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The last time I spotted them, it was in Nottingham city center about 2010. The city clamped down on them because of complaints.
They'd stick out a mile in the tiny seaside town I'm in now, but even in nearby Scarborough or York I've seen none.
Yep it must be years since I've seen any in the North West. Even those "Bag packer/tin rattlers" at the end of supermarket checkouts have gone, thank goodness.
 
I was so paranoid when I bought my house that I made my solicitor phone me when they money hit their account, just so that I could check that it had gone to the right person! I bought my house in four separate transactions (I was a cash buyer), so they had to ring me four times - which they patiently did, despite obviously thinking I was a nutcase.
I don't care whether I'm regarded as a nutcase - far better to be safe than scammed.
 
Its not only complete strangers you have to be wary of. I remember during the 1980s when selling endowment policies was all the rage. Lots of firms were employing school/university leavers as sales reps. Jobs were hard to come by so all these youngsters were thrilled to have a job in the city. So who would be the first people to buy their policies? Friends and relatives happy to give them a leg up in their new role. Of course what these youngsters hadn't realised was that their sales targets were unmanageable once they had exhausted those close to them so they ended up getting the boot, leaving space for the next victim. Not exactly a scam but bloody close!
 
Its not only complete strangers you have to be wary of. I remember during the 1980s when selling endowment policies was all the rage. Lots of firms were employing school/university leavers as sales reps. Jobs were hard to come by so all these youngsters were thrilled to have a job in the city. So who would be the first people to buy their policies? Friends and relatives happy to give them a leg up in their new role. Of course what these youngsters hadn't realised was that their sales targets were unmanageable once they had exhausted those close to them so they ended up getting the boot, leaving space for the next victim. Not exactly a scam but bloody close!
This was the situation with me. In the 80's, it was considered smart to opt out of SERPs - State Second Pension - and have your National Insurance paid into a private pension. It was 'sold' to me by a former chum who happened to work for a private pension firm. When I was in my mid to late twenties, this sounded fine; getting your pension is a long way off. He stopped working for them after a couple of years, moving to a different industry and found out he'd not opted out himself, but got a 'bonus' for everyone he'd signed on!
However, I started to pay attention to financial news - most over my head - and realised that after doing so for 10 years, the low estimate of how much pension I'd get was lower than my basic state pension. I opted out of opting out, which means I've a small pension coming on my 64th birthday, and my state pension kicks in on my 67th birthday (at the moment).
 
False emigration scam involving kidnappings.

Like millions of others in India, Sukhjinder always dreamt of migrating to the US in search of a better life.

Now he shudders at the very idea.

"I have chills down my spine when I hear someone talk about going abroad. That one decision ruined everything for me," said the 35-year-old, who goes by only one name. A resident of Tarn Taran, a small town in Punjab, Mr Sukhjinder is among at least 150 young men and women in the northern Indian state who were duped by a gang which extorted huge sums of money in exchange for false promises of getting them settled in the US.

Police said the gang, which is entirely made up of Indians, would fly out its victims to new destinations such as Bali in Indonesia and hold them hostage for days to extract a ransom from their families. They said they suspected the gang chose countries like Indonesia or Singapore as their base because of cheap flights and the "visa on arrival" facility available to Indian citizens in these countries. Besides Punjab, men in three other states - Haryana, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh - were also targeted, they added.

Last year, police said they had arrested "the gang leader" Sunny Kumar's wife and his father and recovered 15m rupees ($1.82m; £1.47m) from their home in Punjab. So far, 11 people have been arrested in connection with the scam, they added. ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-65185156
 
I just had one!

An email from a perfectly sensible email address, telling me that she worked for Orion films (part of MGM) and they were interested in one of my recent books (which, due to just winning an award, is very high profile). She gave a phone number and asked me to call at my convenience, or to email her as they had items that needed discussion.

I had about ten seconds of excitement before I worked out a few things. Firstly, some of the grammar in the email was questionable (but not everyone has English as a first language, my mind tried to tell me). Secondly, there was no mention of my agent (who deals with all my rights sales). Thirdly, there were mentions of 'being selected' and 'a few other authors', plus telling me how stupendous my book was, without any detail.

So I passed the whole thing onto my agent - who would have to deal with any offers anyway. She's been dealing with Netflix lately on behalf of one of my books, so I did wonder if someone had just bypassed her somehow and come direct to me by mistake. She looked into things in more detail and found out that this is a scam. Apparently they get authors all excited, thinking that a major film studio has offered for a book, then hit them with the 'but you need to pay someone to write a screenplay'. Which, if a genuine studio has offered, is all done in-house. So authors pay out, and all they get is a screenplay which is useless, because any studio want to do things 'their way', is expensive, and probably not very well written.

Ah well. One day I'll be on the big screen.
 
The scammers in my area are the solar panel sales people. They claim that you will not pay the electric company ever again once you let them install the solar panels, but when you ask about batteries for night time thinking they are saying you will be disconnected from the power company they refuse to talk about batteries. And they calciulate the cost of your electricity you are paying and claim that your monthly payment for the solar panels will be less than your average electric bill. Lots of other lies just to get people to sign up, like "the government wants everyone on solar panels by 2030". And they come door to door! We don't even get Jehovah's witnesses door to door any more.
 
Please note:
An alert has gone around banks that rely on vocal 'identity verification' to do any transaction on telephone banking.
Usually, the customer calling the bank has to say a phrase registered in order to access telephone banking.
There has been recent incidents of victims being forced to verify using their voice, after which the thieves transfer money etc.
Call staff have been 'encouraged' to re-verify voice identity.
Which to me makes no sense but hey-ho.
 
Please note:
An alert has gone around banks that rely on vocal 'identity verification' to do any transaction on telephone banking.
Usually, the customer calling the bank has to say a phrase registered in order to access telephone banking.
There has been recent incidents of victims being forced to verify using their voice, after which the thieves transfer money etc.
Call staff have been 'encouraged' to re-verify voice identity.
Which to me makes no sense but hey-ho.
At one time, Bell Canada was considering voice recognition for people's accounts. I immediately thought how stupid. Not because of people being intimidated to verify their accounts, but simply because of life happening. What if you had a stroke and lost your speech? What if, like the people I support, they cannot manage their accounts and have several workers who do that? How would any of these scenarios work?

Bell nor any other company which were considering this went any further. No explanation, but hopefully they had someone with half a brain ask these obvious questions.
 
At one time, Bell Canada was considering voice recognition for people's accounts. I immediately thought how stupid. Not because of people being intimidated to verify their accounts, but simply because of life happening. What if you had a stroke and lost your speech? What if, like the people I support, they cannot manage their accounts and have several workers who do that? How would any of these scenarios work?

Bell nor any other company which were considering this went any further. No explanation, but hopefully they had someone with half a brain ask these obvious questions.
My friend (in her late sixties) has voice verification for her bank. She doesn't have a mobile phone, so can't verify by text or by app (she doesn't have internet banking either), so she has to ring her bank and say a verified phrase. I think she's had some problems because much of the banking has been outsourced to India and she has trouble understanding the people on the other end.

I keep telling her that it would be easier to get a mobile phone but she's a bit afraid of technology. She uses a computer only to order books from Amazon. That's it. She's got no idea how a search engine works or what to do with email.
 
Please note:
An alert has gone around banks that rely on vocal 'identity verification' to do any transaction on telephone banking.
Usually, the customer calling the bank has to say a phrase registered in order to access telephone banking.
There has been recent incidents of victims being forced to verify using their voice, after which the thieves transfer money etc.
Call staff have been 'encouraged' to re-verify voice identity.
Which to me makes no sense but hey-ho.
One of the many reasons I don't do telephone banking.
 
My friend (in her late sixties) has voice verification for her bank. She doesn't have a mobile phone, so can't verify by text or by app (she doesn't have internet banking either), so she has to ring her bank and say a verified phrase. I think she's had some problems because much of the banking has been outsourced to India and she has trouble understanding the people on the other end.

I keep telling her that it would be easier to get a mobile phone but she's a bit afraid of technology. She uses a computer only to order books from Amazon. That's it. She's got no idea how a search engine works or what to do with email.
Your friend is probably more protected from scams by doing what she's doing I suppose.

Yesterday I couldn't renew my car insurance on line so had to telephone and it was obvious I got through to an Indian call centre. ( I could hear numerous conversations in Indian going on in the background) The lady did her best but her accent was so thick, interspersed with what she thought were classic UK idioms, that I struggled to understand her, but she got there in the end. I can understand why some are left non plussed though. I'm guessing that these call centre employees are not well paid either.
 
Your friend is probably more protected from scams by doing what she's doing I suppose.

Yesterday I couldn't renew my car insurance on line so had to telephone and it was obvious I got through to an Indian call centre. ( I could hear numerous conversations in Indian going on in the background) The lady did her best but her accent was so thick, interspersed with what she thought were classic UK idioms, that I struggled to understand her, but she got there in the end. I can understand why some are left non plussed though. I'm guessing that these call centre employees are not well paid either.
Unfortunately, being not very savvy with tech doesn't make you immune to scams, just means you don't pick up computer ones! Plenty of stuff still out there in the form of charity collections that aren't what they say, etc etc.
 
I avoid it completely. Had too many issues in the past.
Although... there was one bank I used when I ran my own business. Cater Allen private bank. Phoning them was a breeze.

Merchant Bankers always come through for you.
 
I use online banking but no 'phone banking (apart from looking at my dwindling balance).

I'm no technophobe but I'm cautious in my 'investment' in technology.
I think it's amazing that you can stand in a queue in the shop and move money from one account to another to pay.

I think it's brilliant.
 
I use online banking but no 'phone banking (apart from looking at my dwindling balance).

I'm no technophobe but I'm cautious in my 'investment' in technology.
My approach exactly.
I think it's amazing that you can stand in a queue in the shop and move money from one account to another to pay.

I think it's brilliant.
It is amazing isn't it? Just not for me. I still have an almost childlike astonishment at what can be done with tech. When Google Streetview was first announced I thought it was some kind of scam and that it would be impossible to put a camera down every street in the world. Yet it was done. Previous generations just accept any new advances without any excitement.
 
When I think of the scientific advancements that have happened in my own lifetime, it seems exponential.
This is why I think it's laughable about the sheer excitement generated by the current iteration of A.I. It's just a development of the existent bots, that are pitiful in use. It's technology pretending to be sentient but, really, it's just a data harvesting program. The only thing it's really good for is starting the discussion over regulation and trying to foresee legal and ethical issues. For instance, universities are insisting that if an A.I. program has been used in a students work then it must be credited as such.
 
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