Scams and Scammers

[HARK!]

In this thread we can expose scams, scammers, and present ways to protect ourselves from them.

I'll start. This episode put the scammers on the defensive.:

Hacker turns on Scammers Webcam. Alerts a victim.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

I read in the newspaper this morning that a New Zealand woman was done out of her life savings of $430K through a romance scam. It is so sad that there are heartless scammers out there who will scam all that money out of a 50 something solo mother and leave her destitute.

Peter warned us to be sober and vigilant because the devil goes around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. These scammers are certainly doing the devil's work in the lives of innocent people.

 

[HARK!]

New Scams to Watch Out For in 2022

 

[Unqualified]

I was contacted by a woman I knew better than this. She tried to get money for a young relative by a sob story. Go to google pay and buy this, putting pressure on me. The emailer didn’t know that this woman hadn’t answered my emails for the last 10 years.
So when she asked for money it was inappropriate. Don’t give in to someone pressuring you even if you think you know them.

 

[Sarah G van G]

I always feel bad about blocking potential scammers on social media (mainly Instagram). So many orphanages or orphans with no money for food but they have a smart phone and wifi which doesn't match up with the heartbreaking photos on the account. Usually they follow one church (like Church of England or Life Church) and then 6k old & naive looking Christians (like me). They usually have a money wire link on their profile. I feel bad in case they're not scammers but I don't want them adding or harassing my followers.
I also get a lot of romance scammers and I block them too. It really irritates me, my profile so clearly says married!
It doesn't seem Christian to block people but this world is so full of liars and cheats, we have to use discernment.

 

[Sabertooth]

Did you know that you can "encourage" auto-dialers to take you off their "call" list?

We are already on the Do Not Call Registry, but "@pple $upport" scammers* kept dialing us anyway. They spoofed different phone numbers each time, so we couldn't just block a single number.

Just add THIS TONE to the beginning of your voice mail greeting message.
Do not answer calls that you do not recognize.
Hearing those tones, the auto-dialer will interpret it as an unassigned number and will remove you from its call list.

Trick to Get Removed From Auto-Dialer Call Lists - Technipages

*Similar to the IRS/delinquent tax scam.

 

[HARK!]

Did you know that you can "encourage" auto-dialers to take you off their "call" list?

We are already on the Do Not Call Registry, but "@pple $upport" scammers* kept dialing us anyway. They spoofed different phone numbers each time, so we couldn't just block a single number.

Just add THIS TONE to the beginning of your voice mail greeting message.
Do not answer calls that you do not recognize.
Hearing those tones, the auto-dialer will interpret it as an unassigned number and will remove you from its call list.

Trick to Get Removed From Auto-Dialer Call Lists - Technipages

*Similar to the IRS/delinquent tax scam.

I bought a device to do this years ago on my landline. I didn't know that this technique worked anymore.

I just rerecorded my greeting.

 

[com7fy8]

I understand it is possible for a terrorist group to use local scamming in order to get funding to embed an operational group. By raising money in the country of their operation, they avoid sending international communications seeking money from their financial sources. Intel can detect those international requests and track down their sources; so they would rather raise money in the country where they hope to do their activities.

One person . . . as I understand this > had a romantic contact while married. She told the contact that she could not get money from her husband. And she got a reply with legal advice which seemed to me to be what a professional would know, for how to get money from him. So, I figured she could be in contact with a gang who had various sorts of expertise including in American law. And terrorist groups can have very highly skilled and intelligent people.

 

[mama2one]

Did you know that you can "encourage" auto-dialers to take you off their "call" list?.

message on my cell is beep from answer machine
no longer have landline so answer machine obsolete

husband is ONLY person with my cell no.
school doesn't have it, extended family doesn't have it
I refuse to give no. out even though one sibling keeps trying to "trick" me into giving my no. to her

since my no. isn't out there, I rarely get any telemarketing calls...maybe two since got phone & I don't answer

 

[Sabertooth]

message on my cell is beep from answer machine
no longer have landline so answer machine obsolete

husband is ONLY person with my cell no.
school doesn't have it, extended family doesn't have it
I refuse to give no. out even though one sibling keeps trying to "trick" me into giving my no. to her

since my no. isn't out there, I rarely get any telemarketing calls...maybe two since got phone & I don't answer

I had the tone on my cell voicemail greeting when I used AT&T.
Visible, my current carrier, won't let me customize my greeting to include said tone,
but I don't get many scam-looking calls since I changed to them.

I think that Visible probably gets hacked less often than AT&T,
or they have better scam-blocking software.
(I still get spam texts, from time-to-time, however.)

 

[Sarah G van G]

I understand it is possible for a terrorist group to use local scamming in order to get funding to embed an operational group. By raising money in the country of their operation, they avoid sending international communications seeking money from their financial sources. Intel can detect those international requests and track down their sources; so they would rather raise money in the country where they hope to do their activities.

One person . . . as I understand this > had a romantic contact while married. She told the contact that she could not get money from her husband. And she got a reply with legal advice which seemed to me to be what a professional would know, for how to get money from him. So, I figured she could be in contact with a gang who had various sorts of expertise including in American law. And terrorist groups can have very highly skilled and intelligent people.

I didn't know scammers could be terrorists, it makes sense. Interesting, it puts a new perspective on it and makes me feel less guilty about blocking potential scammers!

 

[angelsaroundme]

One of the popular scams is to get you to a spoofed website, a clone of a real site, and have you spend money on items that you will never receive. Looking at URLs will help reveal if a site is legit. If the URL is .shop or something else unusual it's likely not the authentic online store.

 

[Skye1300]

A while ago I had one of my "friends" on Facebook message me about some deal on how she supposedly got some money. I called my friend on her phone while we were supposedly messaging each other and she had no idea what I was talking about. Someone had cloned her account and was texting me trying to get me involved with something. It's crazy the things people will do to try to scam people.

 

[Skye1300]

LOL One time someone actually called me and said I have a very important and urgent message for you but in order to receive this important message you need to give me your social security number to verify who you are. LOL I just hung up. People are nuts.

 

[Tanj]

I got scammed out of 10k about 12 years ago. Clearly my name is on some scammer list, because every few years I get contacted by a group who claim that for a small fee, they can get my money back.

The last one was a few weeks ago. They claimed my wire transfer 12 years ago magically teleported into crypto blockchain.

 

[Rajni]

I simply don't answer the phone if I don't recognize the caller.
Same if the doorbell rings and I don't recognize who's there.
It saves a lot of time and heartache.

 

[essentialsaltes]

 

[BravoM]

That's a group of people who deserve to be cursed by God and judged quickly.
Their priority target is the elderly.

 

[Sabertooth]

That's a group of people who deserve to be cursed by God and judged quickly.
Their priority target is the elderly.

That can go disastrously wrong...

"Taken" Phone Speech

 

[Red Gold]

Good example!