quote:

Originally posted by architect:
That will work up until the scammers hack their way into the phone system servers and re-route your initiated calls to numbers/phones they control.

That was my immediate thought as well when I misread the original post.

I am pretty computer illiterate as compared with the brilliant people with great genes here, but just paying a bit of attention to news stories about successful “cyber” attacks has demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that anyone who believes that any malicious act involving anything controlled or secured by computers is impossible is not as smart as he thinks he is. Am I wrong? Possibly of course, but as an advice columnist used to advise, “Don’t bet the rent on it.”

My scammed story involved the loss of $9000 from a credit union account. Due to a spoofed number while I was away from home I thought I was talking to someone from the CU asking if I’d approved a transfer. In my case the call wasn’t to get me to reveal any sensitive information, which I didn’t and knew enough to not have done, but evidently was rather to allow the theft to be completed while I was engaged with the call. I don’t know how the thieves were able to access my account to make the transfer theft, but it wasn’t due to anything I did, and I suppose that’s why the CU ultimately refunded the money to my account with no explanation.

I'm guessing many monied people have multiple accounts in various institutions. Would one not consider transferring to another personal account? I'd be very uncomfortable transferring anything, even legit, to a third party account. How would I be assured access to my funds after transfer?

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
...That will work up until the scammers hack their way into the phone system servers and re-route your initiated calls to numbers/phones they control. With more and more phone system infrastructure being based on ordinary computer equipment, I'd be surprised if this were not already being done...

...Which is why I keep a second cell phone for emergency use. Only my GF and one other friend have the number, so it's about as secure as anything can be.

I do like another poster mentioned. I never answer the phone unless I know who's on the other end.

Several people suggest “hang up and call back to a known number”. I’ll go one further and say “just hang up”. Or don’t even answer the call. It’s all fraud. They’ll never call you and if they do there’s no consequences to hanging up or not taking the call.

To summarize, just hang up. It’s all fraud.

I’m sorry for your neighbor’s predicament. How is he bearing up after that horrific loss?

My iPhone is set up such that it doesn’t ring if the caller isn’t in my contacts list. I would see the call attempt report, but it would probably be marked as “spam likely”.

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
I’m sorry for your neighbor’s predicament. How is he bearing up after that horrific loss?

He did say he’d rather have lost the money during a violent assault. “That would be understandable to me, but this way all I have to blame is my own stupidity.”

I’m surprised he even told me. I would have been too embarrassed to admit it.


As I’ve said, he is phenomenally successful person. The amount of money he lost to these scum isn’t even a rounding error to him. But his pride is certainly damaged.

quote:

Originally posted by mttaylor1066:


As I’ve said, he is phenomenally successful person. The amount of money he lost to these scum isn’t even a rounding error to him. But his pride is certainly damaged.

Does he know he’s marked himself to be the target for more scams? It’s like sending money to a political campaign, you get passed around more times than a new guy in prison.

I can’t believe people are still falling for this.

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:
We all think the guy is stupid for falling for the scam… until we fall for the scam ourselves.

Remember: we’ll all get older, we’ll lise our mental faculties to some degree, and be emotionally vulnerable that a well-versed scammer can utilize to his advantage.

But I do like the imagery someone else suggested: a missile going through the window where these scammers are operating and detonating in the middle of them.

This.
Particularly emotionally vulnerable and elderly.

Trust no one.

As an aside, this is also why it's frequently useless to take the time to block scammer numbers. The number that appears on your phone is not a real number. The only thing you're blocking is some number that may have a legitimate need to call you one day. Spoofing numbers is EASY.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
anyone who believes that any malicious act involving anything controlled or secured by computers is impossible is not as smart as he thinks he is

I went fly fishing just outside Vail, CO, with a professional guide service. I paid with CC and the company processed it via a CC processing company. The 3rd party company had their system hacked and my CC company cancelled my card, refunded the bogus charges and issued me a new CC.

I bought a holster from a company in Alaska. (I'm in OK.) The above scenario was repeated. 3rd party processor hacked, bogus charges on my CC, my CC cancelled, charges refunded, etc.

Such things happen. Might not be the original vendor's fault. Definitely not the buyer's fault. But we're still vulnerable.

Stay frosty.

So , the scammers are going to hack into the Verizon servers and hi-jack MY calls ? Yeah , I'm not going to lose sleep over that one just yet .

quote:

Originally posted by ruger357:
I can’t believe people are still falling for this.

One Sunday my wife called best friend. They were in a panic trying to raise money. A caller had told them their accounts were frozen and they had to pay….
My wife scolded me for my language. I told them to call the number on their bank card. Yes, there was a lot of #$&*! Language.
They called. The bank told them their accounts were fine.That this was a common scam. The bank repotted it and gave them the number to the FBI. When the scammer called again they gave him an earful.

quote:

Originally posted by mttaylor1066:

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
I’m sorry for your neighbor’s predicament. How is he bearing up after that horrific loss?

He did say he’d rather have lost the money during a violent assault. “That would be understandable to me, but this way all I have to blame is my own stupidity.”

I’m surprised he even told me. I would have been too embarrassed to admit it.


As I’ve said, he is phenomenally successful person. The amount of money he lost to these scum isn’t even a rounding error to him. But his pride is certainly damaged.

This happened to my wifes boss, high income earner, was buying a $7 figure home for vacation, got an email that was a spoof of the closing companies web page, everything looked legit, and it came into his corporate email which is a fortune 500 firm with legit IT services.

The funds transferred were significantly higher as he was closing on the home, how they got into his computer, at work, into their email system without being flagged is concerning. Though some contacts, they got the FBI involved and he only lost about $20K and got the rest back.

Seems these people don't take the funds immediately that money is typically parked in a bank and left to see if it's traced, they take a smaller amount first.

Your friend needs to contact the FBI office in his area and ask for help with that amount of money.. See if they can assist and maybe recover some of it...

When we closed on our current home, my bank had me call the title company while sitting in the office to verify the receiving bank info. Apparently it is a common scam where somehow the scammer knows enough to pretend to be one of the parties to the transaction and gives false info on where to wire the funds.

Idk how the do that, but as a result I really hate wiring money.

Money lost to fraud can be an income tax deduction. Probably your neighbor knows that, but you ought to mention it to him just in case.

I got one today. The number was not in my contact list so it went straight to voicemail. I played the voicemail message. It was hold music, then it said “the payment of $1099 for the recent order of Apple IPhone 17 Pro on your account. If you do not authorize this payment, please press one to speak to our customer support representative.”

So a sucker would say, wait I didn’t order a phone! Someone ordered a new phone on my account. I need to speak to these people and put a stop to this! And if you did that you’d be transferred to some person in India. Next would involve them needing your bank account information so they could transfer that $1099 back into your account. They’d most likely want you to click a link or go to a webpage they own, so they could backdoor into your PC, phone, tablet, etc. Either or. Don’t fall for this shit. Delete the voicemail and go about your day. If you had ordered a new phone, new pc, or any consumer product, you’d have emails. A confirmed ordered email, shipping notice from UPS, etc. Scams go way up during the holidays because these POS know people are spending money. Don’t fall for it. NEVER give anyone anything.

This may not work for everybody, but on my phone I set up ringtones for my contacts, i.e., family/friends and business associates, with the original default ringtone for everything else. Only the distinctive ones get answered, the rest are ignored.