https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oTGQd8FsgA
Here are the 10 scams. Details are at the link.
1. “Can you hear me?”
2. IRS impersonators
3. Bank calls
4. One ring
5. Virtual kidnapping
6. Tech support
7. Grandparent scam
8. Lucky winner
9. Donation collections
10. Jury eligibility
1. Don’t answer the phone unless it’s someone that you know.
I had a phone call and when I answered I heard a tone and what sounded like office background sounds. I hung up and went back to my computer and the camera was on. I had never used the camera on that computer. The camera is now covered with 3M electrical tape.
Don’t answer your phone if you don’t recognize the number
Legitimate callers will leave a message
Don’t say yes to anything asked by a stranger
Any suspicious call, hang up immediately
Blocking the number doesn’t usually help, the caller I’d is generally spoofed
But if it makes you feel good, go ahead
11. “This is the Social Security Office. Your Social Security number has been suspended because of suspicious activity in your account. Please press ‘1’ to speak to a Social Security official.”
I got three calls for this yesterday, from three different 866 exchange numbers (Nothing good ever comes from 866).
After ignoring the first two, I pressed “1”. A human answered, “Social Security, how may I help you?” I replied, “What’s up? You called me?” <Immediate click, since obviously I wasn’t a candidate for phishing for identity fraud.
The telephone has been made almost useless by these scammers. They send you a fake number that shows in your caller id. This renders caller id and the “do not call list” useless. Worse: the number that they send is often the number of a legitimate enterprise. They have used, among others, the number of a government agency and of a wireless telephone carrier.
Legislators are powerless because of the design of the caller id system. It needs to be rethought and changed, so that the real number is always known, and in the case of voice over IP, the IP address.
Temporary measure: calls from outside of the USA must be identified as to name of carrier and country.
Within the USA, laws can be changed and enforced. The penalty for sending a fake caller id should be public hanging.
I asked him why this was such a big deal and made up a story about how I paid $37 million in Federal income taxes last year. The funny thing is those dopes never break stride or change their "sales pitch" ... as if someone who pays $37 million in Federal taxes is going to: (1) answer his phone for a caller he doesn't know, and (2) wire anyone even $1 based on what some jackass on the line tells him to do.
I saw another story online about a person who got one of those calls and told the scammer: "I wish the IRS would arrest me. I'm about to be sentenced to a long prison term for molesting children." LOL.
there is a scam involving Direct TV, they call and use the same number as actual Direct TV. They offer you a 50% discount on your service but the wake up call is when you have to pay them using amazon or ebay gift cards. I have gotten calls from them several times after listening most of the way through the first time.
All those, plus don’t answer the phone if you don’t recognize the number. That’s first and foremost.
I think not answering the phone is very difficult for a lot of older people to do. I think that goes back to the time before cell phones and before phone scams were such a problem- if your phone rang, you answered it. It was for you or someone in your family, except for the occasional wrong number which was generally a misdial.
I work with older people and I talk about these scams frequently. Usually, the opportunity comes up because their phone rings, often more than once, while I’m talking with them.
I hate these lowlifes with a passion, because they target the vulnerable.
Besides passing the article along to older friends and relatives, pass it on to the sons and daughters of the older friends and relatives. They can, should, sit down and discuss the issues with them and also take the opportunity to program the phones so that Grandma or Grandpa knows when Joe or Jill or whoever is calling. They also need to make sure that the person’s voice mail is properly set up; they should also take responsibility for checking the phone and voice mail regularly if Grandma or Grandpa can’t do that for themselves.
You’d be surprised how many people don’t have functional voicemail or have full mail boxes.
“1. ‘Can you hear me?’”
Basically, don’t say “Yes” to any question under any circumstances. You can respond (if you want to) using other words that can be taken as a yes. If a caller may or may not be legit and asks me, “Is this MayflowerMadam?”, I might say “It is”, but never “Yes”.
“An older friend of mine almost fell for the tech support scam.”
An older person in my quilting group DID fall for the tech support scam about 10 years ago. It made her life a living hell for a couple years. Can’t recall all the details but IIRC it messed with her bank and credit card accounts.
After 28 years of Verizon, I discontinued service on Thursday 14th, due to 5-20 telemarketer/scam calls every morning/afternoon/evening.
My cellphone will suffice.
Dr Phil had a woman on who was catfished for over 1 million. It’s hard to believe people can be so gullible.
You can look up phone numbers and see what people have posted about them here:
Anything from the RNC
Simple. Give no info over the phone. Have caller ID
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oTGQd8FsgA
I received a call stating that my SS# had been suspended. I asked him which one, because I have several. 9 to be exact. He said each person has only one SS# and that I was wasting his time.
I had a computer illiterate friend fall for the tech support scam. Fortunately, she called me immediately and I told her not to wait another second, call the bank, tell them what happened, and to kill the card. I immediately went there and cleaned their crap off the computer and had her change some passwords. She said after that the scammers called her several more times to complain. I told her to simply hang up if they did. Interestingly, the $400 charge never went through and never appeared on her statement, nor did any other bogus charges.
They forgot the original scam....the grandaddy.....
The Candygram For Mongo.
Our answering machine says, “If you’re not a solicitor or a politician, we’ll call you back.”
We get a lot of hang-ups.
“By getting you to answer ‘yes’ to that one question at the very beginning of the call... They can use that recording to claim you agreed to pay for some scam program. Even if it looks like the call is from someone you know, rephrase your answer to “I hear you just fine” to be safe, suggests Velasquez.
This one's new... Thanks for posting.