Brass-necked scammers and gullible victims make riveting TV - Vladimir McTavish

Mostly, it is inane talking wallpaper. However, I’ve become riveted by the latest afternoon show to hit the small screen.

Scam Interceptors directly follows the BBC lunchtime news. A team of “ethical hackers” listen in to phone calls between online crooks and the gullible public, and try to intervene to stop grannies getting ripped off.

What makes it a compelling view is not the outcome. That’s a foregone conclusion.

What makes it such wonderful entertainment is the limitless brass neck of the scammers in question, the elaborate nature of the frauds they attempt to set up and the jaw-dropping stupidity of the victims.

Surely by now we know not to answer the phone to an unknown number without a modicum of suspicion, if we even answer it at all.

Almost every morning, I’m woken up by my phone ringing with the caller claiming to be in Warrington, or Colchester or some other part of the UK where nobody knows me. I ignore those.

Of course, the clever ones will pretend to be in Edinburgh and will have managed to create a fake 0131 number.

As soon as I answer and hear a pause on the line and the echoing sound of someone speaking from the other side of the world, I hang up.

That clearly wasn’t the next door neighbour trying to get in touch. If you answer, you get drawn in.

It’s the same with texts. Who else has received this message ? “Mum I’ve dropped my phone down the toilet. I had to borrow this one.”

I am tempted to text back “Not again. How often have I told you not to wipe your arse and text at the same time”.

Some are much simpler. One I often receive is “Hi Mum, this is my new number”.

I’ve always fancied answering “I’m not Mum. This is her phone but Mum is tied up in my cellar. Send me money now if you want to see her again.”

A few years ago, I received frequent e-mails from a number of good friends, explaining that they had been mugged in the street in some far off location and robbed of their phone, laptop, bank cards, passport and money.

They’d obviously been hacked. I got one claiming to be from a comedy promoter in London, which detailed how he’d just been attacked at gunpoint in the street in Sierra Leone.

“That’s weird,” I mused “because you seemed OK when I saw you last night at the your gig in Muswell Hill.”

If you get a Facebook friend request from someone with whom you’re already connected, delete it. They’re not being forgetful, they’ve been hacked. If you accept, your “friend” will immediately get in touch on Messenger trying to involve you in some pyramid-selling scheme.

If you get the chance, watch Scam Interceptors. It’s top entertainment. Always assuming the calls are genuine.

It did cross my mind that it could all be a set-up. That these fraudsters and victims could all be actors.

I’d love that to be the case. That would be the ultimate scam.