating site megadatek.ru
This is a long winded way of getting someone to access a dating website.
Is the dating website real?
Is there actually a girl named Tatyana ?
We don’t know, but if you want to join a dating site then pick one in your home country with an excellent reputation as there are too many scam dating sites out there.
If you have any experiences with scammers, spammers or time-waster do let me know, by email.
