Has BT surrendered the landlines to the fraudsters and scammers ?

[silentone]

In answer to Guru:   Correct, and BT are the loser.

[c64z86]

Are you registered with the Telephone Preference Service?

Telephone Preference Service (tpsonline.org.uk)

[silentone]

TPS does not stop scammers !!

Scammers and fraudsters don't act within the law.

TPS:

• TPS registration will reduce the number of live unsolicited sales and marketing calls you receive e.g. an organisation calling to sell its products or services using a live agent, not an automated call.
• Organisations are required by law to screen their data against the TPS register every 28 days, but many do it more often.
• Organisations will still be able to call you if you have given them permission to do so, or for non-sales or marketing issues, such as market research or service calls.

[licquorice]

You have been told the only answer to your problem, whitelisting.

[c64z86]

Slightly off topic, but they have to actually follow the law now, or the NCA will come down on them hard no matter which country they are in:

Fraud targeted thousands across UK and abroad - National Crime Agency

(Mods I hope this link is allowed here. It's a GOV site, nothing being sold on it.)

[chrisjp]

Sigh....
As you've seen from other replies, there are an almost infinite number of phone numbers, and scammers usually use automated systems to work through them one by one until someone answers and they get lucky. They also spoof their own numbers.
So how, exactly, do you expect BT or any other phone service provider to block these calls, given that they have no way of knowing the real number of the scammer, or the number that the scammer's automatic system will dial on any individual occasion?
Perhaps you could explain...?

[Jane2018]

I get genuine calls I want from people I have never spoken to before every day so whitelisting would never work for me. the only scam calls I get are on the two landline numbers - in my case they always come from India and always pretend to be from BT, sometime the information commissioner of all people (!), microsoft etc. I just about never use a mobile and have never had a scam call on my mobile.

[rbz5416]

---

@Jane2018wrote:

I get genuine calls I want from people I have never spoken to before every day so whitelisting would never work for me.

---

Another thing to add to "the list" that you've spectacularly misunderstood how it works.

[silentone]

We are still waiting, it appears it's possible.

Phone companies agree to block scam calls from abroad - Ofcom

[iniltous]

BT do block scammer calls everyday , it’s fatuous to suggest that no effort is made to stop these calls ,  but it’s an impossible task to block every single one ,and any blanket approach is likely to affect genuine calls as well as scam calls ,obviously BT ( and everyone else ) cannot simply say ,  any call from India, and that’s if is likely to be a scammer so block all calls from that location, what’s more spoofing the geographical location is as easy as spoofing the number they appear to be calling from .

BT are not the only company that is subject to this , if the OP moves to a different provider, and they keep the phone number they have , the scam calls will follow , if they change number ( to one provided by the new ISP ) due to the random nature of scammers, you may be fine for a while ( especially if the new  number  has never been previously used ) but there is every chance that new number will eventually also be called by scammers .

Scammers obviously know the way calls are delivered and how to circumvent any attempts to block , use IP telephony , so the calls are effectively ‘free’ and use calling technology so that hundreds if not thousands of calls are made  simultaneously and only the ones that are answered are offered to the scammer call centre employee, they don’t sit and dial each number themselves.

Personally I can recall one obvious scam attempt in decades, the AVR was a somewhat ridiculous’ This is a call from your bank ‘ , I hung up before the ‘ press 1 to speak to a bank employee ‘ , that’s the point at which the scammer is connected , but luckily that’s it , one call in many , many years , if someone gets inundated with scam attempts they are either just unlucky or scammers have  noted  any number that gets answered and enters into the dialogue, by in my example pressing 1 , and that makes that number more valuable to the scammers , so once you have entered into a dialogue, even if you haven’t been duped and realised after speaking to them , increases the likelihood of more calls , as your number is circulated as a potential sucker .