Well it must be Tuesday. So, we have been getting a huge influx of scam calls recently. I have not had more than one or two for the past several years. Before that I was getting them every day. I had to learn a few choice words in Hindi so that I could call them names and swear at them. Last week, we got a call on my phone, I can’t remember exactly what the scammer said at the beginning, but it was something about a government death benefit, and then he asked for my name. I could tell immediately that it was a scammer, he had the Indian accent. So, I told him my name was George Bush. He paused for a second then asked me “are you sure?” I said yep that’s been my name since birth. He then did something that kind of shocked me. He said are you sure you are not (insert my real name here). I was shocked, I said nope my name is George Bush, and then he shocked me further and asked “or are you (insert my husbands name here), and what was truly shocking is that he used my husbands legal first hyphenated middle name. Again, I said nope and then feeling kind of shocked I hung up.
What is weird is that after that call which was the first one I have received in a long time, I started to receive scam calls daily. Most of them when I answer there is nobody there and I wind up saying hello about three times then hang up, or they disconnect.
After thinking about it, I don’t know how many of you have gotten the outrageous number of letters from banks, financial institutions, health care conglomerates or other places informing you that your personal information has been hacked and stolen from their database, but I have gotten way too many. I recently got notice that one of the largest databases on earth was hacked and the hackers gained access to all my health and financial information. Now it is not hard to put two and two together. The hackers have sold the information to scammers. They now have so much data on you that they can tailor calls to each individual they are trying to scam. Which makes me crap my pants. My husband asks me, and I am not kidding, at least three times a week if a text he got is real. Recently, he has been getting messages from Telegram Chat trying to scam him. The name came up as John, but then during the chat where he was trying to get my husband to send him $200 because “his brother in Tennessee just died” the name on the account changed to Helen. Thankfully, he recognized that it was a scam, but just three days ago he carried on a chat with this person for a full 20 minutes thinking it was a friend of his, and the friend was going in for surgery the next day and needed to make a payment on his past due account with the hospital or they would not do the surgery. Thankfully, again he said no, but still thought it was a friend that was in need.
The moral of this story is this children, no matter what always be suspicious of telephone calls, text messages, and instant messages that you may receive. They may have more personal information about you than ever before. Before now all calls I received from scammers are what would be classified as cold calls, meaning they are just calling a phone number. Now they have your name and other personal information to go along with your phone number and can tailor scams with your information that would make it more difficult for you to recognize them as scam calls.
A couple of points to remember:
1. Try not to say YES when someone calls you and they do not know your name. There have been scams that involve you answering a question with a yes and then they alter the recording to make it seem as if you gave them authorization to charge your credit card. When someone asks me a question that I would normally say yes to, I ask why instead. For instance the caller calls and says “Hello is this (insert your name here)?” Do not say yes, ask WHY? What that will do is automatically put you on the defensive and make you think that the call may be a scam and you will look for other evidence of the call being a scam. Now if it is your doctors office calling they will tell you why they are calling like “This is Amy from Dr. Whatshisnames Office calling and I need to speak to so and so.” You will know if the caller is a scammer by their response. Asking why will throw them off their script and the will scramble to answer your question.
2. If a callers seems to be super friendly and they act like they know you do not be afraid to ask them where you know them from and when was the last time you met in person. This will put a kink in their scam. If they are playing the friend scam they are counting on you being ashamed of not remembering them. So don’t be, be aggressive and ask for details. They will probably hang up before you could.
3. The post office, UPS, USPS and other mail services use a national database for entering in addresses for packages. You cannot go to the post office and give them an incorrect address or one that is missing information. They pull up the address from their computer to print on their labels so there are no errors in addresses. So, don’t fall for this one where they ask for a Thirty Cent re-delivery charge to be charged to your credit card.
4. Be aware that most scam caller will now spoof their number to a number that has your area code. That is one way to tell if it is a scam, they call saying they are from the government but have a local area code.
Remember if something does not feel right, just hang up if it is a call. If it is a text message, block them and delete, never, ever click on any links sent in text messages.
