I don’t recall whether it continued on to ask me further information, not even sure I used it again before setting it up and canceling it but the entire AI copy voice thing just seemed too close for comfort when I can create a strong password. My birthdate is in a lot of places, and so is my address so that would not make me feel secure.,but then again, I’m probably just paranoid. Since I wrote that, I had another call from the same silent number and let it go to voice mail. No message as before, no message. I did google the number and it’s out there as a “silent” number but didn’t see it as a bad number just others getting the same silent treatment.
Scammers flood social media (especially Twitter/X) to offer “help” to frustrated air travelers.
I feel like I have to post this story that is making the social media rounds today. It is like the story above by the former college professor, but this is a younger woman who works as a financial advice columnist. 
Is the moral of the story…don’t assume you can’t be scammed? Never give a box full of cash to someone who says not to tell anyone about it?
Jeez. This is so scary.
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Stories like this should never be behind a paywall - they should be front and center of every social media platform and printed magazine/newspaper. Every school should make it a reading assignment. And more.
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Terrifying story!
In that category, is the story of my good friend (let me call him “Bob”) who is well educated, technically savvy and well aware of scams. He very nearly got scammed through an elaborate setup. Here’s how it went down…
Bob’s phone rang and it looked like it was from DirecTV customer service. He was a subscriber so he answered it. He heard the DirecTV theme music for a couple of seconds before someone came on the line. The “rep” greeted Bob and asked “am I speaking with Mr. ______ residing in (town)?”. This was accurate so Bob said yes. The man thanked him for being a loyal long time customer and said he was calling with a special offer for valued customers like him. Bob knew this was a common type of scam, so he was on guard but the call thus far appeared to be legitimate.
Next, the “rep” said DirecTV had a special offer with their partner MasterCard through which they were offering the “ultimate package” that included HBO, Cinemax and a whole range of sports channels free for 6 months. “Normally an additional $79/month but it will be no cost to you for 6 months”, the rep said. “What’s the catch?”, Bob asked. Rep: “No catch, sir. MasterCard wants to promote their prepaid debit cards, but there’s no money you need to pay out of pocket. In fact, we’ll turn on your channels right away”. Bob was still a little unsure but he figured he’ll see where this goes, so he said ok. The rep told Bob he needed to verify his identity, so he would send a 6-digit pin to his phone that he would need to read back. Bob’s phone buzzed, he saw the message and read back the pin as instructed. The rep thanked him for verifying his identity and told him to hold on for a few seconds while he enabled the promo in their system. Then he told Bob to turn on his TV and confirm that he was now receiving all the new channels. Bob switched on his TV and indeed, all the channels were there just as promised. He was excited! This had to be legit.
The rep then told him to fulfill the terms of the special offer, he would need to purchase a $200 MasterCard prepaid debit card within 24 hours and call them back at a particular number. “But don’t worry - this is at no cost to you, as I said before. If you give me your bank account details we will deposit $200, which you can use to buy the card”. My friend hesitated, but the rep pointed out that was the only way for them to give him the money to buy the debit card. So Bob agreed, and gave him the details of an account with very little money. Again, the rep put him on hold for a couple of minutes, then came back on to ask Bob to verify he had the money. Bob logged in to his account, and again - yes, the $200 had been deposited. Very cool!
The call ended soon after, with the rep reminding Bob he had 24 hours to purchase a card and call them back at the number that was provided; else he would be considered in violation of the terms of the special offer. And that he could be charged with “theft of service” because he had the ultimate package he hadn’t paid for. Bob assured him he would follow through with his end of the bargain. He went out that evening, purchased the card (with the money that had been deposited in his account) and came back home to call back DirecTV. But just before he dialed their number, he decided to log in to his DirecTV account to see what the package looked like… and, he couldn’t log in. He was confused, because he was 100% positive what the password was. He tried again, and when he couldn’t get in, alarm bells went off in his head. Something wasn’t right, so he didn’t call the number he was given.
He received a call back next morning from the same “rep” asking if he had purchased a card and was ready to read it back. Bob said no, it’s all a scam. “How is it a scam sir? You have the channels as promised, and the money to purchase the card”. Bob said he couldn’t explain but something didn’t seem right and he wouldn’t give him the card details. The rep started getting angry and quickly moved on to making threats of arrest (for “wire fraud”, “theft of service”, “breach of contract”, etc.). Bob hung up, and took the next few days trying to figure out what happened.
The scammer had gone on to DirecTV’s website and requested a password reset for Bob’s account. The 6-digit code that went to Bob’s phone and was read back to him allowed him to change the password and sign up for the Ultimate Package. That’s how Bob got all the channels. As for the bank deposit - they reversed the payment, so it was gone. But it also caused an overdraft (as Bob had already used the funds to buy the debit card), leading to a hefty overdraft fee.
So… yes, anyone can get scammed.
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Wow, that’s amazing! I think any time a “debit card” is mentioned, it’s a huge red flag. I have to remember to tell my husband that. I could see him falling for a scheme like this.
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If the worst outcome was that “Bob” had an overdraft fee, he got off easy. Thank goodness he trusted his gut.
ETA: When I get a verification code texted to me, the message always includes verbiage to the effect of, “Don’t share this code with anyone.” I never understood with whom or why I would share it, but now I do.
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True. He also had to pay the additional fee for the ultimate package for a month. But yes, he was lucky as he could also have been out $200, and also been paying the “ultimate package” price for additional months until he figured out what was happening.
And the funny thing is, my friend does know this. But it all seemed so legitimate - the channels were there (who but DirecTV could have turned them on?), they gave him the money in advance, etc.
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I imagine I shared this long ago, but I got scammed by QuickBooks Pro “help.” I gave them too much information. At some point I needed to check my account, and it was listed under a different name and email address!! Really scary. I’m shocked nothing bad (at least seemingly) ever happened. I paid them about $500 for a year of “support,” but Capital One reversed the charge for me. And like your friend, I consider myself pretty savvy.
Another lesson I learned from that is don’t do anything over the phone, unless you call the company/office directly. But in my case, I did call them, from a number I found online. These crooks are clever.
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I feel bad for that woman in the article because she is being blasted online. I absolutely don’t think I would have fallen for that, but I do get how it can happen. That was sophisticated psychological manipulation, the kind that leads to people making false confessions. I appreciate her being willing to take all this abuse in order to show how it can happen.
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The thing that makes me question the whole story, though, is that she was able to take $50,000 out of her bank accounts in cash immediately. Banks don’t typically allow this. When we have needed much less than that on relatively short notice, we have been told that it will take one or two or even three business days to process. But, maybe we use “regular person banks“ and she uses a bank for really high-end customers that is used to that kind of request?
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But she says she only had $80,000 in the bank, so doesn’t seem to be a “high end customer”. I agree, it’s surprising that the bank would just hand over $50k (more than half her account) in cash on the spot. Or maybe some banks don’t care? No idea, I’ve never tried this (thankfully).
From a follow up article:
“ Banks may not stop you from leaving their branches with a backpack full of $100 bills.
Cowles did as her “CIA” minder told her. At a Bank of America branch, someone directed her up a set of stairs, where a teller handed over the money and a piece of paper with some warnings about scams.
“Going in, I was honestly hoping that they would say no to my withdrawal or make me wait, but they didn’t,” Cowles said via email. “The fraud warning DID give me pause, but since the scammers hadn’t yet told me to give the money to them, I didn’t feel like it really applied to my situation. What’s more, I was so terrified of what would happen if I didn’t follow instructions that it overrode my skepticism.”
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Never allow any business on “incoming” calls, including bank alert fraud calls. Hang up or don’t answer the text. Get on your phone or computer and call the number on the back of your credit card or log in to your bank account from your computer with you safe login and password. If that deal is legitimate you should have been able to hang up and call Direct TV to ask for it.
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She went on and on about how “rational” she is, and how she never believed that she would be scammed.
Yet she fell for the simplest trick in the book, a trick that is as old a home telephones. She answered the phone and believed the person on the other side of the line without even checking. Rule #2: never, ever, ever, ever, ever give financial information to somebody who calls you and tells you that they are from a bank/the government/etc. If they are from there, they have the info.
You say thank you, hang up, and call them back. That is Rule #1. The bank calls, IRS calls, the FBI calls, in every case you say thank you and you will call them back. If they refuse or give you excuses, that’s a scam.
Anybody who does not follow rules #1 and #2 is susceptible to being scammed.
The bank keeps on saying that they will NEVER call you and ask you for your personal information. This woman evidently has never listened or read any of the very basic information that all banks and government websites repeat again and again and again.
Like many people, she was simply delusional in believing that her profession automatically made her less susceptible. She seems to have believed that, because she was a journalist, she was magically protected against being scammed without having to learn how to protect herself. She failed as a journalist, because she never actually read any story about being scammed in any depth, and simply dismissed the persons being scammed as being “less rational” than herself. At no point did she behave rationally. She never weighed a voice on the other end of a phone against the reams of evidence that she had that the voice was BSing her.
She let her hubris take over, as well. Since she couldn’t figure out the angle of the scam, she assumed that it couldn’t be a scam. She decided against telling the police of calling a lawyer because she was afraid that they wouldn’t believe her, which is another way of saying that she was afraid that they would think less of her.
Anybody can be scammed, but that was a pretty badly constructed one. It would have fallen apart at any point, had she actually been as rational as she claimed. Based on her telling, she never once responded rationally, not even at the very beginning.
There are scams that are really well constructed, like the more complex pyramid schemes, or companies that manage to first scam banks and government bodies. Some scams push the right buttons and cause a person to panic.
I will hazard that this one worked because it brought drama into her life. Accepting that this was a simple scam would have ended that drama, and so long as she could ignore the fact that it was likely a scam by rationalizing “I couldn’t see what the scam was”, she continued to embrace it. Both she and the scammers sound exactly like a bad police show.
My wife was caught at the fringes of an actual federal investigation, and had the woman responded like my wife, she would have never been scammed. My wife refused to allow actual agents on our doorstep (I was out of town) into the house, and agreed only to a meeting in a public place, insisted on a lawyer being present, and refused to answer anything unless the lawyer OKed it.
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Men get scammed too…even smart and rational men.
Yes, I was surprised my H was scammed—fortunately it was not that much and not as bad as it could have been. People are all susceptible.
Another article about scams… on Amazon.
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