The only positive thing about the apparent growth in phone-driven scams is that more publicity about the things emerge, and people have to learn from that.
They have to take in the advice and have to be very, very wary.
Because these people are very, very determined.
And sadly, they make an occasional strike and someone unknowingly opens their lives (and bank accounts) to some rogue in a land far away.
The latest scam is a thing dubbed "robo-dialling" where a "missed" call comes in from overseas and the caller would like you to call back.
Those who decide to get tangled in what appears to be an 0900 net discover their savings account eventually starts to dissolve.
It's just one more path for the scammers to wander down.
They're never short of an idea.
Never short of a potential new plan and by all accounts New Zealand has become "flavour of the month" in terms of being a target for this latest illegal intrusion.
I've taken a couple of "your computer is as risk" calls and dealt out my own verbal vengeance at times, usually in the form of a couple of very loud and sharp words...the sort which would have seen you suspended from school for three days.
Or, I just amuse myself for no good reason.
"A computer problem? Oh I don't think so...this is the Central North Island police palace and I'm the senior president detective inspector and if you stay on the line we can..."
And then it just goes 'click'.
"Oh golly...he's gone," I sigh.
On one occasion I told the chap I was most concerned and I would go and turn the computer on, and asked him to wait a minute or two while I did so.
So I wandered back to my chair, sat down and watched the last 20 minutes of Last of the Summer Wine and when I went back to the phone later there was no one there.
"Oh golly, he's gone again."
Then there's the old "you've just rung a location where there is a crime scene being investigated...just stay on the line."
'Click'.
"Oh golly not again...what am I doing right?"
I was talking to a chap a while back who said he once told an obviously foreign caller that he'd just had a call four minutes earlier (he hadn't of course) and had given that caller all his bank details and things.
The caller got slightly excited and said he would also need those details to "ensure they are correct".
"Well go and ask the other bloke...he sounded like you...he could be your brother."
"Click".
Then there's the direct approach.
"How's the weather there in Mumbai?"
Or, you could tell the scammy caller that your son had the only computer in the house and you'll put him on.
You then deliver the voice of a four-year-old and introduce yourself.
"Hello mister...I'm Moby and I'm four and I got a computer."
The slightly bewildered scam exponent would then likely ask that he put his dad back on...to which little Moby declares "he's not really my dad and he and mummy argue about that".
Cham the Scam would then probably ask to speak to "your mummy please".
"No, she's out with a sailor," Toby sighs, and then starts to cry because "you don't want to talk to me".
"Click."
It's an odd thing this phone-in on-line scamming evolution...because they are using what is seen by many to be an outmoded item in terms of communication technology (the landline) to get access to the rapidly expanding forefront of technology...computers.
And yep, they've already started skirting the phones and creating frightening realistic on-line approaches, breaching email defences.
Bring back pen, paper and envelopes.
You write it, you send it, recipient gets it... and nobody else.
