I've very nearly got caught out by one of those. Turned out it was for a timeshare scam of some sort. I was sucked right in at first, but luckily managed to evacuate before handing over any money. However, I've seemingly condemned myself to a lifetime of cold calls for similar things... Sadly, some of them are very smart and catch out even the most wary of us.

(A good tip though - get yourself a tricky surname: anyone who calls and doesn't get it right can usually be hung up on pretty quickly. The same applies to junk mail - anything for Mr 'Ruth A. Ford', or 'Kimberley Jonson' goes straight in the bin...)

It really is a horrid feeling isn't it Milly? A couple of years ago when we were desperately short of money I had a message from somebody who "wanted to buy" one of my paintings and offered a ridiculously huge amount of money. Naturally I accepted and took the cheque straight to the bank. A few days later I was horrified to get a phone call from the bank to tell me that the cheque was finest india rubber although I confirmed that it had been credited to my account before spending anything. Fortunately we hadn't gone too far over the line and the bank was very helpful, but I really would have liked to get my stilettos on whoever was responsible for it.

Ho!  We have utilised the Telephone Preference Service for several years now and I don't think we get more that two calls slipping through per year.  Again, so far as phone pests are concerned, you may find the following ideas useful:-
How to deal with phone pests

      What to do when you get those wonderful telephone calls

      1. If they want to loan you money, tell them you just filed
      for bankruptcy and you could sure use some money.

      2. If they start out with, "How are you today?" say,
      "Why do you want to know?" Alternately, you can
      tell them, "I'm so glad you asked, because no one
      these days seems to care, and I have all these
      problems; my arthritis is acting up, my eyelashes are
      sore, my dog just died..."

      3. If they say they're John Doe from XYZ Company, ask
      them to spell their name. Then ask them to spell the
      company name. Then ask them where it is located.
      Continue asking them personal questions or questions
      about their company for as long as necessary

      4. This works great if you are male:
      Telemarketer: "Hi, my name is Judy and I'm with
      XYZ Company..."
      You: Wait for a second and with a real husky voice
      ask, "What are you wearing?"

      5. Cry out in surprise,"Judy! Is that you? Oh my God!
      Judy, how have you been?" Hopefully, this will give
      Judy a few brief moments of terror as she tries to
      figure out where the hell she could know you from.

      6. Say "No", over and over. Be sure to vary the sound
      of each one, and keep a rhythmic tempo, even as
      they are trying to speak. This is most fun if you
      can do it until they hang up.

      7. If MCI calls trying to get you to sign up for the Family
      and Friends Plan, reply, in as SINISTER a voice as
      you can, "I don't have any friends... would you be
      my friend

      8. If the company cleans rugs, respond: "Can you get out
      blood? Can you get out GOAT blood? How about
      HUMAN blood?

      9. After the Telemarketer gives their spiel, ask him/her to
      marry you. When they get all flustered, tell them that
      you could not just give your credit card number to
      a complete stranger.

      10. Tell the Telemarketer that you work for the same
      company, they often can't sell to employees.

      11. Answer the phone. As soon as you realize it is a
      Telemarketer, set the receiver down with a bang, shout or scream,
      "Oh my God!!!" and then hang up.

      12. Tell the Telemarketer you are busy at the moment and
      ask him/her if he/she will give you his/her HOME
      phone number so you can call him/her back. When
      the telemarketer explains that telemarketers cannot
      give out their HOME numbers you say "I guess
      you don't want anyone bothering you at home, right?"
      The Telemarketer will agree and you say, "Now you
      know how I feel!" Hang up.

      13.Ask them to repeat everything they say, several times.

      14.Tell them it is dinner time, BUT ask if they would
      please hold. Put them on your speaker phone while
      you continue to eat at your leisure. Smack your food
      loudly and continue with your dinner conversation.

      15. Tell the Telemarketer you are on "home incarceration"
      and ask if they could bring you some beer.

      16. Ask them to fax the information to you, and make up
      a number.

      17. Tell the Telemarketer, "Okay, I will listen to you. But
      I should probably tell you, I'm not wearing any clothes."

      18. Insist that the caller is really your buddy Leon, playing
      a joke. "Come on Leon, cut it out! Seriously, Leon,
      how's your momma?"

      19 Tell them you are hard of hearing and that they need
      to speak up... louder... louder...louder...

      20. Tell them to talk VERY SLOWLY, because you want
      to write EVERY WORD down.

I've used nymbers 7 and 11 to great effect.

Cheers

S'wave,

The only downside to your post is that I am actually looking forward to telemarketeers calling now!

Tommo

Milly,

What barstewards! But there seem to be so many scams out there there, I guess many of us are going to get clobbered at some stage, even when we think we have our wits about us. You do have an awful lot on your plate at the moment, even for Supermillyl !  Don`t be mad at yourself. Well, not for too long anyway.

I found the Small Claims Court to be excellent.  I took a well known travel company to court as they provided us with wrong accommodation and lied and wriggled consistently as to why etc etc.  Their first mistake was to say, at the airport, that they had just found out our booked accommodation had been over booked and showed me the list with our "new" accommodation on it.  Unfortunately for them the list was dated five days earlier and they could obviously have notified me.   They used a barrister and I represented my wife and I.   We won the case, the Company appealed and a very senior Judge then took them apart in no uncertain terms and ordered them to change their booking conditions etc etc.  The Company also tried the "switch" to another Court but I refused and gave reasonable grounds for the refusal.  They paid.  Had they not done so the Court would have enforced payment.
You have to stick with it

Last grumps of the day.

I lost at Bridge tonight. (5p!  No holidays for me this year!)

And it's rained all day.

And I'm hungry because I'm on a diet.

That's all. :-(

TPS works pretty well. I still get the very occasional cold call but I always tell them that I don't wish to receive any more calls from them and ask them to take me off their list. They are trying to sell you something after all so if they've got an eye on their costs they won't waste time on you any more. Just putting the phone down or something similar won't work since that will just be recorded as a no-reply, so they'll try again.

What amazes me is the people who fall for the Nigerian scams. It's just down to greed of course. I used to get quite a few of these emails offering to give me x% of a large sum if I'd help them get it out of the country. Unfortunately I very rarely get them now, which is a shame since I used to find them quite funny.