Fake Barclays Bank phantom debt collection scam call by madarchod criminals phoning from India and spoofing the Caller ID number that is a valid Barclays phone number. NOTE: A call from this number may or may not be a valid call if you do business with Barclays Bank. This scam version of this call is what the Federal Trade Commission calls a phantom debt collection scam where the scammer pretends to be a debt collector, bank or credit agency, lawyer, or law enforcement and threatens to sue or arrest you using harassment (repeated phone calls), lies, threats, and intimidation to collect on fake debts that you do not owe. India scammers also spoof the actual Caller ID numbers of Apple, UPS, Fedex, DHL, Chase Bank, Citibank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and hundreds of other valid business numbers. The scam call begins with the India scammer asking for you by your name in order to make the call sound like a personal phone call to gain your trust, but they are auto-dialing thousands of numbers. It is easy to acquire huge phone database listings of millions of names associated with phone numbers and addresses and have the autodialer display the name that is currently dialed. The scammer may say "this call may be recorded" or "I am calling on a recorded line" just to sound very official (but it's fake!). The scammer then either mentions an unpaid debt and past due amount that must be paid immediately or says they have frozen your account due to fraudulent activity. The scammer then asks for your online banking logon credentials, Social Security number and date of birth "for verification purposes", and either tells you that you can settle the debt by paying with a credit card or demands that you wire transfer the payment for the fake debt or asks you for your bank account and routing number. Here is how to tell the difference between a real debt collector and a scammer: A debt collector must tell you the exact information about your debt such as the name of the creditor, the exact amount owed, and if you dispute the debt, the debt collector has to obtain verification of the debt. A scammer either avoids providing this information or provides very vague or totally false information. A real debt collector usually mentions the name of the creditor on their first phone call. A scammer tries to sound very threatening, but never gives any exact details. A debt collector has to mail you a printed-on-paper "validation letter" within five days of first contacting you. If you do not dispute the debt in writing within 30 days, the debt collector has the right to assume the debt is valid. Scammers always pressure you to settle the debt immediately, often demanding that you make a money transfer from you bank that can be untraceable; this is very common with India scammers posing as debt collectors and fake IRS officers. A scammer may threaten to tell your family and employer about your debts, but a real debt collector can only ask other people about your address, phone number, and place of employment; they cannot tell other people about your debts. Scammers will ask for your bank account and routing numbers and Social Security number, whereas real debt collectors will not. Ask the debt collector for their name, company name, street address, and a callback number, which all real debt collectors will provide. Every one of the thousands of India scammers will also immediately fail this test since all of the India scammers use spoofed fake Caller ID numbers or disposable VoIP numbers. If you suspect a scam, contact the creditor the debt collector claims to be working for and find out who has been assigned to collect the debt. More than 95% of all North America phone scams originate from crowded phone rooms in India that rotate through hundreds of different fraud, extortion, and money laundering scams every day such as pretending to be a fake pharmacy, posing as fake Social Security officers saying your benefits are suspended, fake IRS officers collecting on fake unpaid back taxes, or fake bill collectors threatening you for fake unpaid debts, pretending to offer fake health insurance, car warranty, student loan forgiveness, credit card and debt consolidation services, posing as Amazon to falsely say that an unauthorized purchase was made to your account or that your Prime membership was auto-debited from your credit card or bank account, posing as Microsoft/Dell/HP/Apple to say that your software needs renewal or they detected a problem with your computer, fake "we are refunding your money" or "your account has been auto-debited" scams, fake Google/Alexa listing and work-from-home scams, pretending to be a bank or Fedex/UPS/DHL, falsely stating that they installed ransomware virus on your computer and you need to pay them money, etc, fake fundraisers asking for charity donations, fake political and lifestyle phone surveys, and the scammers try to steal your credit card, bank account and routing number, or Social Security number and personal information. Many scammers try to gain your trust by asking for you by your name when they call, but the autodialer is just dialing thousands of phone numbers and automatically displaying your name when your number is dialed from a phone database that contains millions of names, numbers, and addresses in the U.S. Many India scammers phone you with an initial pre-recorded robotic person speaking English, Spanish, or Chinese that is easily generated using text-to-speech translation software to disguise the origin of their India phone room, but then you speak to the India scammer when you take the bait and respond to the pre-recorded message. Some speech synthesis software sound very robotic, but others sound very natural. Scammers often either use disposable VoIP phone numbers (e.g. MagicJack devices) or they spoof fake Caller ID phone numbers. Anyone, including you, can use telecom software or a third-party service to phone using fake names and phone numbers that show up on Caller ID. India scammers often spoof fake toll-free Caller ID numbers that begin with "8". The Caller ID name and number is often useless with scam calls unless the scam setup asks you to phone them back and the Caller ID area code is almost never the area from which the scam call actually originated since many scams use fake Caller ID area codes from across the U.S. and Canada, totally invalid area codes, and also purposely faked foreign country Caller ID numbers (e.g. fake women crying "help me" emergency scams from India often spoof fake Mexico and Middle East Caller ID numbers). Some India scammers also spoof the actual real phone numbers of businesses such as Apple, Verizon, and U.S. banks so when you phone the number back, you realize that you were scammed from the spoofed Caller ID number of the actual business. How can you avoid being scammed by phone calls (and also emails)? Never trust any unsolicited caller or anyone who phones with any sales offer (most unsolicited sales calls are scams so your odds of saving money are very poor); offers of a "free gift"; legal or arrest threats (pressure tactic); callers or recordings who tell you to reply back within a few hours (pressure tactic); unsolicited callers who demand that you access a website, download a file, wire transfer money or buy gift cards immediately while they stay on the phone with you; claims of suspicious activity on an account; claims of refunds or auto-renewed/auto-debited accounts; and any pre-recorded messages. A common India scam calls you with a fake Amazon recording of a suspicous purchase of an iPhone, but Amazon never robo-dials you like this and Amazon account updates are communicated in emails. Many banks do use automated fraud alert phone calls to confirm a suspicious purchase, but always verify the number that the message tells you to phone or just call the number printed on the back of your credit card. Any unsolicited caller with a foreign accent (nearly always Indian) should immediately be treated as a scam until carefully proven otherwise. Many scams tell a lie that you recently inquired about a job, social security benefits, doctor appointment, insurance, or that you recently contacted them or visited their website, and they try to steal your personal information and SSN. To hide their foreign accents, some India scammers have now added non-Indians to their phone room and many India scammers begin the call using interactive voice response (IVR) robotic software that combines voice recognition with artificial intelligence, sounds incredibly human, speaks clear English with dozens of American voices, listens to your speech, and responds based on your replies. Four common IVR setups used by India scammers begin the call with either: (1) "Hi, this is (fake name), I am a (insurance, Medicare, Social Security disability benefits, awards, loan, vehicle warranty, vacation, prescription, debt collection, employment, etc) specialist on a recorded line, can you hear me okay?"; (2) "Hi, this is (fake name), how are you doing today?"; (3) "Hello? (pause) Are you there?"; or (4) "Hi, may I speak to (your name)?" Their personal introduction may vary, but most IVR scam calls immediately ask you a quick question to elicit a yes/no affirmation so it can quickly hang up if it encounters voicemail. The IVR robot can understand basic replies, yes/no/what? answers, and basic questions. To test for an IVR robot, ask them, "I am cooking right now, what is your favorite food?" If their reply does not make sense, then ask, "How is the weather over there?" A human scammer will think you are a friendly unsuspecting target and reply reasonably, but IVR software cannot answer complex off-topic questions. IVR robots also usually keep talking if you loudly try to interrupt them in mid-sentence. The IVR usually transfers you to the India scammer, but some phone scams entirely use IVR with the robot asking for your credit card or SSN. Phone and email scams share two common deceptions: (1) The Caller ID name/number and the "From:" header on an email can be totally fake, and the Caller ID is often spoofed using phone numbers of innocent people and businesses; and (2) The phone number and information on a scam phone call is malicious just as the file attachments and website links on a scam email are malicious. Always hover your mouse over links in email text to display the true destination and learn how to analyze raw email headers such as "Return-path:" and "Received:" which provides a trace of the servers that handled the email from its origin to your mail server (e.g. a true Amazon email will start from a domain name owned by Amazon). Phone and email scams snowball for many victims - if your personal or financial data are stolen, either through a phone or email scam, clicking on a malicious website, or by a previous data breach of a business server that stores your data, then your personal data gets shared and sold by scammers on the dark web who then see you as fresh meat and prey on you even more. That is one main reason why some people receive 40+ scam phone calls every day while others receive 0 to 2 scam calls per day. Credit card numbers sell for $5 to $20 on the dark web, bank account numbers and email passwords sell for as much as $500, and Social Security numbers sell for $1 to $10 just for the name with number or more than $300 if the SSN includes full name, address, date of birth, and drivers license information. India scammers do not care about the U.S. National Do-Not-Call Registry and asking scammers to stop calling has no effect. Many American telemarketers will honor your request to be removed from their phone database, but India scammers do not care. Some India scam recordings tell you to press a number to be placed on their do-not-call list, but that is a lie to make the scam sound like a valid business. A few India scammers even tell you that they will stop calling if you buy their fake insurance or fake drugs, which is laughably false. I love to play with these scammers and keep them on the phone by pretending to be interested in their scam. You do these scammers a favor by yelling at them and immediately hanging up since they shrug off all the profanities that they hear. But you ruin their scams by slowly dragging them along on the phone call, calling them back if their phone number can be phoned, pretending to be interested in their product or service, pretending that you are worried when they threaten you, always giving them fake credit card numbers and fake personal information, asking them to speak louder and to repeat what they said to use up more of their energy, pretending to innocently ask the scum why he is shouting profanities at me, etc. The best defense against phone scammers is a good offense by not quickly hanging up the phone, but instead toying with them for at least 10 or 20 minutes to use up more of their time and energy so they have less time to deceive an elderly victim. Scammers do not earn a fixed annual salary. If you waste their time while you continue to do other things, you make them poorer for sitting there trying to scam you. If you immediately hang up, their autodialer quickly connects them to another target victim. If the scam lets you phone them back (e.g. Social Security and IRS scams), do not just repeatedly phone them and start yelling, but scam the scammers by acting interested or concerned. Never give an unknown caller your credit card number or Social Security number. Companies who already have your information may ask for the last four digits for verification. Some India scammers ask for your bank account and routing number or ask you to wire transfer them a payment, giving a fake explanation that they cannot accept a credit card or personal check. Scammers can steal money if they know your bank account and routing number (e.g. counterfeit cashed checks) and wire transfers are far less traceable than unauthorized credit card charges. India scammers may threaten to have you arrested, but the IRS, SSA, and debt collectors cannot threaten to arrest or sue you on the phone; they are required to send you paper notices by registered mail. The police and FBI will never phone you and say that officers are coming to arrest you (many India extortions threaten to send officers); if the police really want to arrest you, they just show up with a warrant without phoning first. Some India scammers ask you to use your browser to visit a website that allows the scammer to directly access and control your computer and then they can install a ransomware virus to extort money from you, or they ask you to download a virus file to your computer. These same remote desktop websites are used by both legitimate technical support and India scammers to see and click on your screen. If the scam sounds very authentic, ask the scammer for their verifiable company name, street address, and a callback number that can be googled and matched to the company name and address, which all real businesses will provide. Every Indian scammer will immediately fail this test since they all use spoofed fake Caller ID numbers or VoIP numbers that they can quickly dispose of. Scams often prey on fear (you are going to be arrested or your account was hacked), ignorance (your fake account subscription was auto-renewed/auto-debited), or greed (that 80% savings on fake drugs or insurance, free Bahamas cruise, or 0%-interest loan is just a scam to steal money and identity theft data). If you are foolish enough to give your credit card or SSN to a random stranger to buy fake drugs, insurance, or loans, then you should blame yourself for being scammed. Most unsolicited calls are scams nowadays, usually with a very subtle to very thick Indian foreign accent, and most scam calls originate from India. No other foreign country is infested with pandemics of numerous noisy sweatshops filled with phone scam criminals who belong to the lowest India caste and many are thieves, robbers, and rapists who were serving jail sentences but released early due to prison overcrowding. Most India scammers are men, but many are women who also readily shout profanities and the cowards tell you that they will blow up your house (which is fake just like their scam). Just laugh at their abusive language. Google "Hindi swear words" and memorize some favorites to piss on these scammers, e.g. call him "Rundi Ka Bacha" (son of a whore) or call her "Rundi Ki Bachi" (daughter of a whore). But if you can spare at least 10 minutes, first scam the scammer before abusing them by sounding interested, asking them questions to keep them talking and having to think harder because they veer off their rehearsed script, do not overdo the acting, and feed them totally fake information (16 random digits starting with 4 for Visa and 5 for Master Card, when the scammer says the card does not work, ask them to repeat the number and try again, and then tell them "try my second card number", and then give them a third 16-random-digit number starting with 3 for Diners Club).

Barclay

Barclays

Harassing phone calls.

This number is harassing me. They call at least 4-5 times a day.

Barclay Visa collections

They don’t stop

Barclay Bank. Legit