Scams

Scams.

I have been getting an education on various scams out there and would be remiss if I didn’t pass some of the information along.

I am trying to keep this short, however.  Many scams share a few features that serve as red flags.

1. Anyone can get scammed.  It doesn’t matter how smart you think you are.  Though many times, scammers are looking for people in a vulnerable state.  Death of spouse, illness, loss of employment, when your emotional side is overruling your logical side.
2. Scammers create a sense of urgency.  “This must be done now!”  This is to reduce your time to think.  (Except for romance scams, which they will let marinate for up to a year)
3. Scammers will try to keep you from communicating with your support groups, I.E. Saner heads.  Excuses include “there are those trying to stop our good work”, and “only we understand.”
4. They will ask for money and ask for it to be delivered via non-standard and untraceable methods.  Like with gift cards and wire transfers.

Rules of thumb:

                Don’t give money to anyone that you haven’t met.

                Don’t give anyone money without sleeping on it.

                Talk to a friend or family.  

If you think it’s a scam, there is a network to call, 877 908 3360, it’s sponsored by AARP, but anyone can call.  Don’t engage the scammers any further.  They are well practiced at getting you back in their clutches if they realize you are suspicious.  

Examples:

Psychic scams.  They’ll claim you are cursed in a past life, or through a parent, and the curse has now come to you and will be transferred to your children. They will need to cleanse your money of the curse.  Also, they will claim that they are doing God’s work, and the devil will try to stop them, so don’t tell anyone!  They promise return of your cleansed money, but it won’t happen.  

 

Romance scams.  You are in contact with someone online.  Eventually they will bring up some heart rending money problem.  Usually involving a sick child.  But you will never meet them despite providing airline tickets etc…  There is always a reason they can never meet with you.  Medical excuses, sudden accidents, military deployment.  

 

IRS/Social Security office calls claiming there is already an arrest warrant for you if you don’t act now.  They are sure you didn’t really do anything, but this problem must have been caused by you or someone you know, so don’t talk to anyone.

 

Calls from a niece or nephew claiming they are in an accident/ jail in a foreign country and need money now.

 

You have won! But we need you to pay taxes up front before we can release the money.

 

And the most insidious.  You have been scammed, and you know it and are kicking yourself for you stupidity, but suddenly you get a call from an investigator of these scammers, and he will work to get your money back!  This is a follow up scam.

 

Yes there are investigators of these things, but it is on you to call them, not the other way around.

New Updates:

Scammers are improving their craft.  Gone are those poorly worded requests for cash from Nigerian princes.  Now the letters are indistinguishable from authentic letters.  

 

Worse, they are going real time.  They know where you are via programs like Creeper, and consult your social media and will know all kinds of personal information before they contact you.  “Saw you at Ruby Tuesdays a couple of hours ago, Is that Susan?  My how she has grown.  Let’s have lunch.  By the way, here is an interesting article on xxx.”

 

People who know they are scammed, and break contact have been hounded by the scammers.  In some cases, the scammers called the police claiming to be a relative that is concerned about their victim’s wellbeing to see if the victim was ok and handing the victim a phone.

Current What to Do’s:

Don’t answer the phone from unknown callers.  It just puts your number on a list of someone that answers.

Don’t engage the scammer.  Just hang up.  They do this all the time, you but once.  They are better at this than you.  

 

Talk to friends and family.  

 

If someone is telling you to keep a secret, it’s for their benefit, not yours.

 

You are not cursed!  Yes, shit happens, but it’s not due to a curse.

 

Official government organizations do not call you to warn you of arrest warrants.

 

Just because the caller knows a lot about you, they are still strangers.

Bitch to your Federal Representatives.   This is an international problem, and therefore up to the Federal Government to protect it's citizenry.    They so far have done next to nothing, and the current efforts are inadequate.  Once again, they have sub contracted the problem to our local phone providers who, at best can block the calls.  And considering I got 3 yesterday, are doing a piss poor job.  I am thinking missile strikes here.  That may be overkill, but far more lives have been economically destroyed than at 911. 

What is being done:

Our government has done very little to protect us from these fraudsters.  At first this was up to the FCC , which gave up and surrendered the responsibility to the telephone companies, which did nothing.  But now there is finally some efforts, as voters are calling their congressmen.  Polls show that it robo-call scams are in the top five lists of concerns very often, regardless of your political leanings.

There have been products like NoMoRoBo to reduce your robocalls.  My experience after signing up is neutral at best.

Telephone companies are now coming up with schemes to stop the more voluminous calls from crossing their systems.  Many of you will currently get notification of probable scam with the call. 

As much as we would love to crucify the offenders, that is not going to happen.  They are making the calls from foreign countries that cannot/will not do anything about it.  

How bad is it?

50% of all phone traffic is now robocalls.  A very significant percentage of them are attempts to commit fraud.  With off the shelf programs, you can set up a system that will make a million calls a day.  It is estimated that .2% of those calls result in a success for the con-men.  That’s about 2,000 a day.  An estimated 600 Billion dollars has been lost.  911 has an estimated cost at 180 Billion. 

Epilogue.

Do you have children? And do they have a social security number.  Check their credit score.  It should be none, but if not, then someone is using their number until they grow up.