.png)
5 hours ago
4
I knew I wanted to marry my husband when I overheard him on the phone to a cold caller. Having recently reached a new stage in maturity, I’d rearranged the list of qualities I was looking for in a life partner, placing kindness above wearing good trainers.
He didn’t know I was listening, but asked the person’s name, then, addressing them by it, told them that he wasn’t in the market for whatever they were flogging, warmly wished them better luck with the next call, and hoped they would have a great day. He was undoubtedly a brief, friendly reprieve in an otherwise universally thankless task, albeit with no commission. I realised you can tell everything you need to know about who somebody really is from the way they treat cold callers, and have lived by that rule ever since.
Well, that’s over now. Take Five To Stop Fraud is a new campaign that urges us to stop being so nice to strangers on the phone. For one lucky guy, compassionate chat led to marital bliss, but for many others, it’s an invitation to scammers, who exploit stereotypical British politeness. Apparently 53% of adults stay on unwarranted calls longer than they want to because they’re worried about seeming discourteous, and fraudsters use this to their advantage, to build trust and apply pressure.
Famous rude boy Craig Revel Horwood is endorsing this drive to sharpen our collective tongues, saying: “When it comes to fraud, being a bit rude is exactly the right thing to do.”
Although being meaner and more suspicious is pretty depressing advice, sadly it makes sense. As anybody who has ever been scammed can tell you, it’s a horrible, unsettling feeling. Mostly because the person you’re angry with afterwards is rarely the scammer – it’s you, for falling for it in the first place.
I once paid a man to fix an oil leak that my car didn’t have. In my defence, he was in a boilersuit, AKA wearing a cunning mechanic disguise. I was so grateful to him for letting me know there was a terrible problem with my car, and coming to my rescue by replacing a pipe with the new one he coincidentally had in his pocket, that I gave him a lift to the tube afterwards, thanking him profusely throughout. Via a cashpoint, obviously. When, much later, I realised what had happened, and reported it, I was asked how he’d made his escape after the crime. The look on the police officer’s face as he said, “So you are the victim and the getaway driver?” has stayed with me to this day.
It’s not just the terminally gullible like me who get fleeced – my mum was nobody’s fool, and yet she was tricked out of £2,000 by that Bank of Mum and Dad scam, before it was well known. She got a message that started “Hi Mum” then said “I’d” dropped my phone down the loo, which was why I was on this unfamiliar number, and that I had a payday loan that needed to be settled immediately, so could she please transfer the money to my brand new bank account. There was so much about the text that was instantly not me: I’d never take my phone into the bathroom because of germs, I’d beg for cash by phone call rather than text, and I’d never misuse so many apostrophes. Yet it all took place so quickly she didn’t have time to think. And that’s how they get you.
Rude and distrustful needs to be our new national mantra, then. And although we Britons are renowned for saying sorry, we need to be unapologetic about it. Perhaps we’ll upset the odd innocent party, who are unfortunate collateral damage, but that’s got to be worth it to stick two fingers up to scammers, and stop patsies like me driving ourselves crazy for being duped.
Polly Hudson is a freelance writer
