What scam was this?

My mom got the "Grandma?" call many years ago. She had not heard of the scam and was very concerned that her grandson was in trouble. She asked him why he didn't call his mom or his dad to help him (he would have been about 18-20 at that time and supposedly was stranded in a jail in Mexico). Something seemed hinky to her in the answer to her question, so she said, "Tell me your middle name!" and CLICK. I congratulated her later that her antenna was up and she smelled something fishy even though she would have done anything to help her grandson.

After that, she was plagued on and off for a couple of years by someone who repeatedly called and addressed her as "Miss-y her last name." She knew he was full of it and told him to stop calling her--but he persisted. One time my brother who is an attorney was visiting when the "Missy" call came through--and he took the phone and ripped the guy, gave his credentials and said he would take him to court faster than he could blink if he ever called again. The calls stopped.

It is infuriating to see that these crooks prey on the elderly and. particularly, on women. I hate that they use the threat of a family member to do this. My sister and her kids lived five states away, and my mom would not have been knowledgeable of their every move.
 
Get some random texts telling me my netflix account has an issue and my password has been locked.............scam...........have NEVER had netflix...........goes in the trash. Or a text claiming to be from Fedex and some issue with a package delivery...........don't currently have anything on order & Fedex nevers sends a text about your order............scam.

Any email that comes from *@gmail is a scam. NO legit company uses gmail to send out messages. Goes in the trash.

I have NEVER had ANY legit company communicate with me by text so clearly those are scams.

I guess my favorites are the emails with clumsy/bad grammar and words spelled wrong. Nope....scam.......in the trash.

I don't answer my home phone if I don't recognize the caller ID. Real companies/doctors/dentists will leave a message. Sometimes they leave a message to call them back at a different phone # but never say what company this is or why they are calling............delete some sort of scam.

Have read in other places that getting you to say 'yes' to a question is more an urban legend then any kind of scam. Even if they did record your voice, what could they do with it?
 
I've been getting lots of calls from "your cable TV provider" (they are careful not to give the company name because they don't know which company I use) telling me that my cable box needs to be reprogrammed because they have reconfigured the satellites, or something. I started to get curious about how this scam would play out so one day when I was bored I played along while they "reprogrammed" my box. Then they offered me a generous discount on my next few bills provided (here it comes, I thought) I prepay my account for the next 3 months, giving them (of course) bank account details to pay this right there on the phone. Stay safe out there, folks, and (while this shouldn't need to be said) the IRS will NEVER call you and demand you pay back taxes by going to the grocery store to buy iTunes gift cards!
 
I'm surprised no one has brought up the "auto warranty" calls. You know, the ones that say "you're auto warranty is about to run out"? When I have time, I'll get to the human and play along...
Me: "Which car?"
Scammer: "What do you mean?"
Me: "Well, we have multiple cars, which one is the warranty running out on?"
S: "I can't tell you that."
M: "So you don't know? You called me."
S: "I know, but I'm not allowed to tell you, you need to confirm which car it is."
M: "How can I confirm it if you won't tell me which one?"
S: Click

As far as why answer unknown numbers...
A) I used to have a job where I was part of the tech support team to a staff of 120+. Sometimes issues were time critical. I was expected to help whenever possible.
B) It can be fun
 


Some of us have to answer the phone - even when it is an unrecognizable number so please do not keep saying "just don't answer"

That said, my problem is the "do you want to sell your house" calls. Sometimes I get several a week from various people asking me if I want to sell my house. Quite often, they provide me with my address or the address of one of my investment properties. At first, I would tell them yes and hen give them a ridiculous asking price but I got bored of that. Now I just respond "I am on the do not call list and you could incur a $1,000 fine per phone call" I say it politely but factually. I have not received any call this week so maybe it is working.
 
"Hi, are you home now. I have your check."

Could have also innocently been a wrong number with no malice intended.
 


Some of us have to answer the phone - even when it is an unrecognizable number so please do not keep saying "just don't answer"

That said, my problem is the "do you want to sell your house" calls. Sometimes I get several a week from various people asking me if I want to sell my house. Quite often, they provide me with my address or the address of one of my investment properties. At first, I would tell them yes and hen give them a ridiculous asking price but I got bored of that. Now I just respond "I am on the do not call list and you could incur a $1,000 fine per phone call" I say it politely but factually. I have not received any call this week so maybe it is working.
Sure some people don't but most should not pick up the phone.
 
We had the oddest experience last week. I had hoped someone else posted about a similar one, but I still can’t quite figure it out. We definitely facilitated someone getting scammed.

Saturday evening DH gets a call on his cell from a 1-800. Normally wouldn’t answer, but as he thought it might be a call regarding his upcoming travel, he did.

Man says he is calling from X Bank (regional) and does DH know Y person. Y is an old acquaintance of DH. They have one another’s cell phone numbers, but haven’t spoken in years. Man says Y is getting hacked and he is trying to prevent it and that Y is on the other line. DH says he knows him. Man asks if DH got a text that Y was trying to Zelle him money. In the time from answer to question, DH got a text. Told man he did. Man says he will send text code to DH and to give him the number.

Lots of holding and back and forth while man is talking to Y. Man is accented and hard to hear. DH is texting Y to figure out what is going on plus getting multiple Zelle texts about Y sending him money. General confusion. But all happening very quickly. I start to get a little suspicious, but had stayed out of it. I hear DH say something about giving the code he was texted, and I jump in.

Two texts from Z bank. First saying something about account ending in 2345 and second text with a 6 digit code. But it says code is for online only and you will never be asked for it.

So I jump in and ask the man where he is calling from. He insists it’s X bank. I ask why he’s sending a code and asking about Z bank. He says he’s just trying to stop a fraud. Little more back and forth, and I hang up.

Thankfully DH never clicked on anything. But it was crazy. 1-800 number when googled was actually X Bank - but believed it was spoofed. Talked with Y, and he was hacked, but never spoke to a man, so he was never on the other line.

I’m not sure what role DH played in the scam, but we think that when he answered, he became a mark. They then started sending the texts.

None of the info related to our accounts and I have been vigilant and seen no activity, but it was crazy. DH is savvy, but it all played out so quickly and weirdly!
 
Some of us have to answer the phone - even when it is an unrecognizable number so please do not keep saying "just don't answer"
I understand a business always needing to answer the phone but I am not sure why a non business must answer unrecognizable numbers. I am curious the reason(s)?
 
I understand a business always needing to answer the phone but I am not sure why a non business must answer unrecognizable numbers. I am curious the reason(s)?
As I said earlier...

As far as why answer unknown numbers...
A) I used to have a job where I was part of the tech support team to a staff of 120+. Sometimes issues were time critical. I was expected to help whenever possible.
B) It can be fun

Others have brought up about waiting for calls from Doctor's offices (or other appointments) and not wanting to go through the trouble of trying to return calls.

I had one at work where a spammer called my cell. I don't remember what the scam was, but I interrupted them with the "Do you know how to get blood out of a carpet? I mean a LOT of blood. I didn't realize there was so much blood in a human." <click> My coworker at the next desk was cracking up.
 
The rampant scam I see all the time now are the Facebook posts for lost dogs/kids/elderly. You can always identify them once you've seen a couple, they tend to show up in classifieds/yard sale groups, and if you click on the OP it usually says they're a 'beauty salon' or something with 6 followers. The scam is supposedly that they trick people into sharing the post to help find the owners/families and later they will go back and amend the original post to be a phishing thing that it will then look like you shared. If you aren't vigilant, you'd never know the original post was changed.

I haven't personally seen the post change, but I'm really curious about it.
 
We had the oddest experience last week. I had hoped someone else posted about a similar one, but I still can’t quite figure it out.

Anytime you get some bizarre story on the phone involving a 3rd party is clearly a scam of some sort. NO business/bank/credit card company needs to involve an outsider in some roundabout story to prevent fraud. Any of those online money places seem like they have a LOT of issues with fraud. If my bank has some legit issue with one of my accounts they are going to call ME...........not some person who I was friends with x years ago. Good thing you hung up before getting pulled into their scam.

Also get calls from someone claiming to be assoicated with Visa/Mastercard so I just hang up. Those are two separate companies and there would never be a reason why someone claiming to represent BOTH would ever call you.

In general, if you get a call from someone that seems 'off'..............hang up and and contact that business/bank/etc. using a REAL phone # shown on the back of your credit card or their website. If they actually have some legit business reason to contact you they will know about it.
 
Anytime you get some bizarre story on the phone involving a 3rd party is clearly a scam of some sort. NO business/bank/credit card company needs to involve an outsider in some roundabout story to prevent fraud. Any of those online money places seem like they have a LOT of issues with fraud. If my bank has some legit issue with one of my accounts they are going to call ME...........not some person who I was friends with x years ago. Good thing you hung up before getting pulled into their scam.

Also get calls from someone claiming to be assoicated with Visa/Mastercard so I just hang up. Those are two separate companies and there would never be a reason why someone claiming to represent BOTH would ever call you.

In general, if you get a call from someone that seems 'off'..............hang up and and contact that business/bank/etc. using a REAL phone # shown on the back of your credit card or their website. If they actually have some legit business reason to contact you they will know about it.
You are right!

The most confusing part to us is that they must have been able to hack into Y’s contacts to call DH. Because that is the only way that DH and Y would be connected. So at the outset, it was odd, but not entirely clear that it was a scam since they knew everyone’s names and cell numbers (to send the texts).
 
I understand a business always needing to answer the phone but I am not sure why a non business must answer unrecognizable numbers. I am curious the reason(s)?
There could be lots of reasons. In my case, I own investment properties and one is a short term rental. You never know when a call coming in is something time critical.

I used to use my personal cell for business as a Disney Travel Agent (now retired from that). I never knew if a call was a potential client. Plus, I did not add al of my existing clients into my address book. If someone was on their trip and needed an answer, I wanted to be there.

Medical calls - I concur with the poster that said it is a bear to call back. Especially surgery centers.

Occasionally co-workers who need something - but they usually email or text and can leave a message so I shouldn't really count them.

I am sure there are many more reasons.
 
1. For therapy purposes, it's fun to watch the Mark Rober YouTube video on glitter-bombing an Indian call center. With too much time on your hands, you can really go down the YouTube rabbit hole watching anti-scammers connecting to scammer call centers and then messing with them. :bored:

2. I just bought a Panasonic Call Blocker. Supposedly it has something like 14,000 pre-programmed scam phone numbers plugged in, but I'm still getting a few. It is satisfying, though, to mash that big red button when one does ring through.
 
My mom got the "Grandma?" call many years ago. She had not heard of the scam and was very concerned that her grandson was in trouble. She asked him why he didn't call his mom or his dad to help him (he would have been about 18-20 at that time and supposedly was stranded in a jail in Mexico). Something seemed hinky to her in the answer to her question, so she said, "Tell me your middle name!" and CLICK. I congratulated her later that her antenna was up and she smelled something fishy even though she would have done anything to help her grandson.

After that, she was plagued on and off for a couple of years by someone who repeatedly called and addressed her as "Miss-y her last name." She knew he was full of it and told him to stop calling her--but he persisted. One time my brother who is an attorney was visiting when the "Missy" call came through--and he took the phone and ripped the guy, gave his credentials and said he would take him to court faster than he could blink if he ever called again. The calls stopped.

It is infuriating to see that these crooks prey on the elderly and. particularly, on women. I hate that they use the threat of a family member to do this. My sister and her kids lived five states away, and my mom would not have been knowledgeable of their every move.
My FIL got the Mexican jail call and unfortunately sent the money.
 
The rampant scam I see all the time now are the Facebook posts for lost dogs/kids/elderly. You can always identify them once you've seen a couple, they tend to show up in classifieds/yard sale groups, and if you click on the OP it usually says they're a 'beauty salon' or something with 6 followers. The scam is supposedly that they trick people into sharing the post to help find the owners/families and later they will go back and amend the original post to be a phishing thing that it will then look like you shared. If you aren't vigilant, you'd never know the original post was changed.

I haven't personally seen the post change, but I'm really curious about it.
All of the time, found injured dogs, lost autistic kids… then there are the “look at this tshirt my autistic kid created, would you like to buy one”
 
I guess my favorites are the emails with clumsy/bad grammar and words spelled wrong. Nope....scam.......in the trash.
i read somewhere that the bad grammar/spelling is a phishing technique some scammers are employing on purpose (esp. catfish). the explanation was that if someone sees that terrible grammar/spelling and still engages then they may be more gullible and an easier mark.

i've wondered in recent months if amazon is purposely using bad spelling and grammar cut and paste for their customer service chat to discourage customer complaints. there is no other excuse i can come up with.

That said, my problem is the "do you want to sell your house" calls.
i end up with these on my cell phone voice mail. obviously a scam b/c it's always from the area code my cell phone number uses which is out of my state of residence.

I understand a business always needing to answer the phone but I am not sure why a non business must answer unrecognizable numbers. I am curious the reason(s)?
as pointed out-doctors and insurers. i also encounter it with companies that have different divisions. the main phone number will show up on caller id but sub categories within show up as unknown numbers as well as do their individual employees. i esp. see this with the trades-the electrical repair company's main number will show up on caller i.d. but the department that handles the scheduling does not, nor do the actual electricians who will call when they finish one job to verify the homeowner of the next is going to be home when they arrive (if i don't answer they won't show up). one might say to avoid companies with these types of phone 'issues' but when the pickings are slim on a particular trade and the only authorized repair person on your entire side of the state has a 3 month waiting list you pick your battles. if i'm waiting on a call from someone/some company i just answer the phone and remain quiet until someone else initiates, if i hear nothing or the initial conversation seems off i hang up (though there seems with allot to be a silence tolerance time period and if nothing is said it's an automated hangup on their part).
 
(Phone rings from unknown caller....)

Me: Hello?
Unknown Caller: We have your grandson and are holding him hostage!
M: Oh no! How much is the ransom??
UC: $25,000!
M: Really? That much? Eh, keep him. I like my granddaughter better anyway.
(Click)

(Phone rings from unknown caller....)
Me: It's done. But there's blood everywhere!!
(Click)

I love messing with spam callers.
 

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