This is probably old, but I haven’t experienced this scam before. I h ave Robocall block so I usually never even get any scam phone calls. But this morning I accidentally picked up the main landline too quickly before Robocall stopped the ringing.
“Good morning, you are the lucky winner of the 1st prize in the Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes. $2.5 million dollars” This with a completely deadpan voice like reading off a script.
“We would like to deliver your winnings in about 3 weeks.” Me: “OK, what do I need to do” “There will be a small registration fee to process the winnings”
Hang Up
I’m worried that elderly or undereducated people would actually fall for this. Pretty sure the ‘small registration fee’ has to be paid in gift cards or something
If I had a nickel for every scam call received I would be so, so rich. Hopefully the legislation for phone companies to ban robocalls is well written and passes. I can live without my pharmacy telling me a prescription is ready if it means avoiding the phone ringing for nothing. Note to friends and family- you need to say hello and let us know who you are before we say anything/be pleasant. My least favorite is the recorded high pitched voice of “…” ( I forget the name until yet another call comes)- the company should have chosen a pleasant voice.
So I got new Google Pixel 3a phone that’s really awesome. It has something called screen call in the Pie software. If I don’t know the number I press screen call and it sends a message to the person to like state their name and why they are calling 99% of people just hang up. A few people that I didn’t have their number leave a live message that I can read then answer the phone… Or not
I have the issue where I am getting unsolicited advertisements via text message on my phone. Really carpet cleaning from a local number that looks so close to mine and I’m not able to block the number.
My pharmacist shared a new phone scam that he received at his workplace, the pharmacy. It was from a person who purported to be DEA who said they found a bag with his fingerprints and drugs at the Mexico border and would be coming to arrest him soon! They knew his name, SSN, & other “public info,” and kept threatening him, without getting to their demand for $$$. They kept him on the phone for over 10 minutes until he finally hung up on them and called a friend who IS working for DEA and verified that he is NOT on the DEA website or flagged or anything.
He was very shaken by the call and contacted all his pharmacist friends to alert them and sure enough they were getting similar calls as well. ICK! If you have pharmacist friends, give them a heads-up.
I got what I assume are some sort of scam texts and a phone call on my cell phone. The first text was from an unknown # “I got a phone”. Yay you. Presumably I’m supposed to ask who it is but anyone I know that has my cell would already have a phone. Deleted it. Next one was again an unknown # “did you call”. Followed by a call from that #. Now blocked. Not sure what the scam is but I can see how someone might respond. But I’m suspicious natured plus anyone I would want to have as a contact would already be a contact.
Bank of America has a fake scam going in emails so don’t click anything. Also I get like Apple ID stuff or they will close my account like 3 times a week. Apple told me to send it to their fraud unit AND NEVER send them stuff via email. It really looks real.
It shows the ridiculous power of the phone. That anyone wouldn’t LOL at the DEA giving you a heads up call at your CVS/whateverpharmacy workplace. How did this guy engage them long enough to confirm they had his SS number? This is someone who makes clinical judgments on a daily basis. Surely he would just LOL and put down the phone.
I’m sorry, @coralbrook You can’t win the Publisher’s clearing House because my mother has already won. She’s convinced they will be pulling up with the van, flowers, balloons and the big check on Aug 31.
This happened to my colleague’s 60 yr old mom.
She is a teacher, got an email from the superintendent to request for her cell phone so he could text her. In the text he said he was at a conference to give out awards, but he forgot to bring the gift certificates with him, so he asked her to go to the nearest store to get 5 $100 gift certificates. In the text he knew her first name even though her email address didn’t have her first name (that’s why she was not suspicious at first). He then screen shot how she should scratch off the code in the back of gift certificate so he could easily give it out to the recipients. She was literally at a drug store to about to purchase the cards before she texted, “Can you tell me where we met for the first time?” (they met 30 years ago at their first job and always laughed about it)
Nothing back from the texter. Few minutes later she got a notification that the superintendent’s email was hacked and not to respond to any emails from him.
The lesson here is when you are doing verification do not ask the other person about your birthday, address, job, credit card because if an account is hacked then most likely the perpetrator already has those personal information, but instead ask something that no one else would know.
We periodically get scam requests from a “prospective client.” To mask their poor English, scammers make the request look like it was signed by a VP of a small to mid-sized foreign corporation that has an English version of their website (so the legitimacy of the prospective client can be easily verified). The emails usually come from a Gmail account that has nothing to do with the corporation or a hacked email address. These requests go into the trash right away.
Another scam targets office assistants. They would receive an urgent request from one of their bosses to run an errand similar to what @oldfort described. “Are you at the office? I have a request for you.” Again, those come from Gmail addresses not associated with the company (but on a smartphone, only the name of the sender shows, not the actual email, so unless the recipient makes another step to look up the address, the message looks like it came from John Person, the president).
When cell scams first started in earnest, I’d text back a terribibly official sounding “auto response.” Something about this line being monitored by law enforcement, pursuant to code XX dot nnn and all texts being subject to further investigation.
I got the “errand” request form an architect we worked with. “He” knew enough details about me that I thought it MIGHT be legitimate. But I called him and of course he said it was bogus. He changed his email address after that.
ML, if you have a website for your business, it is not hard to pick up a few extra details… sites like Spokeo make information scooping easy. Property ownership and car registration are public records… it is amazing how many requests we get in the mail to sell our house or our 2005 Lexus van. ? (we don’t own that car anymore, and Mr. made sure the new owner registered it in their name right away, so someone must have paid for stale info - lol). Recently we got bombarded with texts from “realtors” looking into buying our property. The phone numbers were probably lifted from a realtor’s database… while there are local realtors who speak with a strong foreign accent, their writen English is not so poor. We are thinking about putting our house into a trust just to get rid of the buggers.
Hacked emails are the big problem. I had a client who had her email hacked and the hacker read through her sent email. The hacker found that the client had an assistant she would regularly email requesting funds be sent for a purchase she had made. These were 5 figure and above wire transfers. The hacker sent the assistant a series of requests for transfers starting around $10,000 and slowing working their way up. Eventually request #5 was for half a million. The assistant processed all of them and then realized that the last one seemed a bit large and checked with her boss, after it was sent.
The FBI became involved immediately and they were able to stop the last one but the other funds were gone to China.
