Blatant fraudulent/phishing phone calls.

Omnicron9999

So I have been receiving a number of blatant phishing attempts on my cell phone lately. They all are about mid-day, and all come from an 800 number. So far only 2 different 800 numbers have been used.

They start with the usual...

"Hi, may I speak to *my name*."

They then respond by telling me I am entered in a sweepstakes, blah blah blah. For the first time today, I decided to see exactly what they're after, instead of just hanging up. (For the record, I only picked up the phone to an unknown number because I recently applied for a Bank of America Card, and they might call from an 800 number)

So they go on to tell me I get 3 free magazines. Is my address *my address*?

I said no, but in fact it was my real address. A bit troubling...

Ok...

I only have to buy one magazine to get the 3 free. I said no, figuring he just wanted my CC#. He said that nothing in life is free, and hung up on me.

Obviously he was a scammer of some sort, what I really want to know is who I could report this too that would care? All it would take is him calling someone a bit less savvy to seriously screw with someone.

tl;dr: A scammer/phisher called me trying to get personal info. Is there anyone who I can report this to that would care/do anything about it?

kathos

Whatever happens. The Better Business Bureau is always a bad idea.

The BBB is another scam for businesses, by paying a premium they get the company into their BBB database, thus making your/the company/store look much better.

Now I only say that because I used to work for a phone scam company.

What we did was garantee the sell of someone's car (we looked through Truck Trader ads and such) at an UPSELL (meaning $1000 more or so) for a scamp fee of $300. We even had a website and everything (canadaautoapproved.com, they pre-approved people for cars and the clients could look at the cars on the site). What the $300 did was post the car on the website. And the $300 was 100% refundable but ONLY after 90-days (by which point most people would forget and miss the deadline). I left after two weeks (to get my paycheque) as did almost everyone who worked there.

This company was listed with the BBB.

So really these companies are hustlers, maybe you dealt with an amateur (we never hung up, we always pushed for sales), but these companies know the ins and outs of this shit.

But regular people have better sense than giving out their CC numbers over the phone.

Also EDIT: No, no one would care, so reporting this phone call would do near nothing to change anything.

Omnicron9999

kathos wrote: »

Whatever happens. The Better Business Bureau is always a bad idea.

The BBB is another scam for businesses, by paying a premium they get the company into their BBB database, thus making your/the company/store look much better.

Now I only say that because I used to work for a phone scam company.

What we did was garantee the sell of someone's car (we looked through Truck Trader ads and such) at an UPSELL (meaning $1000 more or so) for a scamp fee of $300. We even had a website and everything (canadaautoapproved.com, they pre-approved people for cars and the clients could look at the cars on the site). What the $300 did was post the car on the website. And the $300 was 100% refundable but ONLY after 90-days (by which point most people would forget and miss the deadline). I left after two weeks (to get my paycheque) as did almost everyone who worked there.

This company was listed with the BBB.

So really these companies are hustlers, maybe you dealt with an amateur (we never hung up, we always pushed for sales), but these companies know the ins and outs of this shit.

But regular people have better sense than giving out their CC numbers over the phone.

Also EDIT: No, no one would care, so reporting this phone call would do near nothing to change anything.

Yeah, I thought this might be the case.

After I read your post I tried calling them back. It basically sounded like it was run out of someones living room. (Way too much background noise, it sounded like a TV was on, etc)

Complete nonsense. Totally a scam, really poorly run, honestly.

I really hope that most people have enough sense to realize that this is garbage. All I can think of are my grandparents :P

I was hoping there might be a division of the government who dealt with this, or something. I know the BBB is mostly useless. I've attempted to deal with them in the past...nothing came of it.

embrik

Something that will help in the future: Add your number to the government's Do Not Call list.

Also, you can throw the number into the whocalled site to see if anyone else has been harassed. Sometimes people have some helpful posts on that site.

Arikado

embrik wrote: »

Something that will help in the future: Add your number to the government's Do Not Call list.

Also, you can throw the number into the whocalled site to see if anyone else has been harassed. Sometimes people have some helpful posts on that site.

I add my support to this advice. I no longer get bothered at home or on my cell.

Omnicron9999

OK, I just added my number to the do not call list.

I will also check out the whocalled site. Thanks!

h3ndu

Fun fact - the governments do not call list does not include companies that do survey information. In any case, when called by such a place, and you want your number gone, the key phrase is "take me off your list." otherwise your phone number will stay on the database, and more than likely be shuffled around and sold to some other company. If you hang up or say "don't call again" it doesn't count. You have to say "take me off your list".

amateurhour

As far as what you can do about stopping them I'm afraid there's nothing legally. This guy probably signs you up for those "free online magazine subscriptions", and "charges" you for one of them to make a profit with no overhead cost. Unfortunately it's not illegal. He's paying his taxes and working just like anyone else. All you can do is tell him to take you off his list and to fuck off.. If he calls you back within 90 days, and you can prove it, after you told him to take you off the list, he can be fined a few grand, but that's about it.

embrik

h3ndu wrote: »

Fun fact - the governments do not call list does not include companies that do survey information. In any case, when called by such a place, and you want your number gone, the key phrase is "take me off your list." otherwise your phone number will stay on the database, and more than likely be shuffled around and sold to some other company. If you hang up or say "don't call again" it doesn't count. You have to say "take me off your list".

Even better is to say, "Add me to your do not call list". I've heard people claim that just referring to a "list" can be vague, and some companies deliberately take that to mean take the number off of the do not call list. (which you don't want).