Phishing By Phone?
On my new Anti Spam Website I have an entire section devoted to Phishing Scams And Other Devious Spammers.A phishing scam is basically when someone contacts you - typically pretending to be from a company you do business with - trying to get information from you, such as a credit card number or bank account information.
Mostly this happens by email, because email is so cheap. I've seen emails supposedly from PayPal, LaSalle Bank, Huntington Bank, Chase Credit Card Services, and oodles of others.
But last night I got a phishing phone call! That's right. The call was one of those recorded messages. It went something like this:
"This call is regarding your credit card. There is no problem with your card, we are merely calling to let you know that we have an offer for you to help you reduce the interest you're paying on your card. We are helping all our customers reduce their interest. Unfortunately, we have been trying for several weeks to get in touch with you, and this offer is about to expire. Please contact us immediately for more details. Press one to speak to one of our staff."
Notice anything wrong with this message? Yeah, they don't say what credit card company they are!
The intent is that I will assume they are my credit card company.Well, I decided to have a little fun with them. I thought I'd talk to their "staff", and string them along for awhile by telling them that I have two credit cards, and I wasn't sure which credit card company they represented, just to see how they would respond.
It would have been fun...but alas, it was not destined to be. I received instead a message "The voice mailbox you have reached has been discontinued."
But this is good news. It means someone had already reported this phisher, and got his phone account canceled.
That is phantastic.
Posted On May 18, 2005 at 3:58 AM
On May 18, 2005 Laura wrote: I almost hope you get another of those calls, just so you'll be able to string them along for a while, because I'm sure it would be hilarious. You'll have to post it if you do!
Doug Replied: Oh, absolutely!
On May 18, 2005 Beth wrote: I came home from school today, and lo and behold, we had the same message on our answering machine. It made me laugh! I really wish I had gotten it live though.
Doug Replied: I had another funny one a couple weeks ago...maybe I'll post a story about it...
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