We all know that as long as money is around, people will find a way to trick people out of it. As time goes on con artists use the latest in technology in order to phish for account numbers or otherwise trick people into giving up their personal information so they can steal from them. Here are a couple of the latest scams that came through my household recently.
Account Frozen Scam
Telemarketers are generally not able to call cell phones. However, every now and then someone gets a hold of your number and calls you. Well, more than likely they use a robodialer to call you. This particular scam hits you right where you’re most fearful: not having cash available. The robodialer will launch into its pre-recorded message. You will be informed that your account has recently been jeopardized and subsequently frozen. You will then be instructed to “press 2 to speak to an operator.” From there the operator will get your personal information from you in order to unfreeze your account. Of course there is no account to unfreeze, all this “company” is doing is gathering your information to either sell to a third party, or steal your identity. The best thing you can do, if you feel so bold, is to talk to the operator and collect as much information about the “company” as you can. Then report them to the FCC. Of course, most people will just hang up when they hear the recording.
Lower Your Interest Rate
I get this call every 6 months or so. The recording starts off by stating they are with “card member services” similar to what my credit card actually uses. They then say there is nothing wrong with my account, but the opportunity to lower my interest rate will soon be expiring, and I should press 2 in order to speak with an operator. First of all, I never carry a balance, so I don’t care what my credit card interest rate even is. Second of all, I am on the National Do Not Call List (if you’re not, go to the site, signup is easy), so these calls irritate me. Naturally I always press 2 to speak with an operator. As soon as they say hello they start talking, so I have to interrupt them to say, “I am on the National Do Not Call List, I have warned you several times, now I will be reporting you to the FCC, I believe it is a $50,000 fine for violating the list.” I almost never make it past, “… I have warned you…” before they hang up. Related: 5 Popular Craigslist Scams to Watch Out For
Wrapping it Up
Scams have been around since cave men learned to trick one another out of their fresh kill of brontosaurus meat. And scams will persist well into the future. The best thing we can do is be aware of them, and not give out information. If you do have questions as to the validity of a call (they are almost always scams), hang up, and make the call to the service in question yourself. If you call them, they will already have your information and you just need to verify a birth date and last four of your social. How about you? What scams have you seen or heard lately? Image Credit
I get the paypal frozen account every so often, with a “please user enter your password”. I can imagine how it works every once in a while…
I get the paypal, Google, Yahoo.. you name it frozen accounts every single day. It gets a bit tedious however there must be people out there keeping these buggers going. If people just put on their thinking caps before clicking and responding.. maybe they’d go away… but that’s not likely to happen.
Don’t even get me started on the phishing scams I get in my junk mail. The scams that come over the phone are a little more rare. I agree with the two comments below, it’s about once per week I see a “problems with your paypal” email come through.