Intercepted Call

A friend of mine called the Apple help line the other day to see about taking care of a problem with his laptop. It turns out that the scammers now have the ability to intercept calls to the legitimate help line. He ended up talking to someone in Eastern Europe who informed him that he needed to go buy three $100 Apple gift cards, then call back and give them the numbers off them, and then they'd see about helping him with his problem.

Needless to say, he recognized this as totally bogus and did not do what they told him.

What will these scammers think up next?

As long as people keep finding ways to shut them out, they will continue to keep finding other ways in....Neverending story sadly.

It is truly awe inspiring to realize the number of people around the world whose "job" consists of trying to scam us Americans out of our money. The foreigners probably now exceed the number of Denizens of DC that have that job.

I really loved the e-mail I got years ago, supposedly from Australia (in reality it traced back to Nigeria). It offered a sure fire investment in a new gold mine. The mining engineer had certified the quality of the ore, so there could no question of its value; his name was George Washington. The man who sent the e-mail was that noted financial expert, Abbott Costello.

Ones like that do provide entertainment value, you must admit

I'm not american, but I feel like a fool for not helping out the various Saudi and African princes who needed me to safe guard their money for a while... I could have been rich by now...

Had one scammer tell me his "government" agency was located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Damn son, read a book.

The best scammers are the ones who claim to be Christian widows and always end the letter with "God bless you". Maybe they should buy Koolaid and have a Jones town cocktail.

MIflyer said:

A friend of mine called the Apple help line the other day to see about taking care of a problem with his laptop. It turns out that the scammers now have the ability to intercept calls to the legitimate help line. He ended up talking to someone in Eastern Europe who informed him that he needed to go buy three $100 Apple gift cards, then call back and give them the numbers off them, and then they'd see about helping him with his problem.

Needless to say, he recognized this as totally bogus and did not do what they told him.

What will these scammers think up next?

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It's not trivial to intercept and reroute a phone call. I think it's more likely your friend got a false phone number, perhaps from a bogus website or fly-by-night company.

Scammers haven't really thought of anything new; they just have new ways of finding victims.

swampyankee said:

got a false phone number,

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You bet, these thing come up ALL the time complete with "official" company logos and/or letterheads. The phone number was more than likely one or two digits off from the correct Apple number
From Microsoft:
Scammers may call you directly on your phone and pretend to be representatives of a software company. They might even spoof the caller ID so that it displays a legitimate support phone number from a trusted company. They can then ask you to install applications that give them remote access to your device. Using remote access, these experienced scammers can misrepresent normal system output as signs of problems.

Scammers might also initiate contact by displaying fake error messages on websites you visit, displaying support numbers and enticing you to call. They can also put your browser on full screen and display pop-up messages that won't go away, essentially locking your browser. These fake error messages aim to trick you into calling an indicated technical support hotline. Note that Microsoft error and warning messages never include phone numbers.

When you engage with the scammers, they can offer fake solutions for your "problems" and ask for payment in the form of a one-time fee or subscription to a purported support service.

• Microsoft does not send unsolicited email messages or make unsolicited phone calls to request personal or financial information, or to provide technical support to fix your computer.
• Any communication with Microsoft has to be initiated by you.
• If a notification appears with a phone number, don't call the number. Error and warning messages from Microsoft never include a phone number.
• Download software only from official Microsoft partner websites or the Microsoft Store. Be wary of downloading software from third-party sites, as some of them might have been modified without the author's knowledge to bundle support scam malware and other threats.

An Apple Scam story:
I got the same phony call with the caller ID saying "Apple Inc" with a local 212 (NYC) number. I didn't answer the call. I immediately called back the number on my phone's caller ID (which did say "Apple Inc"!) to see what would happen. It actually was the Apple Store on 5th Avenue. Meaning these scammers were able, as is not uncommon nowadays – to actually change their Caller ID number to display someone else's Caller ID to make it look like a legitimate number that you might recognize, and let your guard down. Meaning this is a bloody sophisticated Scam! Seeing "Apple Inc." on your phone would obviously lead most people to think it was really a phone call from Apple. In reality Apple never calls you, unless you call them!

The scam artists called me again and again. They left a message which had a female "robot" type voice saying that "Your Apple iCloud account has been compromised. We strongly recommend you talk to a Support Advisor. Call us at (844) 759-5143, or press 1 to to talk to a Support Advisor now "

To get any info I could on the scam, I called the number they left (844) 759-514. I acted like an old geezer barely able to use a computer. I really strung it out. I was speaking with some guy with a very strong Indian accent, who told me his name was "Harry" and that he was an Apple Support tech. I asked where he was located and he actually said, "Cupertino". He was prepared for this question. In the background I could hear lots of voices talking at the same time. This was clearly a typical call center with a few dozen people on the phone, operating from India. But what freaked me out is this guy actually had on file my full name and address!. Again this is a sophisticated operation, and clearly they have a database of actual Apple owners they are working from.

"Harry" told me I should open my computer and go to a web address:

The address is a login for remote access.

If you go to the address you would see this:

Establish Support Connection
Type your name and the Support Key received from your Technician and click Continue to proceed.


Needless to say I didn't allow him remote access and terminated the call.

My phone rang about 10 times that morning from "Apple Inc" with the number for the real Apple Store on 5th Avenue. I even called the 5th Avenue Apple Store to report this scam to their manager. They were well aware of it from customers calling in to them about this, and said they were working to somehow try to resolve the issue and in the meantime, told me to just block the number in my Caller ID Block – which I did. There were about 20 Robocalls to my phone today, all day long, very annoying from these scam artists. This is a numbers game for them. They will call and call people, looking for one gullible person who is convinced they are really "Apple Inc." and getting scammed into paying them for a "support call" to the tune of $300-600.

Well they can stil be entertaining at least...

I once got an e-mail from the FBI, complete with official looking logo.

It said that they wanted to inform everyone that the FBI does not send out e-mails.

I really did not know how to take it....

Got a phone call a while back from an "Agent Richard" of rhe IRS.

Agent Richard, who had a very thick Hindu accent, informed me that I had a "considerable sum" that was delinquent. He then goes on to inform me that a warrant for my arrest has been issued by the "Government Police" who will be at my location soon, but we can correct this if I quickly go and purchase a $500 gift card and read the numbers back to him.

I laughed at him and said "Namaste, Agent Richard!" and hung up.

Those Indian fake IRS and FBI guys pretty quickly switched to a robotic voice in an apparent attempt to get around their accents.

I was pleased to see a while back where 24 people in the US were sentenced for up to 20 years in prison and 32 people in India had been indicted for that scam.

One of the phone numbers was coming out of Washington state, as I recall.

Scamming is one thing, but scamming under the guise of a Federal agency is just asking for trouble.

I'm sure the Feds and the Indian authorities leaned hard on "Agent Richard" and his buddies.

Just had one from my "bank" saying my Visa had been used to purchase 300$ on iTunes and 1100$ for something else. It said to press "1" if I accept this or press "2" to decline it. Pretty sure, regardless of what number I pressed I would have accepted it. On a bitter note, when I tried to contact my bank to report this it took over half an hour to go through button pushing an talk to a real person to get confirmation that my card had not been used. One other scam to watch out for is the "low talker". They will start out talking very low or have the volume turned down and you have to keep asking them to speak louder. When they up the volume they ask you if that's better and you of course will answer "yes". You are now done for because your "yes" has been recorded and they will add it to another recording where you have agreed to by whatever it is they are selling. If you fight it the recording of you saying "yes" is their defence.

Almost two years ago, I had two credit cards get hit for unauthorized purchases, come to find out, some idiot actually took the time to weed through my shredded paperwork and piece two of them together enough to get the card numbers. Fortunately, one was Discover and the other was U.S. Bank - both had excellent customer service that was fast and helpful.
And now, instead of putting the shreds into the trash, I put them in the kitchen garbage, where they get all nasty from table scraps, coffee grounds and the like before going to the trashcan outside.
And I also noticed that we have trashcan scrounges that like to get cigarette butts out of the trash, so I started dumping the ashtray into the bag that I use to clean the cat litter box with. That really cut down on them scrounging through the trash bags!

They always just try to sell me new Windows. I must have got on some kind of list somehow. I mean like 3 or 4 times a day someone is hustling me to buy new Windows and this has been going on for about 5 years.
I just tell them im a contractor and offer to sell them new Windows but it doesn't seem to discourage them unfortunately.

My out going message thanks them for calling Cactus In The Butt with the statement that I have no money so they will have to accept a cactus in the butt. I burn anything with sensitive information on it.

GrauGeist said:

"Namaste, Agent Richard!"

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You're a kind and generous person. Personally I prefer: Mujhe gadhe kaat do

fubar57 said:

will answer "yes". You are now done for because your "yes" has been recorded

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This cannot be over emphasized. The most innocuous question if answered with a YES will be recorded and appended to a sales pitch and you are SOL

GrauGeist said:

shredded paperwork and piece two of them together enough to get the card numbers

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The so called "shredders" that just cut long strips are almost useless. I use a heavy duty confetti-type shredder that chews paper into pieces about a quarter inch square or smaller.

Just had a call on my land line. I never answer the phone if I don't recognize the number and then do a reverse look-up on 411.ca. These are those annoying calls that just check to see the times you are home which will be used later. This one "originated" from Wells, B.C., population 245