All of a sudden my cell phone has become a target of the “Apple iCloud breach” scam. They call like every five minutes, and if I decline the call, they leave a message. I think I got five messages before I noticed, including one that popped up while I was listening to the first one,
I tried too answer a call, several times, but they won’t even talk to me!
What kind of scam is it when they won’t even talk to the mark? Do I have to do all the work?
and still, the calls keep coming. And there’s no way to make them stop. I can’t block them because the numbers are spoofed and change every time,
You can’t outrun them. You can’t destroy them. If you damage them, the essence of what they are remains. They regenerate and keep coming. Eventually you will weaken, your reserves will be gone. They are relentless.
I got one the other day. Luckily it was just one. When I googled the number they left on the voicemail, I got tons of other hits from people all over the place getting dozens of calls a day.
I assume it’s just a normal Windows/iCloud ransomware scam.
I have to assume with the hundreds of thousands of calls they must have already made that it’ll be shortlived. Somehow, they’ll get caught or stopped.
Either their system hung up on you before someone at their location could pick up a ‘live’ call or, more likely, they don’t want to waste time talking to you, they want you to call the number they leave on the VM. I’d guess that if you call back, the scam is automated or asking people to call back is to weed out the people that are more likely to figure out what’s going on and hang up (or stay on the line playing along for a while).
Kind of like the theory that spammers purposefully use terrible grammar and spelling under the assumption that you’re more likely to fall for their scam if the email didn’t raise any red flags for you.
This happened to a friend 3 weeks ago. He changed the phone settings to send all calls not from his contact list to voicemail. The “Apple” calls finally stopped.
I mentioned this on the board in the in-between time. (That is, the old vBulletin board during the weekend before the changeover, but after the database was copied. None of the posts from that weekend made it to the new board.)
One weekend a couple of months ago, I received many calls from “Apple support”. Even though I wasn’t answering the phone, they were leaving messages, “Before using any Apple device please contact Apple support advisor. Press 1 to connect with Apple support advisor, press 2 to listen to this message again, or if you wish to contact us later please call us on our toll free number.” There were seven or eight voicemail messages on Saturday and perhaps ten on Sunday.
I was so sick of it, at one point, I just picked up the phone and hung up just to avoid another message on the answering machine. But then once I answered the phone and pressed one to speak to “the Apple support representative.” I first pretended I didn’t know it was a scam but later it was obvious to both of us that I knew what he was up to. So I tried to guilt the guy into quitting the job. I first asked him if he went to the [Hindu] temple (no use pretending he’s not in India) and told the gods what he did for a living but then he said he was Roman Catholic. That’s actually better as the entire religion is based on guilt. So I asked him if he went to church and told his priest what he did for a living. He admitted to only going to church on Christmas and Easter so I encouraged him to call his priest on the phone and confess to his sins. I also asked him if his mother and father knew what he did for a living and he said he would not want them to know. So I told him that if you can’t tell your parents what your job is, you know it’s wrong. (On the other hand, I’ve had jobs in which my parents had only a vague idea of what I did for a living, and it was hilarious hearing them describe my job to one of their friends.) I told him that he could find an honest job but he said there were few jobs available and the honest ones didn’t pay much (and to be honest, he’s right). At one point I asked him how many people fall for the scam. He admitted few people did but of those who do, the average loss is about $10,000. I think I had this guy on the phone for at least fifteen minutes. He wasn’t totally convinced but he did know the job was dishonest.
I have my phone set up to do this. Any number not in my contacts list is sent directly to voicemail. When I’m board I’ll go to voicemail and read/delete.
I just ignore any calls I don’t know. If I know a specific unknown caller has called more than once, I block it. Any junk callers that leave a voicemail, I put into a contact called ‘pick up/hang up’. That way instead of just dismissing the call, I can pick it up and hang it up so they can’t leave a vm.
Got several on my landline yesterday. Reported them to NoMoRobo, so hopefully they (and the block of numbers they belong to) will stop getting through soon. Not that it helps them to call me: unless it’s a name I recognize, I don’t pick up the phone.
Of the 8 calls I got from Crows Landing, CA, over the last 2 days, only 2 left messages. I didn’t have to listen to them in real time or later on, since if I don’t answer in 3 rings Comcast now routes pretty much everything to my voicemail box before my own answering machine gets a chance to kick in and also emails me a text transcript. So at most, I hear three rings of the phone. Four if you count the actually plugged directly into a phone jack vintage phone upstairs which always seems to ring before the wireless one does.
I’ve getting a ton of spam emails (like everyday) from “amazon” telling me either my credit card has expired or my prime account password needs to be reset. Fortunately, my spam filter catches them, but just the subject lines alone are so obviously bogus, I’m surprised they’d fool anybody.
Very few of my scammers leave voicemails, which is a relief.
I usually add scam calls to my contacts as “Telemarketer”, and the phone is set to decline those.
For the past couple of years, I’ve gotten spam calls / texts for “Thomas”. Usually political in nature. About a month back, though, the caller asked for “Thomas Rogers” by name and went on to talk about the extended warranty on our 2012 Lexus (maybe it was an Acura, but as our newest car is from 2006 and is neither of those brands…). I hung up.
The next day, I got a call from a different scam number - also asking for “Thomas Rogers”. This time I was ready for her. I said, nearly sobbing, “Tom… my Tommy… is dead. He died last month. In an accident… in THAT CAR. YOU F****** B***!!!” before I hung up.
