The call was on my landline and it is a listed number. True there are no phonebooks, but Canada 411 has all that information.
A couple months ago, my wife just happened to look at our credit card online statement and found two spurious charges from that very date that totaled over $3000. I immediately got on the line with the bank. No argument. They did cancel her card (but not mine, although the account is joint) and she got a replacement in a few days. And the charges were reversed, no argument.
To the OP: if you knew this was a scam, why did you put your wife on? Did it surprise you that she was going to give the caller the card number?
Obviously people still fall for these, otherwise the scams would die out. I just fuck with the scammers and tell them I need their phone number to give to my attorney.
Part 1 is a phishing email or text that says you have a package which needs a delivery fee paid, or some other story that takes you off to a website that looks legit, but of course is not - this website captures the personal details you enter (the one I saw recently asked for name, address, DOB, ‘memorable name’, phone number, bank account and routing details, full credit card details, etc).
Part 2 is a phone call, some days later, telling you that something suspicious happened; “Did you respond to a text about a package? - because they are trying to fraudulently debit your account!”
They then helpfully walk you through the process of ‘transferring your money to a safe holding account’ (which is the actual scam - you’re willingly transferring money to the scammer)
The scam du jour for my phones seems to be a fake “Amazon Customer Care” call, 13 such calls in the last 30 days. Each is from a different fake “local” number and a different CID name. I haven’t answered them all, but just to gather info, I answered a few this week. All of them have the same script message like “We have found a $700 charge on your Amazon account…”
The company originating these calls appear to have been in operation for over 5 years because of their common audio characteristics. Only the particular scam changes. Here are some of the characteristics:
They are all from India
The hold music is the Minute Waltz.
The repeated hold message is very fast, “Your call is very important to us…”
When the clerk comes on the line, there is one of two brief sounds which I call “poike” or a multi-note chime.
New this year: The clerk claims there is a charge for $7nn (the amount varies but it’s always between 700…799) and it’s for a Nintendo Gift Card.
Just for kicks, I always tell them that I purchased it, and it’s valid. They express extreme surprise, and repeat the data. If I ask for more details, like the purchase date or location, they tell me that is confidential. They claim Amazon will send me a confirmation number, etc. So I press the goofy laff button on my sound box and hang up.
Twice I’ve gotten the same kind of scam call related to credit card use, but it astonishes me that anyone would fall for it. The phone rings and it is supposedly some bank in Florida calling to say that I’m entitled to some kind of “reward” based on having been a good customer, or winning a lucky draw from my credit card company, or something. The stories are weirdly vague.
Both times I kept the scammers on the phone for a while, arguing with them - “Really? How stupid do you think I am?” - while they continued to insist they were legit despite not even having a coherent explanation for how I’d just been awarded cash through my credit card use.
The only moment that gave me a split-second pause was when I said, “c’mon, you don’t even know what credit cards I use,” to which they promptly replied “Mastercard and Visa.” That was correct, of course, but that’s gotta be part of the script, since that answer will be accurate for a large percentage of people they call.
Both of my credit card issuers have been good about reversing disputed transactions, though after a great many years I think I’ve only had one disputed transaction with each. One of them, however, insisted on replacing the card. The other was content just to reverse the charge, but I think wanted a written statement that I denied making the purchase.
On a slightly unrelated topic, I’ve tried to follow the advice given in a thread here long ago to always use credit rather than debit cards whenever possible because you get much better fraud protection. I consequently haven’t used my debit card for anything except ATM cash withdrawals for years. I was really pissed at myself when I stopped for gas the other day, and being still somewhat sleepy and slow-witted, I tapped my debit card instead of my most frequently used credit card which has roughly the same colours. I noticed it was the wrong card just at the moment the terminal beeped the transaction completion. Oh, well, hopefully I won’t get robbed blind. I believe there is minimal information transmitted during a non-PIN proximity authorization.
There are so many ways that can happen virtually any time you use your credit card. As I mentioned, it’s only happened to me twice in many decades. The last one was relatively recent, and just involved a couple of online purchases at Apple or iTunes or something related to Apple. Which was definitely not me because I never buy anything from Apple. But the purchases were for such small amounts that I was thinking it was just as likely to have been a mistake somewhere, like miskeying a CC number but managing to get the check digit right. OTOH, it may have been a thief clever enough to scam large numbers of credit cards for very small amounts, hoping that it would be more likely to go unnoticed.
I’ve gotten a bunch of those calls and answered a couple, just to play with them. Once, I said, no, that’s not a fake charge. It’s real and they should leave it unchallenged. Another time, I asked, what’s the charge for, and how do they know it’s fraudulent? They weren’t expecting that and could not explain the charge.
I’ve been getting emails from “Amazon” and other places saying that my current credit card number is no longer valid and my account will be closed unless I send them an email with a new number. Yeah, right.
A word of caution if you decide to play with these Indian dudes. They appear to be calling specific numbers, so they probably know your name. This info is from a database derived from multiple sources; it is not the whitepages directory list. All my numbers have always been unlisted, but the clerk was able to give my name anyway when I asked. Obviously everything else is totally made up.
I buy lots of Nintendo gift cards, natch, for $729 each, you bet.
5 calls today from the same “Amazon” Customer Service. Another 6 from other scammers, and the day is not yet over.
Last week, I got a recorded call around 6:30am from “Amazon’s Cyber-Security Division,” something about a charge for $490. I had nothing on order from Amazon. If the call had actually awakened me, I might have been more pissed about it.
Today, I got a recorded call from my Water & Power company saying there was an amount I owed and if I didn’t pay it immediately, they would be turning off my power in 20 minutes. That was several hours ago. It’s hard to believe anyone falls for these things, but then again even just a few successes probably pays for scam expenses and more.
Indeed, I received a fair amount of pushback on this message board back in 2018-2019 when I said that I refused to give twitter my cell phone number. “What’s the big deal?”, they said. This thread provides one reply. This article provides another.
For those needing a throwaway cell phone number, you can score one from Google, provided you give them your existing cell number. Once you do that, you can delete your real cell number from google’s records. Now you have an extra voice number that you can send and receive texts from.