Tag: phone scams

‘A New Phone Scam’ (2017)

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Image result for images of robot on phone

“The federal government has filed a lawsuit against you…”

Yeah, yeah. They’re gonna control the whole planet and all its different climates–but they can’t stop all these stupid annoying nuisance phone calls. Most of which are scams, aimed at cheating you out of your money.

A New Phone Scam

I’m beginning to wonder what percentage of India’s GDP comes from phone scams.

Unlike the famous “Nigerian prince wants to share his inheritance with you, if only you’ll send him your credit card number” scam, this one is predicated on fear of an unpredictable federal government that sees Americans as prey. No one would fall for it unless the threat was credible. And what does that tell us about “of the people, by the people, for the people”?

 

What the World’s Been Waiting For!

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How to spot phishing phone scams | Equifax UK

It’s not nice to cuss out the scammer!

Tired of getting phone-scammed every day by people with thick Indian accents? Yeah, I know–we’re supposed to pretend it does not exist.

But never mind! Artificial Intelligence to the rescue! Now they’ve got a device that can overlay a “white American accent” on the caller’s voice as he’s speaking, and completely conceal the foreign accent (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/23/voice-accent-technology-call-center-white-american).

[I shouldn’t have to say this, but I do know honest, hard-working Indians who are an asset to the community. But it’s just stupid and self-righteous to ignore this aspect of nuisance telemarketing.]

Yeah, this’ll fool everybody. The next time you get a call from “the Health Care Dept.” or “the Medicare Office,” it’ll be disguised by a whitey voiceover that only sometimes sounds like a robot and you’ll happily give the caller your credit card number… And they can scam you a dozen times a day, you’ll never catch on.

And of course the nooze media that report this don’t even mention phone scams and anybody who complains about this species of nuisance call must be a White Supremacist. (At last count, there were 11 genuine White Supremacists in North America.) Boo-hoo! People say nasty things to nuisance callers! You’re all racists out there!

I don’t know about you, but after about the 50th repetition, “This is Jake from Discover” really palls on me. I’d say something nasty if it wasn’t just a stupid robot.

 

‘The Newest Phone Scam’ (2017)

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Frustrated Businesswoman Taking An Annoying Phone Call Stock Photo - Download Image Now - iStock

One of the reasons I have to work on my novels outdoors is because indoors the &^%$@ phone keeps ringing and it’s practically always garbage.

They came up with a couple of new wrinkles a few years ago.

The Newest Phone Scam

We get this affable-sounding robot which practically chortles when it says “Hello! Is Pat there?” Like we would actually mistake this for a human being. Maybe some poor old folks on the brink of dementia might.

It really saps your concentration when you’re trying to write.

“Hello! This is Rachel from Discover!”

Get lost.

A New E-Mail Scam

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What Is a Phishing Email? 5 Examples of Phishing Emails and How to Avoid Them

Everybody knows that Nigerian princess thing is getting old and running out of gas, so new email scams are badly needed by the dishonest little bastard community. My editor was the target of one yesterday.

Forget that routine with investors from Uloozistan. How about an email from a real person whom you know and trust? Oh, yeah, that’ll work!

So she gets an email, ha-ha, from our boss, whom she’s only known for 25 years or so, asking her–in English limping with a very painful stone in its shoe–to please buy and send him a great big Amazon gift card–which he would surely do himself, only he’s gonna be busy on an errand of mercy, dontcha know–and he will gladly pay her back on Tuesday…

Whatever did we do to earn so much disrespect? This scam wouldn’t fool a puppy. My eye, do they think we’re all college students?

The worst part of it is, there wouldn’t be so many of these scams if they didn’t actually fool people. That’s the worst of it.

 

Please Don’t Get Scammed

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Inside An Indian Scam Call Center! (Spying On The Scammers) - YouTube

Patty has been watching YouTube videos created by persons trying to protect people from phone scammers operating out of India. There are many such videos

You’d think no one could possibly get hosed by someone with a thick Indian accent, calling himself Joe Black or John Brown, who doesn’t know the victim’s street address or social security number, pretending to be an agent of our Social Security Administration who should have that information on file right in front of him and not have to ask for it–I mean, really, this guy tries to get you to wire your life savings to him… and there are people in America who fall for this? Really? They actually go to the bank and withdraw, oh, $20,000 or so… and send it to this guy? Holy Moses.

‘Cause if you don’t send the money, “law enforcement” will very shortly arrest you, and you’ll be charged with drug trafficking, money laundering, credit card fraud, and anything else they might think of.

People fall for this? There must be an awful lot of terminally gullible people out there, because there’s now a whole army of scammers preying on them.

We get a passel of these phone calls every day. We just hang up, because we know it’s garbage.

I very much doubt the readers of this blog would get suckered into this; but for mercy’s sake, please spread the word! Friends don’t let friends, family members don’t let other family members, get taken in by phone scams.

I wish I knew what happened to the common sense that would ordinarily protect Americans from scam artists.

But then look how so many of our elections turn out.

 

 

An Old Phone Scam, Tried Again

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Latest Phone Call Scams: How to Stop & Report Them

So the phone rang a few minutes ago, and I thought my editor was calling me… but it wasn’t.

“Hi, Grandpa.”

“Who is this?”

“Your grandson.”

I don’t have a grandson, so I hung up. It’s been years since we got this scam tried on us. I’m your grandson (name never volunteered), and I need bail money/need to pay off a loan/gimme yo’ money, whatever.

Obviously what they’re trying to do is get hold of some hopelessly senile Joe Biden types and swindle them out of their money. Isn’t this shameful? It’s like the whole Western world sinks to a new low every day. They hope their victim doesn’t even remember whether he has a grandson or not.

Preying on the helpless. What kind of subhuman parasite does that?

I’ll bet we get nine or ten scam phone calls every day.

And then there’s Congress…

A New and Slimy Scam

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Monster Ooze Slime, PNG, 3655x1672px, Monster, Amphibian, Animal Figure, Cartoon, Concept Art Download Free

So my wife picks up the phone this morning and hears a solemn, dreary female voice intone, “This call is from Social Security Administration–” Here Patty hung up.

Note the absence of the “the.” Not the Social Security Administration. Like, maybe there’s more than one?

I wonder what the pitch would have been. Were they angling for confidential information–so helpful in any enterprise involving identity theft–or would they try to sell us something? Maybe sign us up for a time share at Chernobyl.

We probably get half a dozen of these calls a day, and sometimes more. Law enforcement seems unable to stem the tide. The telephone has become a burglary tool–or are they just into pure harassment?

Boy, there are a lot of creeps out there.

‘The Newest Phone Scam’ (2017)

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With much of The Great Quarantine still in force, and many of us stuck at home for more of the day than usual–boy, do we get robo-calls! Every nuisance in the world has our number. And sometimes they come up with something new, like this:

The Newest Phone Scam

It’s brutal. Yesterday we got “This is your final notice” three times, and of course we got “This is an apology call,” too. In 2017 they came up with the Fake Wrong Number Gambit.

Why can’t our all-wise, all-powerful government put a stop of these? Why would we want to give them more power, when they can’t even slow down the scammers?

‘A New Phone Scam’ (2017)

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You’ve gotta be scared when you hear “the federal government is going to sue you”!

A New Phone Scam

You wonder how anybody could fall for such an obvious scam. Really! The whole federal government? Gunnin’ for l’il ol’ me?

But there must be an awful lot of dangerously credulous people out there, or we wouldn’t get phone calls like this. And there wouldn’t be so many of them if we didn’t have such an immoral culture.

‘A Nuisance Call’ (2014)

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Image result for images of nuisance phone calls

Boy, do we get nuisance calls! No end to them. I can hardly believe that it’s been going on for at least five years.

A Nuisance Call

Need I advise anyone to just hang up, if you get one of these? They want your credit card numbers, they want your bank account numbers–they want to strip you bare.

I remember the time some crook stole Patty’s credit card, right out of her purse in her office; and before the police could get there, the bad guy had run up $1,000 worth of of fancy sneakers.