Fell into a Trap! Take Warning.
This morning I fell into a trap when I answered a phone call I received. VERY fortunately, as I later realized, I did not give the caller what she was looking for. Doing a little homework revealed something very nasty and I'm going to share it here for anybody like myself, who has not heard of a phonescam like this one! It apparently has been around for a couple years
I have reported this to the police through their provided service type, "Anonymous Crime Tip to the Police."
I have included the report here, not just for something of interest, but as a warning. I have left out demographics and salutation...
Updated:
There was a very lengthy police report here, word for word of a submission to an anonymous email crime-in-progress report.. Upon coming back here a few hours after including the report here, decided that such detail was unnecessary. But then I found some private messages that this is very old news, which I knew by the news report dates. Also I am finding that this, though quite a revelation to me, it apparently is common knowledge and therefore a little intrepid on my part to have included it as I have, if at all.
The most common factor about this is not answering a call with a number you don't recognize. I think it is all well and good to leave the links to the news reports only as they completely describe what I have experienced. My personal account of this scam is not needed.
I do apologize for minute details of such report and took a few moments to write this. It replaces the report. This still serves as the warning I intended it to be.
I do admit. I have been and still am behind the times on some things. It took a long time to become re-acclimated to society from spending an almost entire decade living in the forest with what equates approximately to 1930s technology in those days of short wave radio sets and automobile batteries.. In reponse to the one rather terse PM, my values to this day, are rather ancient to today's standards. I have never been as outward as most folks are but this is what makes me unique in my own ways.
Cyber technology has brought me up to date on many things though somewhat limited.
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/fcc-warns-consumers-phone-sc...
This is absolutely crazy! One must be on their guard at all times because you never know whey you will get hit! The news reports included here causes anger for such invasion and the fact that I have been tricked! Such clever practices, it goes to show that, if you do not know the caller and other pertinant things about it, DO NOT ANSWER THE CALL!
Pretty Darned Clever!
The Hang-ups. First time - emotionalism can get you calling back. It's exactly what they want! Second time - It's usually because they got what they want - the YES answer!- The Static Reception No doubt part of the act! It sets the stage for that answer!
- The Call-Back. They need your voice giving the answer! They also need you to call so it looks like you're the inquirer, not them!
- Editing the Call Likely they will edit the recording leaving your YES answer intact but most likely surround that YES with words of an offer of some sort. This is conjecture but it makes sense. Now they have "proof" that you purchased phone services!
- Make the charges and how they do this, I don't know. Somehow they are successful with this because it's been going on for at least two years now!
It is very fortunate I am known to do things backwards sometimes and this time it was to my advantage! I answered No to the woman's question and not yes. The woman's apparent rudeness for hanging up on me may have her in serious trouble with the authorities because when I dug into this, I found the plot!
I am looking after you but you should also BE CAREFUL out there! I have been scammed (or attempted in some of them,) five times this year! All that were successful I have fortunately, outside of the hassles involved, fully recovered and have not seen any damage monetarily though inconvenienced for a time.
Hope this helps!
Daniel
Reply
I remember when computers didn't have hard drives, just floppies and libraries didn't permit folks bringing in their own disks because of viruses and trojans. This stuff isn't new, having been going on in the days of the BBSs. It's really bad now to such a point that we now must build fortifications!
I have NoMoRoBo with my phone service. This service intercepts and redirects spam calls to their system. I didn't realize by default it's off. When I inquired about it, the phone company, they said it was off. Turned on, it put a stop to all of the spam calls I was getting!
Even with this protection, it pays to simply not answer them. Carol has a good point - "If it's important, they will leave a voice mail."
1. No stupid automated voice response (AVR) to deal with reaching Customer Service! (The ever-popular robot-assisted menu system.)
2. Customer service is US-based and not farmed out to places like India and the Philippines. (Calling experience ls like that three decades ago - you get a human, not a robot, immediately!)
3. Offers the NoMoRoBo service. The service itself is below competitive prices! You get average phone service with minimal bells and whistles but does offer the common amenities you would expect from a phone service.
1-Voip is not the only phone service that offers NoMoRoBo.
Here's the web address to NoMoRoBo. Somewhere in there, it lists which phone services come with it. Otherwise there is a subscription cost, which isn't very much. It is WELL WORTH IT!
I didn't know it was off when I got 1-Voip but when turned on, all the spam trouble got stopped in its tracks including the human spam calls!
https://www.nomorobo.com/
I am happy with this phone service and NoMoRoBo.
That was a more innocent time-
Best wishes,
Sami
I have telephone service that includes NoMoRoBo blocking service. This works great with the robo calls, but not with human calls! This is the type I got yesterday and you have to be careful with any calls these days, even some that spoof your trusted callers! Using the right programs, people can find out more about you than you know yourself!
What's even worse is I am getting more of these local unknown calls. I am not answering them. What has happened here is my name and phone number is now on lists that are being sold amongst these snakes! I've had two of them today - one of them woke me from a nap!
The other thing I hate about using the telephone today is having to deal with voice response systems - those things you usually have to interact with by talking to a robot rather than a human in a menu-based fashion. The new task these days is...
0-0-0-0-0-0-0 until you get through these stupid things until you overcome the system and you finally go to a human! Sometimes, and more often these days, you keep dialing 0, you may get no human but "Good-bye." instead!
Can there be joy when using the telephone? YES! Sometimes you get good old-fashion two-hour conversations with an old friend - and often with what comes with our day and time - no separate long distance charges!
I get my messages via email with the sound files attached. I don't, nor have I ever owned a smart phone device. The latest technology I have ever reached with that was a flip type phone I had for a few years. Before that, it was my common use of ugh...remember these?...
***Pagers.***
That was done when it suddenly went silent. It wasn't the unit. Carrier frequencies were ceased as cell-phones took place and the pager became an artifact.
LOL! I completely bypassed that era when portable phones used to look more like walkie-talkies.
Other than this, it has been a house phone or landline. I have one of those Vtech phones and it's rather round-about to get to voice messaging on those.
The other thing that makes me a little more vulnerable is that I am part of a church family that numbers about 650 people. It is not uncommon to get phone calls with numbers that I don't recognize and I'm more apt to answer the phone if the phone number is local. In the case of the scam - that was within my area code.
You probably were one of the last to read the police report I had up there. I took it down because it was too cumbersome but left the news broadcasts. Yes, when I realized what was happening in front of me, it angered me and I felt the invasion, in fact, infiltrated which made me infuriated.
LOL! They didn't get what they wanted, which was that one-word answer - a Yes. Instead, they got "NO!" No matter how much one goes about taking my short answer and getting a yes out of it through editing the sound, it can't be made a yes! LOL!
It's nationwide and being around for nearly four years, two years before the news media took notice, it must still be working and that there are still folks out there who don't know about this scam.
Thanks!
