Scam Phone Calls - They Can be Blocked From Overseas Callers
Yesterday we noticed that our house phone rang once and then stopped as though someone had dialled the wrong number but the missed call should have shown have shown up in the call logs but didn't. Today I managed to answer it during the one ring and got a recorded voice saying that Telstra Audio Text Service had a message saying that a mobile phone had tried to ring but had left a message which was only the phone number of the caller and it was a very odd mobile number. Seeing I had had the phone beside me at the time and no one had called I smelled a rat. We have had about a dozen of these calls in the last few days and my instant reaction was scam but I could not figure out what they could do if we did not have time to answer the phone.
I rang Telstra after I snagged one of the calls and after talking to several operators at different levels finally got put onto the scam dept and yes Telstra does have one. They were at a bit of a loss to explain it and as they don't talk Australian I gave up trying to explain that if it was a scam (their suggestion) how did the scammers expect to profit if we did not have time to answer the phone.
After that went through to the keeper like a Thommo full toss they thought it would be a good idea to block all incoming overseas calls to see what happens, something that I did not realise could be done. I guess if you get sick and tired of OS scammers and people trying it on for whatever reason you can do the same if you have no need to receive OS calls and stop the bastards ringing your phone. I will be interested in how it goes over the next few days but the calls appear to have stopped for now.