Phone and SMS scams

[Joe Blow]

Recently I've been receiving a lot of scam phone calls and SMS messages and am wondering if this is just happening to me because my numbers have been leaked in a hack or put on some dodgy list, or if this is something that is happening to others as well.

I'm not talking about one call a month, this is a few calls a week at least. The SMS messages have been coming in at four or five a week for around a month now.

The phone scammers almost always speak English with a foreign accent. It sounds African to me, but I could be wrong. Sometimes they pretend to be the security department from Visa or Mastercard. Other times it has something to do with toner for my printer, or loans for my business. I swear the toner guy has called me more than a dozen times, even after I told him to stop calling more than once.

The SMS scam messages go something like, "Hi Joe, shall we wait or close your application? Verify details to start with up to 6.100 per day" and then it is followed by a dodgy URL. Before 2020 I had never received actual scam SMS messages before. Promotional messages sure, but not outright scams. And they know my first name, so my details have been leaked or bought from somewhere.

Is anyone else experiencing a similar increase in scam phone calls and SMS messages? It's gotten so bad I'm considering changing my numbers.

 

[sptrawler]

Is anyone else experiencing a similar increase in scam phone calls and SMS messages? It's gotten so bad I'm considering changing my numbers.

I change my mobile phone number once in a while, it really is a breath of fresh air IMO, you only get calls from people you give the number to.
The first time I did it was a pain, but I kept a list of who I had to update my info with, second time was easier.

 

[frugal.rock]

Myself and the missus were getting phone calls from Chinese speaking recorded message purporting to be something to do with a delivery from DHL....
The missus had also got scam texts.

I generally won't answer private numbers and unknown numbers.

There's that many phishing scams out there now, they know how to strike a nerve, so to speak.
Yes, it makes you wonder where they scrape information from. Obviously there's plenty of illegal activity going on behind the scenes, and that why I prefer to attempt to leave as little a footprint behind as possible.
It's getting harder though, schools turn a blind eye to this and sign up with all sorts of crap and then expect parents to handover Medicare numbers etc for excursions/ indemnity systems of unknown security...
For shame.
Legislation and security is far behind the "web".

 

[moXJO]

I get federal police apparently wanting me to press 1 on the phone. Called the number back once and the number had actually been spoofed.
We are being targeted because to many idiots give up their details. Australians are known as dumbshts in scammer circles.

 

[Smurf1976]

We are being targeted because to many idiots give up their details. Australians are known as dumbshts in scammer circles.

I haven't had any such calls personally but, and I've verified this as not being a scam, a very large Australian phone company offered me a $5 per month discount, for 12 months, so long as I provided them with (among other things):

Street address.

Postal address.

Home ownership status. That is, am I renting, have a mortgage, own outright etc?

How long have I lived at this address and what was my previous address?

My living arrangements. That is, do I live alone or do I live with others and if so how many?

What is my relationship to others I live with? Partner, children, parents, friends, whatever.

My source(s) of income. Eg dividends, employment, rent, business profits, whatever.

Details of employer and a contact number for the boss.

My drivers license number.

And a few others.

The trouble I see is that here we have in one fell swoop a request for more than enough information to commit identity fraud. Whilst the company and the request was legit as such, no way whatsoever can it be reasonably argued that they actually need all that simply to give me a discount. I mean seriously, under normal non-pandemic circumstances one can enter a foreign country, rent a car, buy a house and do pretty much anything without providing all those details and yet Telstra claims to need all this just to give me a discount.

Amazingly, everyone else from airlines to supermarkets manage to offer discounts without going into such ridiculous detail regarding customer finances. Financially profiling someone for the sake of $5.......

I generally don't get angry but this one got me yes. Not because I've anything to hide with the answers but simply due to the sheer ridiculousness of it and be cause this sort of thing conditions people to think it's all OK to be giving out that sort of information freely to anyone.

All they need to know is my account number that they've already got. Just apply the discount to that account yes. Done.

 

[Smurf1976]

be cause

Typo there meant "because"

 

[noirua]

These scams are the same in very many countries. Some telephone operators do allow certain calls to be blocked if you search through their websites or/and ways to report numbers and give a reason - they often block the number though it is easy for these people to get new numbers. https://www.whitepages.com.au/residential
I have two telephone numbers (UK) and one blocks calls from abroad and those starting with certain series of numbers. Sometimes it blocks someone who shouldn't be. Both phones allow me to block a number instantly by pressing the 'Block' key - a few times early on I blocked a number accidentally. Now I've setup a phone transfer, between phones, for a lot of numbers listed as V.I.P.
Sometimes I've tried to get the person phoning me to put the phone down. When they tell me something I say, "that's absolutely spiffingly wonderful" or "that sounds fine in all greatness". Quite often they read from a piece of paper so as they talk I might just say, "seaside, fabulous, Donald Trump, Shark - or talk double Dutch. Not many get through so in a way it is disappointing.

More seriously it is difficult for a person suffering from any form of dementia. A friend in Canada believed that slates were loose on his roof and a man came down after inspecting with a broken slate and he paid him $600, having popped down to the bank. Of course he never returned - he died last year from the disease. So any of us could be caught out in the future

 

[macca]

Yes, people used to walk the streets looking for older folk then try to dud them for something, it happened to my Mum when she was 82.

These days it is easier to scam over the net or phone so as long as we careful we might be safe

 

[satanoperca]

Yes, people used to walk the streets looking for older folk then try to dud them for something, it happened to my Mum when she was 82.

These days it is easier to scam over the net or phone so as long as we careful we might be safe

These 2 statement resonated with me :
1. Hate scammers
2. Old school scamming is inefficient
3. New school scamming, using tech can be much more beneficial to the scammer, why go fishing with a single line when you can have 100000 of thousands of fishing lines at any one time, it is all about the numbers
4. I hate scammers, it is easy to scam on the internet as you have scalability, given I have the skills to do it, I would rather use those skills to find scammers and get them at their own game, hidden and private.

The new world

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

I used get scammers but don't now. A combination of blocking and sweet conversation works. This is what I say.

"Excuse me, may I interrupt. My son put a program on my phone which shows your exact position and he says which I don't believe that it can track you even on another phone. Should you ever, ever call me again I will test it out once I am released by my Psychiatrist from this awful place where I am held against my will. You sound like a nice person."

gg

 

[moXJO]

Probably told this story a few times. But a mate of mine told me he was offered to invest in China stocks back in the early 90s. By some dude over the phone (old school) and faxed a bunch of official looking papers to get ridiculous returns.

I was 17-19 at the time he was mid 30s. I said "its a scam".

So he drops $50k on it and they are telling him he is killing it. If he puts in another $50k they can get him a million $. I tell him "Stop don't send anymore". Of course he tells me how its all legit and totally above board.

He ends up sinking $130k somewhere round that. Guys overseas then disconnect phone and its bye bye money.

It wasn't just stupidity its greed. People get greedy and lose sight of what's obviously a scam. He avoided me for a while after that. I ain't interested in "I told you so". By then its to late. I'm sure losing money was painful enough.

 

[Belli]

A variation. My mate didn't fall for it. He purchased goods online and got an email saying they had been dispatched. Shortly after he got an SMS supposedly with the tracking info. When he went to the link - as one does - it was an official looking logo but was asking for additional postage to be paid. No way fella. The items he bought already had the postage included. Delete.

A second one involving me is I now am receiving emails claiming I have a bitcoin account (no I don't) and to log in with my details so I can get the funds. Oddly, it's a gmail account I don't actually use but only created for my phone. Again, delete.

 

[Smurf1976]

Today I received a phone call which played a recorded message supposedly from Amazon Prime informing me that my subscription was about to renew and my account would be debited and to press 1 if I wished to cancel.

I assume it's a scam of some sort since I don't have, and have never had, Amazon Prime indeed I've never bought anything from Amazon either or otherwise done any business at all with them.

I just hung up but I assume someone's trying to scam someone?

 

[Belli]

A second one involving me is I now am receiving emails claiming I have a bitcoin account (no I don't) and to log in with my details so I can get the funds. Oddly, it's a gmail account I don't actually use but only created for my phone. Again, delete.

Found out why I was getting all the emails about bitcoin. It was a gmail account I established when I first bought an Android phone and used once ages ago to buy a small item from Oxfam. Oxfam had a data hack earlier this year and my email details were included more than likely.

Use the link at the bottom in this site if you want to check your email address.

Have I been pwned? | Cyber.gov.au

The Have I been pwned? site offers a simple method for users to check if they have an account that has been compromised in a data breach.

www.cyber.gov.au

 

[mullokintyre]

This afternoon, the wife has had two phone calls from mobile numbers today with a recorded message saying that the Caller was from the ATO, and that her Tax File number had been "compromised" and therefore locked.
To unlock it she had to press 1 to speak to an ATO operator.
Having been coached in these matters she promptly hung up.
I tried to phone both numbers from my phone, but surprisingly, both were disconnected.
I told her next time to engage with them and screw their minds up.
Ir they ask to enter details, just put a random set of numbers and keep them working.
Gotta beat the scammers at their own game.
Mick

 

[bellenuit]

Gotta beat the scammers at their own game.

Yes, you gotta keep them occupied for as long as possible to give them less time to scam others.

One of my ploys that I use with the "Windows Support" scammers is to keep following their instruction pretending I am a windows user. At some stage they will ask me to click on the icon on the top left of my screen and when I ask is that the little apple icon they usually hang up.

 

[mullokintyre]

Had a couple of SMS messages from Bet Deluxe recently.
They use a third party called Nxt.to that works a little like BITLY in that it allows the users to compress a much larger message into a smaller one that fits into the 122 character message count for SMS. They supply an unsubscribe link, but of not surprisingly, it does not work.
After a bit of Research , I find that Bet Deluxe was founded by Noah Rose, an on course bookmaker.
If anybody knows of this Noah Rose, and where he might live, that would be useful as I could then start sending a whole bunch of unasked for and unwanted stuff to his house.
Mick

 

[noirua]

A 73-year-old grandmother from New York was almost scammed out of $8,000. Instead, she intuitively played the con artists at their own game and led the police to a flawless victory.

Grandma outsmarts scammers who tried to rob her out of $8,000

 

[DannyB0000]

Soon after the Optus hack incident I started getting weird calls on my mobile. These calls were alternating between different country Victoria towns and I live in Melbourne CBD. One day something like 10 different towns across Victoria, never answered any of them but I thought it looked sus.

Dodgy texts claiming to be from NAB, somebody apparently withdrawing money from my non existent bank account. More recently a text message claiming to be from Linkt saying the toll account was overdue and to click on a link to resolve this issue, checked my toll account online and there was no overdue problem.

 

[mullokintyre]

Soon after the Optus hack incident I started getting weird calls on my mobile. These calls were alternating between different country Victoria towns and I live in Melbourne CBD. One day something like 10 different towns across Victoria, never answered any of them but I thought it looked sus.

Dodgy texts claiming to be from NAB, somebody apparently withdrawing money from my non existent bank account. More recently a text message claiming to be from Linkt saying the toll account was overdue and to click on a link to resolve this issue, checked my toll account online and there was no overdue problem.

Yeah, I got two of the Linkt messages about an unpaid invoice, but just deleted them.
I also got one from a n Indian scammer claiming that I was about to have my annual $99 Amazon fee deducted, but i could hit a link to cancel the transaction.
Managed to get the idiot to answer the phone , and played dumb for few minutes , then told him I don't deal with Amazon, and gave him an earful of what I thought about scammers.
Really enjoyed pissing him around.
Mick