So I got a new spam scam phone call today. It's not new, but it was new to me. The guy claims to be from the Federal Treasury and wants to talk to your lawyer because a case is going to be filed against you. What? Puhleeese! Vague information, used my nickname not my legal name, and you could hear the call room chatter in the background. So I refused to ID myself and asked for a number to call them that I could check. He gave me a CA area code and number and said to ask for Officer Torres. So I promptly looked the number up and found it was a known scam. Some collections companies use the tactic but they are violating the law to do so. And it looks like it's also used as random phishing for someone stupid enough to wire them money to prevent the "legal action". Apparently they all like to use the name, "Officer Torres". So bizarre. Googling 'Officer Torres phone scam' gets dozens of hits using the same scam. IRS phone scam hitting Mid-Valley Fake DEA Agent Scam Targets FOX 11 Reporter and Family I can't wait to see if they call back.
Here's another source of information: TIGTA Warns of “Largest Ever” Phone Fraud Scam Targeting Taxpayers
Yeah.. I barely read two sentences before I wondered "Isn't it highly illegal to pretend to be an agent of the IRS or something?" This is a really F'ed up scam, Terrible how some people must actually freak out and do as they say.
Oh boy these things are a nightmare. They are totally based off in other countries to make it difficult for anyone to do anything about it. Have you heard about the Nigerian Check Scam? There are a couple of versions. But they can clear your savings out in an instant, and is very easy to fall into. The scariest part is they scam people into working for them, and laundering the money of them. They believe that are doing legit work for some company from home, but they are totally making money for Nigerian scammers for a nominal fee.
the story goes that you agree to cash a check for somebody in a different country as long as you are willing to transfer a percentage of those funds to another account. They come up with some bologna about not being able to cash the check themselves for economical restrictions in their country or some other malarkey. They offer a ridiculous percentage like 20 or 40 percent. Anyways the check seems legit and you can cash it, you really see it go into your account. If you go this far into the scam thinking it is too good to be true and are drawn by curiosity, then the huge sum of money in your account start to make it feel like it isn't a scam. The checks are fake. Identity theft fraud to be exact. And they are caught every time. If you were tricked into withdrawing the agreed on percentage and move it into their account then they have successfully hijacked you savings. Sometime in the next 10 days after this transaction, the bank figures out the check wasn't legit and withdraws the full amount from the account it was deposited into. This if course includes the percentage you gave away, usually being enough wipe your savings out and leave an outstanding balance. They even higher people to make these checks in the states, pretty much running every part of it out of the country in Nigeria. What lowlifes
These crooks have quite the pool of data to work with: nicknames, addresses, last four digits of SINs, email addresses... where does this all come from? Are they just spending more time investigating their victims, or have they found an easy way to do this?
The really nasty scam is when a person phones you, purportedly from your bank, and asks you to phone your bank (or whatever) to verify the situation. They don't give you the number to phone, so you look the number up, thinking you're safe—BUT they manage to stay on the line, somehow, and gather your details from what you tell the real company when you get through to them. That's why it's great to have both a landline and a mobile phone. In other words, do your checking from a different phone.
Whenever I see an unknown number, I always answer the phone by saying, "This is Agent Thirdwind, Department of Homeland Security."
This reminds me of the call I got last week. It was automated and there was an instruction for me to call them immediately to settle or face a lawsuit. But I knew it was a bluff, so I just ignored the message.
By the way, the message came from a 202 phone number. When I looked it up, I found a thread of complaints on it at Callercenter.com. So be warned everyone. Be wary of the calls you get, especially from an anonymous phone number. If suspicious, simply hang up.
I get one all the time from a guy from Microsoft support. He is very pushy and I usually have some fun with him, trying to extract personal infomation etc, before I tell him to FO.
I appear to have all this money just floating around waiting for me to claim it. I've had a man call me from something like 'The UK Finance Organisation' who was working with 'The Government' over a banking error and they owed me money. I went with it for a bit but hung up. It sounded genuine but it's a known scam. They eventually ask for bank details and then they end the call. Now I'm getting texts along the lines of 'congrats, you're £3000 loan has been approved! simply click on this link and fill out your details...' It is genuinely scary though. I attended a course through work about dealing with fraud and how to spot scams which was run by a bank giving some of their own case studies where these people have stolen millions. It is seriously amazing how these people go about their 'work', the things the pull, the lengths they go to, the way they do it. Terrifying.
Keep in mind people, that spoofing is a thing that exists. There is no reason to assume that the number on your caller ID is the number that is actually calling you. You should also be aware that some phishing scams are only looking for you to answer your phone. Once they know that someone exists at that number they run the number through google, and depending on where you've put it, they can find all kinds of personal information about you. So if you have your phone number on facebook delete it immediately.
Luckily I haven't been subject to these kinds of things myself, but my brother (who, just like me, is really careful about scams, etc. and also pretty tech savvy) has told me of an occasion when he spoke to one. It was a call to my father's home that my brother answered. The caller said, with a heavy Indian accident, that he was from Microsoft Tech Support (I think it was) and wanted to talk to our father about some problems on his computer. There are just so many things that's plain wrong about that...
Yes, it's like an arms race. You get caller ID, they get fake numbers to show up on the screen. I got one of those Microsoft computer warning calls a couple months ago. I laughed at the guy.
My son got one a while ago...He kept the guy on for about ten minutes of Call of Duty before the guy realised that the sounds of gunfire might indicate he hadn't got my son's full attention.
A friend of mine was doing some cash-in-hand joinery work. Got a tip from a satisfied customer that x on 'phone number y would like some joinery work doing. Friend calls the number..."Good morning, Inland Revenue?" Friend ran a mile!
I got a similar call a few days ago, actually - one of those "call and claim x amount of reward dollars for being with your phone company" calls despite my provider doing nothing of the sort.
I got one of those e-mail spams today that claims I've been invited to be a speaker at a conference in China. Hadn't had one in a while. Somewhere in my Net surfing years ago I got on this scam list. They play off people's egos. It's always by some female with an English name. The conference is in China. What the scam is they link to a travel service to help you with your travel arrangements. I think they claim you will be reimbursed but what actually happens is you pay and get no tickets or reimbursement. I've never replied but that's what I found when investigating the scam. The sad thing is, I found out about it because some professionals had actually paid the travel agency. There are warnings are on the Net. http://www.geo-tasks.org/meetings_sandt/fraud_meetings.php http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/27593/title/Conference-kerfuffle-hits-scientists/
