Scams R Us Update
A week and a half ago I related my telephone encounter with a three-voice team of scammers who tried to con me into buying a prepaid debit card and giving them the numbers for cashing it --in order to avoid having my electricity cut off. I left it implied that my power was never cut off, but I have to admit that my wife and I put together a backup plan, just in case. We would have spent the weekend at a hotel.
Yesterday, my actual light bill arrived in the mail. On the back of the envelope, was this:
DON'T GET SCAMMED!
LADWP employees will never ask for personal payment information over the telephone or demand that you purchase a pre-paid cash card to pay your utility bill.
I imagine that the LA utility sends out at least a million bills a month with this admonition. Obviously, some number of gullible souls bit on this bait and the villains are probably still working the con.
Is this a great civilization or what?
Comments
What sort of accents did the scammers have?
As a number of East Asian countries have become world wide scam centers for all sorts of ploys. I used to get a number of calls on my land line about owing IRS money, my social society number is no long valid due to criminal activity, support scams.
When I got rid of my land line had some relief, but then starting getting scam messages and calls on my smart phone.
Youtube has scores of videos on all types of these scammers. But I think the one with unpaid utility bills may be based in the US.
The scammers depend on getting good databases so they can direct to certain populations like older people. I started getting bunches of these calls once I turned 60.
Latino accents --not heavy,
with perfect sounding vernacular English -- the most credible aspect of the pitch.
I guess it is conceivable that these fellas were off shore, but they sounded like guys born in the USA to Mexican parents -- like literally millions of folks living in my two home states of California and Texas.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
Speaking of admonitions -- from Social Security via email
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
It appears to be happening worldwide
I received this message half an hour ago from my house and car insurer. This was their advice.
Kia ora
MAS uses a third-party supplier for afterhours call centre services who has recently notified us of a breach of their systems through a cyber-attack. If you have ever used this afterhours service, it is possible they hold some personal data of yours. To date, we have no confirmation this data has been compromised, but out of an abundance of caution we have suspended use of this supplier.
A team at MAS will provide limited afterhours services, and we’ll follow up any messages left outside standard business hours in the usual manner.
While MAS systems remain secure and have not been breached, you may also like to change your passwords across any personal accounts as a precaution. Here are some other things you may like to consider:
Do not use the same password across multiple services and make that sure your passwords don’t contain any of your personal details. Never share your login details such as passwords or PINs.
If you receive an email from someone you are not expecting that asks for personal information or to click a link, be wary and check the email sender’s email address before doing anything.
Be aware of any scammers impersonating trusted companies. If you are unsure who you are talking to hang up and call the organisation back on their main, listed phone number.
It’s out of hands!
I’m getting a scam call every morning at 8:10 and then all morning. I finally answered one with WHAT? and christy said that she is on a recorded line and was telling me that since I recently signed up for social security disability she was calling to follow up…can you hear me okay? I tried signing up for it 24 years ago and I’m now on the regular one…but christy doesn’t care about that. I’ve blocked over 500 numbers but they just change it and keep calling. Of course congress is well aware that we are getting scam calls and that some people actually fall for them. They gave us the blocked number ability but it ain’t working so what are they doing about it? Fcking squat.
How many elderly are wondering why that sweet Nigerian prince never called them back? Or hey the warranty on your Mazda that you sold 7 years ago is out of warranty. How much money does the phone companies make from the scam calls? ENOUGH!
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
I have resorted to accepting only calls from numbers
that are in my contacts list. Calls from unknown callers get shunted directly to voice mail, where they can leave a message. But at least I don’t rush to pickup some scammers call, since the phone does not ring at all.
I do have to temporally disable the feature when I’m expecting an important call from some unknown number, and also remember to check voicemail periodically. It’s not a perfect solution, but a big improvement nonetheless.
“ …and when we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine,and understand who God is, and what our own potential is and duties are as human beings.- RFK jr. 8/26/2024
Aye that’s what I usually do
I started answering them yesterday to see if there is a live person on the line so I could yell at them. I’ve gotten 2 this morning. The usual one at 8:10 and one just now. No one was on the line with the 2nd one. I blocked 7 numbers yesterday but they are just back with new ones today from the same area.
Lots of people just have a certain amount of minutes and these asswipes are using them up. Maybe we should start answering the calls and relaying the phone numbers for congress members. Like their numbers would be public…never mind.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
More Scams
The best one I got was when Microsoft called me to tell me that there was something wrong with my computer. I told them, "I don't have a computer." Click. I thought about playing with them, but I was busy at the time.
I got the same one
and I did have a little fun with them.
"Oh, you mean my Mac? That's really very interesting. Show me on the dolly where the Microsoft touched you..."
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Good one!
I always tell the person to go fuck themselves, don't call again, and if they ignore my demand, I will turn them in to the state consumer fraud division and see to it that company can not do business in Texas.
Just this morning, the bank associated with my credit card called me at my office. By the time I was handed the message they were on hold, they had hung up. I dialed the number on call history, got the bank, and a bot asked for the last 4 digits of my account. I hung up.
They have my email if they need to contact me.
I have known 2 women under the age of 40 that got into some internet romance, and within 2 months, they were penniless, one had to file for bankruptcy.
It is not just the elderly who are targeted.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
When I get a call that starts out with
10 sec of dead air, I know what is up. So I just wait for the crackle when the wardialer connects me to one of their "operators", and immediately ask "Whadda ya selling?" before they can get a word out. Usually, they immediately hang up on me. But if not, and they stammer on for a while having been derailed from their script, I'll let them wallow for a few seconds and hang up on *them*. No love lost.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
You learn something very day
It never occurred to me that the dozens of calls to my cell phone I've gotten over the years offering to extend my car warranty were a scam. I always hung up or routinely erased them from voice mail, naively assuming they were annoying telemarketing rather than a phishing expedition. I never got deep enough into the pitch to hear any request for card numbers or the like. But it should have been obvious that there would never have been any repairs paid for, if I had bit.
Since moving into our current rental property in 2018, we have not answered our land line as we have not plugged a phone into the jack. Our cable and internet service are connected to the land line and several times a week, we see a notice on the TV screen showing the phone number of an incoming call. We do not even know what our number is. I now suppose that these calls are mainly scams.
Diogenes, where art thou?
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.