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Experiences with phone scammers and phishers

There are many scams happening over the internet targeting businesses. They send bogus invoices that sometimes are just paid by a busy office with no questions asked.
 
Playball40 said:
My step Dad got a call from a scammer. There was background noise and said "this is your grandson". Of course, my step dad answered "Danny?" I can hardly hear you. The caller went on to say that he had been arrested for DUI but didn't want to call "Mom" and that his lawyer was going to get on the phone so my step dad could bail him out. Luckily my step Dad just handed the phone over to my brother who said "we don't have the money to bail you out....call your mom"! LOL! As it was though, they both fell for it and immediately called me to say my son was in jail. I'm like.....WHAT? I just spoke with him five minutes ago and he's on his way to work!
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My father nearly got scammed out of a lot of money on the "Grandpa, this is C****. I'm far away from home and in trouble" scam, but the bank slowed him down and asked him to think. So he phoned C's mother, and found out that C was not in the part of the country that the call claimed.
 
It seems my cell phone number in now is in the spammer database. It's usually pretty obvious because I hear some clicking noises as the automated dialer hands the call off to someone who says, "Hi Dan." Depending on my mood I'll play along or not. A recent one:

"Hi Dan"

"Yes"

"This is John and I'm calling about your computer" (Indian accent sounds like a call center in Mumbai)

"Oh yeah? Which one?"

"We are not sure, but one of them has a virus and we wanted to alert you"

"Ok"

"If you can check out a website you can verify......"

"Is your company located in India?"

"No sir, were are in Nevada, USA"

"Does your company have a website?"

"Yes sir, bla-bla-bla.com" (I take a quick look, nice looking website with picture of large corporate looking building. I do a quick whois search on the domain."

"Why is your company using privacy protect reregistration? Most honest companies don't hide their address." (This made him stumble a little, but he was quick)

"Sir, I guarantee we are a large company in Nevada that preforms computer services."

"Why, is a large company hosting their website at GoDaddy?" (He had no idea what I was talking about.)

"We are trying to help you verify that you have a virus."

"Why would a large computer service company host their website at another company that specialized in making websites for people who have no idea how to make a website?"

Click. He hung up.
 
barbos said:
Brian63 said:
In another thread this came up, that I very recently fell victim to scammers who called me over the phone and alerted me to problems with my computer, in that some hackers had previously gotten into it. So these phone reps needed to get control over my computer and fix the problems. Long story short, the whole thing was phishing for my financial information.
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What exactly were they suggesting you to do? bring your computer to them?
And do ISP really call people and warn people about hackers?
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Charter Communications called me a long time ago and let me know I needed to update the firmware on my router because of a security vulnerability. I know enough about this stuff not to get scammed. They said I could get the new version from the Linksys website. They asked if I needed any help, I said no. It was legit.
 
A new day a new scam. I got a recorded message supposedly from the IRS letting me know that a lawsuit had been filed and this was my last warning... then please hold for for a representative. I wasn't in the mood to play along.

Then some girl friended me on facebook and wanted to chat. Amazing how her pictures look identical to Bree Olson.
 
Yep, here too. A call claiming the tax department owes YOU money, usually a set figure, mine was $700. All I needed to do is provide my banking details and the money would be paid into my account..😀
 
NobleSavage said:
A new day a new scam. I got a recorded message supposedly from the IRS letting me know that a lawsuit had been filed and this was my last warning... then please hold for for a representative. I wasn't in the mood to play along.

Then some girl friended me on facebook and wanted to chat. Amazing how her pictures look identical to Bree Olson.
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Dude !! Gotta warn us NSFW !
 
TSwizzle said:
NobleSavage said:
A new day a new scam. I got a recorded message supposedly from the IRS letting me know that a lawsuit had been filed and this was my last warning... then please hold for for a representative. I wasn't in the mood to play along.

Then some girl friended me on facebook and wanted to chat. Amazing how her pictures look identical to Bree Olson.
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Dude !! Gotta warn us NSFW !
Click to expand...

Oops, my bad. I did do a quick Google search and her official page had a warning. I figured that was sufficient.

Back to the scams: 86.2 million phone scam calls delivered each month in the U.S.

pindrop-062015.jpg

http://www.net-security.org/images/articles/pindrop-062015.jpg
 
I got the 'traced a virus to your address' scam. The problem was they kept on ringing, two or three times a week, for months. The same company, with the same scam.
 
I got a phone scam call last week. My bank was just bought out by another bank so I had been issued new checks and a new debit card by my new bank. The call said that they had a report that my new debit card had been used by an unauthorized user and I should log onto a URL they gave to straighten it out. There were several tip offs. The call was a recording, they didn't identify me by name, the debit card had not yet been activated, and worse the URL they gave was an AOL account.

Apparently, they had somehow gotten a customer list for my old bank and were calling all of us.
 
The political survey scam shouldn't even get off the floor, if people hang up the moment the word political is mentioned.
 
My dad has gotten a few emails of the "I'm stranded in Uzbekistan and my wallet and passport have been stolen and I need money to pay to have it replaced and book tickets home" variety. In a couple of cases they were from people he hadn't seen in decades but had kept in phone and email contact with and he'd hardly be the first person they'd contact if they needed help.

My uncle was got by the computer virus phone scam. They claimed to be from Microsoft and had detected a virus on his computer and he'd need to download software so they could remote access his computer and remove it. For a fee of €300 which he handed over his credit card details for. Said they sounded very professional and he just assumed they were legit.

I once got a phone call from someone claiming I'd won a luxury cruise. I told them I'd never entered any competition for a luxury cruise, but they just said me name came up anyway. I stringed them along for a while, playing dumb, until they got to the point of the scam. They would need my financial details because I would have to pay a deposit on my prize. I imagine that some people must be falling for these scams, but who doesn't see that there's obviously something wrong with being asked to make a downpayment for a prize? In a competition you never entered?
 
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