News Forum - Thailand: Don’t answer calls starting with +697, it’s a scam

[Bluesofa]

An update on the scam calls, and my wife's attempts to waste their time.

Just now I had an incoming call, an unrecognised Thai mobile number. I answered and as soon as I heard the usual Thai announcement about being connected to an official about an unauthorised shipment, I gave my phone to my wife.

This one claimed to be the Thai Post Office, chasing a parcel she sent abroad from Chiang Mai earlier in the month.
My wife managed to keep them talking and waste their time by keep asking questions, giving yet another false name and address which they managed to find on their system.  

The caller hung up, they must have realised my wife was playing them. The call today was a personal best for her, an impressive 37 minutes.
 

[BigHewer]

18 minutes ago, Bluesofa said:

The caller hung up, they must have realised my wife was playing them. The call today was a personal best for her, an impressive 37 minutes.

Nice one

I used to read a blog a few years ago of a guy whose hobby it was to waste the time of scammers. He’d post regular updates, and it was both informative and hilarious. Does this ring a bell? Just tried to find it again and couldn’t…

[Bluesofa]

39 minutes ago, BigHewer said:

Nice one

I used to read a blog a few years ago of a guy whose hobby it was to waste the time of scammers. He’d post regular updates, and it was both informative and hilarious. Does this ring a bell? Just tried to find it again and couldn’t…

Yes, I've also watched quite a lot of videos the guys that go after the scammers. There's a scam-baiting forum in the UK for people who like to wind up the Nigerian 419 scammers. 
419 scam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_scam   
There's also loads of youtube videos of people doing similar things.
This one is really good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c584TGG7jQ 

 

[Tim_Melb]

This story is misinformation, they have added this prefix to calls that come from a VoIP source. That doesn't mean they are scam calls. However they should be approached with caution. They may be calls from genuine international businesses or even your family and friends making internet to landline calls to save money. Stating that all calls from this new prefix are scam calls is just wrong and misleading. 

[Chaimai]

37 minutes ago, Tim_Melb said:

This story is misinformation, they have added this prefix to calls that come from a VoIP source. That doesn't mean they are scam calls. However they should be approached with caution. They may be calls from genuine international businesses or even your family and friends making internet to landline calls to save money. Stating that all calls from this new prefix are scam calls is just wrong and misleading. 

 

Whilst I agree with that, I will not take the risk of answering such numbers.

 

Family and friends can easily call from Messenger, LINE or Whatsapp.

[Marble-eye]

23 minutes ago, Chaimai said:

Whilst I agree with that, I will not take the risk of answering such numbers.

Family and friends can easily call from Messenger, LINE or Whatsapp.

I only take two calls, if it isn't my wife or Lazada the number gets blocked.

[Shijose2002]

Well it has pros and cons. I use an India number here in Thailand with international roaming enabled  for bank OTPs and family calls. Now any calls I receive on this phone is prefixed with +697. This could be because my servcie provider is using VOIP for international call routing. But I am in such a mess as I am not able to now identfy genuine calls as it no longer match the name in my contacts  with the number. I could live with Spams. But not wth this mess of not able to identify calls from my friends and family back home