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OT: Public service announcement - scam artists are busy

Good to see that something works!


Told this story before here. I have a friend who is both a CPA and attorney who arrived home one night to find a message from the "IRS" on his answering machine threatening dire consequences. Going along with it he called the number and said:

"I got this phone call threatening to arrest me if I don't make a payment. What' going on?

Response: "What is your name please."

He said: "Fred Flintstone"

Response: "Please hold Mr. Flintstone while I pull your file."
 
On the old version of the Howard Stern Show, they used to play tapes of calls from guys like Ponce Delaphone messing with telemarketers and phone scammers. It was funny as hell.
 
Told this story before here. I have a friend who is both a CPA and attorney who arrived home one night to find a message from the "IRS" on his answering machine threatening dire consequences. Going along with it he called the number and said:

"I got this phone call threatening to arrest me if I don't make a payment. What' going on?

Response: "What is your name please."

He said: "Fred Flintstone"

Response: "Please hold Mr. Flintstone while I pull your file."
Did Mr Flintstone have a file lol?
 
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My 85 year old father lives in an assisted living facility. Covid has been pretty tough on him with no visits from family. His mind is still about 85% there, but he has his moments. He’s been getting a couple scam calls a week lately. We have to keep reinforcing with him that if anyone is calling him other than us kids, just hang up the phone. People are f’d up.
 
So you are saying the guy from Nigeria I spoke to this morning and sent $1000 so he can come to this country to claim his uncle's inheritence of which he will give me back $10000 isn't real?
 
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So you are saying the guy from Nigeria I spoke to this morning and sent $1000 so he can come to this country to claim his uncle's inheritence of which he will give me back $10000 isn't real?
If he didn't identify himself as a prince (not Ron Prince), I'm afraid it's not real.
 
I read an article a while back where there are about 2,000 people calling from India every day 10 hours a day and they have been able to scam about $10 million from the US. Only need 1 sucker every 100,000.


wrong, scammed $250 million.

The offenders, the officers were told, were English-speaking Indians who worked in a sprawling network of bogus call centers in western India. They called American citizens, pretending to be officials of the Internal Revenue Service, and demanded immediate payment of tax arrears, threatening imprisonment and deportation. Thousands of Americans had been cheated in the nine months of the network’s operation, collectively swindled out of close to $250 million.
 
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I read an article a while back where there are about 2,000 people calling from India every day 10 hours a day and they have been able to scam about $10 million from the US. Only need 1 sucker every 100,000.


wrong, scammed $250 million.

The offenders, the officers were told, were English-speaking Indians who worked in a sprawling network of bogus call centers in western India. They called American citizens, pretending to be officials of the Internal Revenue Service, and demanded immediate payment of tax arrears, threatening imprisonment and deportation. Thousands of Americans had been cheated in the nine months of the network’s operation, collectively swindled out of close to $250 million.

I never got a live call from an IRS scam, but would be tempted to go along with it, till we got to the part where I would have to pay, how much, and to where...

if they started with the gift card thing, I would ask, why don't I make it out to the US treasury, and sent to the usual address, like I do 4 times a year...why am I paying this differently..... just to see what the answer was..
 
here is another thing, while we are at it

my neighbors father mailed a check to pay a small bill somewhere...... his envelope got fished out of the mailbox/
the ink erased, and check made out for $18,000.... unfortunately he had that much in his account, and the check went through paid..... I guess these scammers open up a bogus checking account short term to process the checks

90% of my bills are paid on line, but now I have pens that are supposed to be anti-fraud, the ink cannot be removed off a check

hopefully that will be a safeguard

I noticed in my area the post office has changed aomw odf the mail deposit boxs, where it is now just a slit, instead of a pull down door....this probably was the reason, to prevent fishing.
 
Play around with the scammers with chatbot:


Actual time wasting call between scammer and computer:
 
I read an article a while back where there are about 2,000 people calling from India every day 10 hours a day and they have been able to scam about $10 million from the US. Only need 1 sucker every 100,000.


wrong, scammed $250 million.

The offenders, the officers were told, were English-speaking Indians who worked in a sprawling network of bogus call centers in western India. They called American citizens, pretending to be officials of the Internal Revenue Service, and demanded immediate payment of tax arrears, threatening imprisonment and deportation. Thousands of Americans had been cheated in the nine months of the network’s operation, collectively swindled out of close to $250 million.
I heard recently that the top phone scams are now coming out of Jamaica.

I always love the ones that call you and ask you to prove it is you on the line...

The online scams are the hardest...some are really so good. Can catch even the most anal person at work.

Keeps me in business though...
 
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Whe
here is another thing, while we are at it

my neighbors father mailed a check to pay a small bill somewhere...... his envelope got fished out of the mailbox/
the ink erased, and check made out for $18,000.... unfortunately he had that much in his account, and the check went through paid..... I guess these scammers open up a bogus checking account short term to process the checks

90% of my bills are paid on line, but now I have pens that are supposed to be anti-fraud, the ink cannot be removed off a check

hopefully that will be a safeguard

I noticed in my area the post office has changed aomw odf the mail deposit boxs, where it is now just a slit, instead of a pull down door....this probably was the reason, to prevent fishing.
n I worked in payroll in the 70’s, we had a student worker change his $30+ dollar check to $80+. Guy who reconciled checks came down to payroll with it, to show me. Got campus police involved, I was scheduled to testify in court on it, but on the day of the trial I was told I didn’t need to come down. (Back then student hourly wage was $2)
 
I must get a call a day about "extending my car's warranty". I can't remember the last time I had a warranty on my car. Probably about 1999. One of these days I'm going to touch 1 and speak to someone, have a little fun with them rather than just hang up.
 
I got the calls that "my social security number is going to be shut off" 10 times yesterday. They don't give you the option to press 1, instead they want you to call them back. Yeah, sure!

Also got one a few weeks ago from "American Medical" asking me if I had any medical problems. I told them yeah, my penis was too big and didn't fit in my pants. After a 5 second pause I heard "oh" and they hung up. They haven't called back since.
 
Since we're talking about fraud and scams... this is worth watching.. tracking down those pop-up scammers.. who also do an Amazon scam where they make you think you are getting something you haven't ordered... it is good.. the anti-scammer hacks into IP cams at the scammer's offices in India.. he sounds like its Liam Neesom tracking them down.. certain set of skills..

 
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I must get a call a day about "extending my car's warranty". I can't remember the last time I had a warranty on my car. Probably about 1999. One of these days I'm going to touch 1 and speak to someone, have a little fun with them rather than just hang up.
There are anti-scammers training bots to call back these clowns and waste their time. Love white hats, hate the black hats.




 
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Wife got a call on our home number the other day telling her that there were charges on her itunes account they wanted her to verify. First- they call on our home number which is in no way associated with our Apple account. So the wife said, can I call you back and the nice young Indian girl said she could and started to tell her a number and my wife asks her, "I would be calling you back at Apple, correct? What is the Apple toll free number?, you have it, right?" Girl replies, "yes, I have that, please hold on" Trying to look up 800-myapple lol like an apple customer care person wouldnt have that on the tip of her tongue. But you can see why people get folled.

I used to F with the solicitations. Time shares and such...I would answer and tell them I would love to hear about it but could they please hold on until I get to the other phone in my office downstairs. I would just set the phone down and see how long they would wait before hanging up. My wife didn't think it was funny
 
My 85 year old father lives in an assisted living facility. Covid has been pretty tough on him with no visits from family. His mind is still about 85% there, but he has his moments. He’s been getting a couple scam calls a week lately. We have to keep reinforcing with him that if anyone is calling him other than us kids, just hang up the phone. People are f’d up.
My Mom and Dad are 87 and 90, respectively.

First thing we told them since they have CallerID don't answer the phone if you don't know who it is...if it's important they will leave a message.

Then we programmed specific ring tones and pics for the whole family (kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, close friends, etc.) and make sure all of their drs. are already saved in their directories.

My Mom almost got scammed once by someone pretending to be my Son at college. While on the phone someone else called and tried the Social Security number thing. She realized it was scam and hung up.
 
My Mom and Dad are 87 and 90, respectively.

First thing we told them since they have CallerID don't answer the phone if you don't know who it is...if it's important they will leave a message.

Then we programmed specific ring tones and pics for the whole family (kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, close friends, etc.) and make sure all of their drs. are already saved in their directories.

My Mom almost got scammed once by someone pretending to be my Son at college. While on the phone someone else called and tried the Social Security number thing. She realized it was scam and hung up.
That’s all smart and what we wish we could do. My dad is a different breed. Cell phone is a no-go, different ring tones would confuse him, caller ID wouldn’t be clear enough for him to see, forget about the concept of pictures. Let’s just say he’s a very unique mix of set-in-his-ways/stubborn and not always 100% there.
 
That’s all smart and what we wish we could do. My dad is a different breed. Cell phone is a no-go, different ring tones would confuse him, caller ID wouldn’t be clear enough for him to see, forget about the concept of pictures. Let’s just say he’s a very unique mix of set-in-his-ways/stubborn and not always 100% there.
We also got them a special phone for the house with a big screen so you can read the CallerID and it announces who is calling loud enough that anyone could hear it..
 
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I must get a call a day about "extending my car's warranty". I can't remember the last time I had a warranty on my car. Probably about 1999. One of these days I'm going to touch 1 and speak to someone, have a little fun with them rather than just hang up.


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here is another thing, while we are at it

my neighbors father mailed a check to pay a small bill somewhere...... his envelope got fished out of the mailbox/
the ink erased, and check made out for $18,000.... unfortunately he had that much in his account, and the check went through paid..... I guess these scammers open up a bogus checking account short term to process the checks

90% of my bills are paid on line, but now I have pens that are supposed to be anti-fraud, the ink cannot be removed off a check

hopefully that will be a safeguard

I noticed in my area the post office has changed aomw odf the mail deposit boxs, where it is now just a slit, instead of a pull down door....this probably was the reason, to prevent fishing.

One thing I told my wife to stop doing is to leave outgoing mail that is a bill payment with a check inside in our mailbox for pick up by the mailman with the red mailbox flag raised. One of our neighbors had such an envelope removed from his mailbox before the mailman got to it, the check altered, and then fraudulently deposited. If I have the very infrequent check to send by mail, I drive it over to the post office and it goes into the slot at the post office drive up box.
 
Beware, and if you have elderly family be very aware, that scam artists are busy. From the people who brought you fake IRS calls Covid 19 scams are plentiful. See attached, which has a link to FTC stasticis.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/22/americans-have-lost-145-million-to-fraud-linked-to-covid-19.html

Last week, someone was pretending to be me, and sent text messages to someone who works indirectly for me. The scammer told him that I was very busy in meetings but needed a favor. He (claiming to be me) asked him to go to CVS and buy Google play cards. At that point, my worker independently emailed me to ask if it was me ... and that ended it. However, someone explain this to me. If he had bought the Google play cards, then what ????

Somewhat disturbing because they seemed to know both of us, although used very formal names, which was another clue.
 
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reading some of the responses here... it never ends.. these bastards... torture might be too good for them.
 
Last week, someone was pretending to be me, and sent text messages to someone who works indirectly for me. The scammer told him that I was very busy in meetings but needed a favor. He (claiming to be me) asked him to go to CVS and buy Google play cards. At that point, my worker independently emailed me to ask if it was me ... and that ended it. However, someone explain this to me. If he had bought the Google play cards, then what ????

Somewhat disturbing because they seemed to know both of us, although used very formal names, which was another clue.
I know someone who is a school teacher. He got an email from his "principal" around Christmas that he needed this guy to go buy eBay (of all things) gift cards for the principal and that he wanted to gift them. Dude I know is gullible enough, he goes and does this. Then reply emails the "principal" back with the gift card numbers so he can "give" them to the fellow teachers.

At no point did the dude I know find this suspicious. A sucker is born everyday. He went and spent $500 on this. I was shocked the wife wasn't angry. She was more like I hope he learned his lesson. Odd folk.
 
Well if this is legit, it’s pretty f’d up....regardless of politics.

1. You're right

2. It would result in a whole lot of these scammers going to jail.

Edited to add: I wonder if law enforcement could set up a dummy profile that would draw these scammers and use a phony SSN that would reveal the IP of the scammer to trace as soon as it was used.
 
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Friend of mine’s step dad sent some scammer $100,000 over a couple years. He’s out of it and was sending them money because he won the lottery in Canada or something and needed to pay to collect it.

The bank called my friend to tell him step dad was getting money orders every week to send to someone and it didn’t make sense. Even though the bank wasn’t supposed to do that.

He got power of attorney and put the guy in a home. Sad part is the step dad still thinks he won and still wants to send them more money.
 
I am in that little older age group. My phone has been ringing off the hook lately. I have caller ID, so I just don’t answer the phone. When they do leave a message, you can tell it is a scam.
 
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