This is one I wouldn’t use, as the info will be given to numbers that offer investment opportunities.
My debit card which I only use for withdrawing money in other countries once or twice a year was used to attempt a $96 purchase. New card is now on its way. The bank told me there’s a smishing thing happening where a “fraud alert” text message looks like theirs and appears to have a link to the number that is their fraud department, but of course, it’s not.
Not once have I gotten that kind of call.
That’s a big one……
If you take the good advice and call the number on your card, double check the number before you send the call.
Scammers are grabbing up the close numbers……if the bank number is 800-843-0000 they will grab 800-893-0000.
Then they scam everyone that misdials.
Good advice!
Typosquatting exists as well. Omitting the O in .com can send you to a malware encrusted website for example. This typosquatting operation even uses google sponsored Ads, generally for freeware. That’s not good. They also own domains spoofing American Express, the Wall Street Journal, etc.
I remember how there was a time when adding an extra O to Google would take to a place that tried to dump every kind of malware available onto your PC.
Got a whatsapp one yesterday. I was waiting for a train that had been cancelled without my knowledge, so I had lots of time.
Basically “paid” fake Amazon reviews for cash scheme in a Whatsapp group. But with a bunch of collaborators acting as if they too were cold called, in order to convince the rubes it was genuine.
First sceptic pointed out the phone number was from Saudi Arabia, which naturally it is probably not. More likely India, but whatever. I rolled with Saudi Arabia. Still very likely Muslim, if India.
I became the most obnoxious proponent of eating pork. Then having sex with pigs. Then suggesting the lead scammer’s son dress like Pepa Pig so I could sodomise him, and fulfill my pig fucking fantasies.
Then started asking for money for me to film this cartoon bestiality…
That whatsapp group did not last long. Everyone got banned. Hopefully my Whatsapp details have been banned and a fatwa issued.
I’ve been smished! (link goes to app.com article about an EZ-Pass scam)
I just received a text saying I have 12 hours to deal with a payment avoidance violation for a toll road in Massachusetts.
Oh, whatever shall I DO? I mean BESIDES hit delete and report as junk. I did that already.
The only odd thing is that, while the article says they target people’s EZ-Pass accounts, I’ve never had one in any state. I also abhor the very notion of the existence of toll roads, and have only ever driven on one, and that was the doing of my GPS. I pulled to the side of the road immediately and called TheTollRoads to see how I could expunge the occurrence from the annals of ”Things That Have Ever Happened in the History of the Universe.” Sadly, the Tier One CSR I spoke with was unequipped to advise me on the matter, so I left the toll road at the earliest opportunity and went online to pay the toll.
I may have put my cell number into that website, which would suggest that the runners of this particular scam are buying contact lists (else how would they have my number to send the smish to?).
There are lots of scams like that, most of them claiming to be for jobs in data optimization. They promise high pay for a few hours of work on your phone, and they usually have a minimum age requirement of 22-25 (because the scam pays out a little at first, so they need victims with access to their own money or credit).
The fake job has a very convulted payment structure, and every “employee” has to start a linked crypto account to receive their payments.
At first, it seems to work. You post the fake reviews or like some video or upvote some hotel properties, you send in proof and make $50 or so, which you can actually withdraw, and you see the other members of the group - who are fake- bragging about their high payouts. You typically have to do 38 or 40 reviews or “likes” to complete each task.
But after a few days, you get a special task, they call it a lucky task or something similar. This task has a really high commission. But you need to have a certain number of credits in your account to begin it, more than you currently have, so you have to put in money to buy top up your account — and so the scam begins.
You start reviewing or liking or whatever, and your account “goes negative” again and you need to put in more money to continue. Then the sunk cost fallacy starts kicking in, and people keep putting in more money chasing the payout.
The payout is non-existent, and people have gone deep into 5 figure losses before they give up, often because they tap out all their resources and can’t beg, borrow or steal any more -even though they have a supervisor that keeps pushing them to fund the money to finish the task.
I once had an message exchange with some guy that was in the middle of this scam, the guy had been burned by similar scams twice, and he was still convinced that someone with enough money could get to the payout “because it would be illegal not to pay”.
Although I was not successful in convincing him it was a scam in the moment, he did send me a message a few days later telling me I was right……there really is one born every minute.
The last one I got, I responded postively, because as a “ten year old” I needed to buy Pokemon cards. Suddenly, no more contact.
From “PayPal” with an “invoice” image attached:
Dear Customer,
We have detected an unverified PayPal transaction of $999.85 linked to your account. This transaction may be unauthorized and could result in permanent loss of funds if not addressed immediately.
You have only 12 hours to cancel before the transaction is fully processed and irreversible.
Additionally, your fund transfer request of $999.85 has been successfully processed.
To prevent potential financial loss, contact our support team immediately at [+1 (888) 928- 6826].
Failure to act may result in unauthorized charges!
“Financial loss”? 
That account has been frozen for nearly 14 years and can’t be charged at all!
I had a TomTom GPS with Snoop Dogg doing the turn by turn. He kindly asked “How much cash you got?” before using a toll road route.
I hate them too, but some of the toll roads save significant time & some of the toll bridges are a necessity here.
Well, technically not a necessity but to get from NJ into NYC w/o paying a toll requires driving north of Albany (& then back down the east side of the river) to find a free bridge over the Hudson; only a ±300 mile detour!
That’s because people are willing to pay to get out of New Jersey.
I curse them out in Hindi: Kamīnā, tum bhaṛ mẽ jāo ‘You bastard, go to hell’
Thailand launched a crackdown on scam farms in Myanmar and reportedly has rescued 7,000 people held prisoner. It’s a small drop in the bucket of the estimated 240,000 people held in Myanmar and Cambodia, but hopefully this is just a start.
It’s also a good reminder that most likely, the people on the other end of the emails and texts are victims too. Cursing them out sure feels good, but it’s probably misplaced.
Q: When one goes to an Amusement park when do you pay? A: When you go in.
Q: When one goes to an Ball game when do you pay? A: When you go in.
Q: When one goes to an Concert park when do you pay? A: When you go in.
Q: When one goes to an Dance hall park when do you pay? A: When you go in.
I could keep going thru the alphabet but you get the idea, fun places cost you to enter but you can leave, for free, at any time. Then how come it’s free to enter NJ but they make you pay to leave? 
The bridges to all of NJ’s neighboring states - NY, PA, & DE are free to enter NJ but make you pay leaving NJ
I have seen videos of a guy who scams the scammers and deliberately learned Hindi curse terms just for them!
I get calls from an outfit called Online Quran Academy (scammers) targeting Pakistani Americans. I usually curse them out with the Punjabi term for sister fucker.
Most of my classmates from my college in Pakistan who are in the US also get these calls. We all know these are scammers.
However, when I told them how o respond to the calls, they were shocked that I was using this kind of language to someone representing themselves as Quranic scholars.