Scammers change phone number

This might be a little duplicative of another subforum here ... but it can be used as a place to post "sightings" of a scam ... without posting a defense or solution.
(If too redundant, the topic can be deleted)
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Tamianth
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Scammers change phone number

Post by Tamianth » Tue Apr 21, 2015 11:03 pm

Scammers change phone number

Post by psy on Fri Mar 27, 2015 11:11 am
...Just not the one you think.

True story, happened to me, psy. I might have posted it on 800notes somewhere, I don't remember. But it's worth repeating.

So, a couple of years ago I tried to call a local acquaintance of mine, another retired guy. We're not close, he used to be best buds with my late uncle. I'd check up on him from time to time.

So I called his local POTS number and got a "number not in service" intercept. Oh crap, did John (I'll call him John) die? I looked up his address and drove to his house. He answered the door, still breathing just fine. "Your phone number says it's disconnected, whats up?"

He proceeded to tell me one of the damnedest stories I'd ever heard. He'd been getting calls from scammers. Hell, he'd been getting scammed. By the time he was telling me this, he'd pretty much sent his entire life savings to them via good ol' Western Union, bit by bit. They'd hit him with just about every phone scam in the book, simultaneously. Advanced fee scams mostly as I recall. He'd won a couple of lotteries he'd never entered, etc. When I came in on this, he was waiting for a car he'd "won" to be delivered. It was being driven from the east coast, but they kept running into problems all along the way; registration, fees, and other nonsense requiring he send them just a *little* more money so they could get his new car to him. "We're in Las Vegas now, almost there!"

He was just starting to get suspicious of them about the time I stumbled onto this. I had to tell him he'd been scammed. I don't think I was the first to do so.
"Yeah, I'm starting to think they're not really in Vegas right now."
"Dude, they are probably not even in this country."
"Yeah, they all sound Jamaican."
Bingo.

I sadly went through the drill: These people are all scammers, these are well known scams. You will likely never get your money back from them. Do not do anything they say. Do not talk to them, do not engage in any type of conversation with them. Just hang up.

Now as to that "damnedest" part...

While I was there, his phone rang. His *disconnected* phone(!). It was the car "delivery" crew, explaining that they (surprise) were stuck in Vegas with the new car, until they got more money. John cursed at them a bit and hung up... well progress anyway.

How did his "disconnected" phone ring? It wasn't disconnected... the number had been changed. John said there were so many Jamaican accented fellows calling him, at all hours day and night, he'd had to leave the phone off hook to get any sleep. No, John didn't change his number, the scammers changed it FOR him... TWICE. He just got up one day and his phone number had been changed. The only person who had the new number were the scammers, or more likely, a subset of the scammers who were tired of not being able to work on John because his phone line was tied up by OTHER scammers.

How could they do that? Well somewhere along the way, I got out of John that he'd given the scammers either his SSN or the last 4. *Sigh* I figure most likely that and his name were probably all they needed to call Verizon and order a number change. John had called the phone company again and was waiting for them to complete an order to change it back, for the 2nd time. I explained to him that he should call and set up password protection on his Verizon account, so than no one else could make changes (mine is set up that way).

Well that's it. Same old scams, but the phone number change blew my mind.
1 x
Ahr'lhonaema ihirer hotaessraei hwiunaier iarr'voi ortaihkhevha na sienov!
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Tamianth
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Re: Scammers change phone number

Post by Tamianth » Tue Apr 21, 2015 11:03 pm

by BigA on Fri Mar 27, 2015 11:33 am
Wow the lengths these scumbags go to. I thought Verizon was requiring passwords these days? Or is this and older story before they started doing that?
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Ahr'lhonaema ihirer hotaessraei hwiunaier iarr'voi ortaihkhevha na sienov!
It is cowardice to be reluctant to take up the sword for a just cause!

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Tamianth
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Re: Scammers change phone number

Post by Tamianth » Tue Apr 21, 2015 11:04 pm

by psy on Fri Mar 27, 2015 11:37 am
BigA wrote:
Wow the lengths these scumbags go to. I thought Verizon was requiring passwords these days? Or is this and older story before they started doing that?

He and his phone line have been here for decades. I assume that they don't initiate setting up passwords with old accounts. I wouldn't know; I'd set up passwords MANY years back, when it was optional and not well known. But that's another story. :hapsmile:
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Ahr'lhonaema ihirer hotaessraei hwiunaier iarr'voi ortaihkhevha na sienov!
It is cowardice to be reluctant to take up the sword for a just cause!

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Tamianth
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Re: Scammers change phone number

Post by Tamianth » Tue Apr 21, 2015 11:04 pm

by BigA on Fri Mar 27, 2015 11:45 am
Yeah they wouldn't. Only if he called them up for something, then they would have asked him. Which could have presented another problem if the scammers had entered a pass code, he wouldn't have known it, preventing him from doing anything to the account.
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Ahr'lhonaema ihirer hotaessraei hwiunaier iarr'voi ortaihkhevha na sienov!
It is cowardice to be reluctant to take up the sword for a just cause!

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Tamianth
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Re: Scammers change phone number

Post by Tamianth » Tue Apr 21, 2015 11:05 pm

by Tamianth on Fri Mar 27, 2015 12:33 pm
Wow Psy! This is a very good read! And it shows these scammers will go to any length to get folks money!
1 x
Ahr'lhonaema ihirer hotaessraei hwiunaier iarr'voi ortaihkhevha na sienov!
It is cowardice to be reluctant to take up the sword for a just cause!

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Re: Scammers change phone number

Post by Tamianth » Tue Apr 21, 2015 11:05 pm

by RustyMcNuggets on Fri Mar 27, 2015 12:46 pm
I.. I.. I'm speechless. Great yet very sad story Psy. I've been saying all along that the elderly are the prime victims of scammers. Thanks to all my friend's here on the board, who helped educate me in my early days on 800notes, I have been able to "pay it forward" with my mother and step father regarding scams. I feel for your late uncle's friend. Very sad story.
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Ahr'lhonaema ihirer hotaessraei hwiunaier iarr'voi ortaihkhevha na sienov!
It is cowardice to be reluctant to take up the sword for a just cause!

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Tamianth
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Re: Scammers change phone number

Post by Tamianth » Tue Apr 21, 2015 11:05 pm

by BigA on Fri Mar 27, 2015 2:52 pm
I think I would post that story over at 800 notes as well. It would make a good forum topic.
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Ahr'lhonaema ihirer hotaessraei hwiunaier iarr'voi ortaihkhevha na sienov!
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Re: Scammers change phone number

Post by Slim » Wed Apr 22, 2015 6:55 pm

And I will add that he really needs to invest in a call blocker, ASAP.
We all recommend folks get call blockers to significantly reduce the number of scam calls.
My little phonehelp site gets around 50 hits per day, where folks can learn how to recognize & report phone scams, block calls and look at the call blocker offerings available at Amazon. Last month, not one visitor exited to Amazon to buy a phone blocker.

That really makes me wonder!
Are people not returning to their 800notes pages to read the answers?
Are those that post complaints doing so because they think posting something on 800notes will stop the calls?
Do most of those posters really NOT want to stop the calls for some unexplainable reason?
Is the population of posters merely crying for attention larger than we thought?

Data:
So far today, there were 63 visits to my little phonehelp site.
Almost all went to my "facts" page to learn more about telephone scams.
One or two went to my "faqs" page to see some answers to inane questions posted on 800notes
One or two went to the "polls" page to vote on the "ineffective posts".
None left my site to go to one of the govt. reporting sites.

Info just for grins: several folks in cities in India have visited my little site over the past few days.
So has Homeland Security and the Treasury Dept. Could they all be using it for training materials? :wideye:
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Re: Scammers change phone number

Post by Slim » Wed Apr 22, 2015 9:28 pm

Watch out for black helicopters circling overhead.
Black helicopters?
Naaa ... thar ain't no sech thing as them black helikopters, or even black busses or black, armored SUVs ... shucks, not many folks even wear black suits, no mo, do they? :lol:

Image

(oops! Slim's sneaky survey system and pizza cooker might have snapped the above image somewhere. I deny the guy behind the SUV is me.)

More seriously, I have flown in several grungy grey copters (some of you may know the term "dustoff"), but prefer air conditioned airplanes.
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