spouse of scouse

I'm in Perth at the moment and my husband is home in the UK. He got a message on our home phone voice mail yesterday, purporting to be from HM Revenue and Customs.

He only heard the first part of the message, because he got all flustered and accidently deleted it (he gets like that ). What he did hear was along the lines of this phone call is urgent, you, your representative or your solicitor must respond immediately, blah blah blah.

I'm sure it's some sort of scam, because I can't think of any reason for HMRC contacting us at all, let alone talking about solicitors. I also don't think they'd just 'cold call' without at least sending a letter first. He obtained a genuine HMRC phone number and called them - after giving his details (name, DOB, address etc) and being passed around to 4 people he was eventually told by the final person that they couldn't help him. Not 'it's a scam, don't worry about it', just 'we can't help you'.

Me, I'm not worried about it. But scouse is, he's the sort of person who rushes out to pay a bill the minute it comes in. Does anyone know if there's a specific HMRC number he can call to confirm/deny that the contact was genuine?

Thanks (and I'd better get back home soon, that man's not fit to be left alone)

Pollyana

Its a scam. I can't believe the number of scam/cold calls that come through on my sister's landline each day, sometimes 20 pr more. Seems to be a huge issue here. They screen all calls now, rarely actually answering the phone as its a waste of energy.

Apart from my nieces of course......last week they told someone their father couldn't come to the phone as he had been eatcn by a bear, and this week the best one is that thieir mum has turned into a werewolf.

spouse of scouse

The number of scam calls is nothing to laugh at, but your nieces responses are!

We get heaps from India, and they always ask for 'Mr Richardson'. We just hang up now.

Ta for the advice Poll, I'll try to reassure Scouse again when I phone tonight (she sez, with no conviction at all)

Bermudashorts

I am also 100% sure it is a scam. HMRC rarely answer the phone, that they would actually bother to make a call is incomprehensible to me.

scot47

They would write - not phone. SCAM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

37100

My mum (she was expecting a rebate) called the police who confirmed that there was a phone scam going round.

Parnell

Send $GBP and I will tell you

spouse of scouse

Thanks BS

spouse of scouse

Bastards Good on your Mum for checking it out.

spouse of scouse

No worries. Send me your full name, date of birth, address, mother's maiden name, and your bank account details including log in, password and the answers to your secret questions.

Tr1boy

Two words: True Call.

My sister and I bought my Mum one now she's on her own, she's had it 18mths, that thing is worth its weight in gold.

Having said that, good luck to anyone trying to scam my Mum. Have you seen the film 'The Wicker Man'? That's more like a travel program for my Mum's village. All bills are paid with a couple of dead hedgehogs and a corn dolly.

spouse of scouse

I hadn't heard of True Call, just looked it up and I'm getting one! Thanks for the tip, I'm quite happy to just hang up on nuisance/scam callers but scouse is either super polite and has a chat, or yells at them. No grey areas with this man.

I haven't seen Wicker Man but your Mum and the village she lives in sound mega

Tr1boy

Well make sure you see the original Edward Woodward version and not the Nicholas Cage one. You'll get the idea ( makes Royston Vasey look metropolitan!)

Yeah we've been real happy with the True Call. It's a bit of a PITA setting it up and inputting numbers but you only do it once. The website access to update and check your calls is really easy to use.

Only downside is the answer machine quality isn't great but my Mum has no issues with it.

vikingsail

Sounds like a scam to me. if you are experiencing these types of calls I highly recommend the BT Call Guardian - it eliminates all cold calls. Both sets of my parents in the UK purchased last year and enthuse about the complete lack of scam, cold callers they now enjoy:
BT BT8500 review - The best call-blocker phone yet | Expert Reviews

Its a small outlay for complete piece of mind. And no I don't own the company

Tr1boy

This is a good suggestion also, and one we looked into, the BT8500 uses a slightly stripped down version of the True Call software. IIRC the only that put us off was that everything was handset driven with no remote web access ( maybe this has changed?).

One thing I love about true Call is that my sister and I can manage the call editing from any computer, anywhere and Mum doesn't need to worry about it. One thing. I forgot to mention, with True Call ( and all blockers I think) you must have Caller ID activated. Mum is with Talk Talk and that's free bit I'm with Virgin and I wanted that it's £2 a math I think.