Tag Archives: Scam Artists

Saturday past…

A few days ago I posted a lovely (IMHO!) picture of Humphrey Bogart (here it is) and wrote how I made it despite it being a very high pressure day.

Well, more like stressful.  Very much so.

It went like this…

We headed out early-ish (around 9 am) to go look for some tile for the front of our house.  As we were looking around, my wife receives a phone call from her mother.  Busy as we were at that moment, she considered ignoring the call while we were talking with the sales clerk but, ultimately, decided to take the call.

She started talking and walked away while I dealt with the sales clerk.  She was gone the whole time I looked around and, after a while, received a strange text from my daughter saying she was just exiting the gym and was not in… prison?!

What the hell?

I got together with my wife, who looked considerably more animated, as she concluded what turned out to be one of several calls with her mother.

To make a long story short(er): Someone hacked my daugher’s phone, perhaps after she used the wi-fi at a Starbucks the day before but, honestly, who knows.  Whoever did it got a hold of her phone numbers, found the entry marked “Grandma” and called that number.

There were at least two scammers involved in the call, one of whom was a female.  Once the call was answered, the female scammer was hysterically tearful, appropriate because the scammers didn’t want the Grandparents to realize it wasn’t her they were talking to.  The second scammer, a man, claimed to be a lawyer, told the Grandparents that my daughter was in an accident and was in jail because of it and that he needed credit card numbers so that he could pay for her release.

The scammers knew what they were doing, applying high pressure tactics and, frankly, scaring the living shit out of her Grandparents to get those credit card numbers.  Cleverly, the tearful woman claiming to be my daughter begged them not to tell her parents (us) about this.

On the other hand, they were also quite inept.  At one point the “lawyer” was asked by the Grandparents where my supposed daughter was incarcerated.  He said he didn’t know.  A laughable answer, considering he was supposedly right next to her at that moment.

Thing is, they did just enough to almost get what they wanted which was a credit card number.

Luckily, despite the hysteria the scammers created the Grandparents nonetheless made that call to my wife and in that moment, everything unraveled for the scammers and they made no more calls.

The next day, perhaps not coincidentally, I received a very official looking email supposedly from Apple which stated I had purchased an “unknown add on” app for $99.  It was followed by a second email also supposedly from Apple, also looking exactly like official Apple emails, stating I had changed my password and if I didn’t do this to click on the convenient link provided in the email to fix everything.

Yeah, sure.

I didn’t click any of the links in the email and instead went directly into my Apple account.  There was no such charge and there was no such purchase.

The phone call scam provided both my wife and her parents several moments of sheer terror, and its that terror that the scammers were hoping to exploit to get credit card numbers.  Its a nasty business and we’ve since found, in talking to other friends/relatives, that this type of scam isn’t a new thing.

So for those who’ve read this and aren’t familiar with the scam, there it is.

Be wary.

Watch out with the use of wi-fi in restaurants or public places.  Also, its helpful to keep your phone numbers listed impersonally.  Instead of listing someone as “Dad” or “Mom” or “Grandma” or “Grandpa”, list them by name.

And always be weary of any phone callers who call you for any reason -however stressful it may be- and ultimately want your credit card numbers.

Please, please don’t let the emotion get you as it almost did my daughter’s Grandparents.