Damn those Scams

I got another call from that damn number. I refuse to pick it up, because, well, I think its a waste of time to reason with these scammers. You think that if I ask them nicely with sugar on top that they’ll even give a moment’s thought about taking me off of some list, or that they’ll feel like its their moral obligation to not bother me? Hell no. They want to take my money, and if they can’t, they’ll hang up and pester me another time when they think I’ve forgotten. God I hate these telemarketers

So my sister of all people got her identity stolen. Someone had swiped her contact info along with her credit card information somehow. She theorizes that it was done when she made an online donation to the Darfour relief effort. She was lucky since she monitors her credit card activity quite frequently and noticed charges being made to porn sites. She called her credit card company up and they automatically refunded her the charges and closed the account. They said there were also two pending charges that they would follow up with, but it didn’t seem to be a big deal. She thought that was the end of it. But it wasn’t.

The “two pending charges” are apparently for an eBay listing this scammer had posted selling a used car that doesn’t exist.

Apparently someone else got scammed in the process of all of this. The same identity thief used her contact info to register an account on eBay and sold some unsuspecting guy 3 states away a car. He took the money and then gave the guy my sister’s contact info. So now he’s calling asking where his car is, and of course she doesn’t have it.

She immediately contacted eBay about it, and they said their “Investigations Department” would look into it. She has also contacted the local police department to file a report just to have everything documented. This is what inflames me about eBay, they’re a multi-billion dollar company, but what responsibility do they have to their customers when incidents like this happen? What are their duties in restitution?

eBay might be a blessing to some, but more and more, its becoming a big curse to most.

NPR apparently did a story this morning about online privacy and while this was happening, I got visited by someone at NPR.org. I can only assume that Steve Inskeep was listening to the story and decided to google himself. All the while, I was listening to the story and was wondering how easy it was to get someone’s information and use it for evil purposes. Within the 5 minute story, I was able to dig around, find out how old Steve Inskeep was, where he lived, how much he paid for his house, when he bought it, and how much it was going to be worth in 2007 (triple its value).

Apparently there’s a family tiff going on where a renowned neuroscientist/psychiatrist lost up to 3 million US dollars in a nigerian scam. And now his son has filed a lawsuit to remove him as the administrator of the family’s multimillion dollar partnership. So now I know why scamming is the third largest industry in Nigeria, because even the best of us can be lured into a scam by greed and just not being aware of there are a lot of shady people out there in the world.

“While it seems unlikely, even ludicrous, that a highly educated doctor like (Gottschalk) would fall prey to such an obvious con, that is exactly what happened,” the son’s attorney wrote in court papers.

Read more about it here from CBS.

The Coshocton Tribune is reporting of a scam where emails are being sent that are supposedly from the “Social Security Administration” that alerts you that your identity has been stolen, and sends you to a phony “official SSA” website where they ask you to verify your social security number, bank info, etc.  You know the drill.  DON’T DO IT!

Once directed to the phony site the individual is asked to confirm their identity with “Social Security and bank information.” Specific information about the individual’s credit cad number, expiration date and PIN number is then requested.

Whether on the agency’s Web site or by phone, Social Security will never ask you for your credit card information or your PIN number.

Scanning the news this morning, I found this acrticle about this scam that is pretty disturbing.  Pressing a few keys on your home phone will give the scammer total access to use your line to make long distance calls.  Turns out most of these scammers are guys locked up in prison, and figure they can make nice long international calls on your dime.

Individuals claiming they are AT&T service technicians are calling peoples home.

They claim to be conducting tests and say that in order to complete the tests they need the owner to press the following numbers and then hang up.

Nine—-Zero—-Pound.

But by pressing these numbers and hanging up you will give the caller access to your phone lines and they can make long distance calls using your number.

I got this email forward from a family member, and after checking out snopes.com to see if it was as urban legend or not, turns out its not.  In fact snopes says: Real fraud, potential for financial harm unknown.  As always, never give out your social security number, nor any other relevant information to anyone unless you called them, or you know who you’re dealing with.

Most of us take those summons for jury duty seriously, but enough
people skip out on their civic duty, that a new and ominous kind of scam
has surfaced. Fall for it and your identity could be stolen, reports CBS
news.

In this con, someone calls pretending to be a court official who
threateningly says a warrant has been issued for your arrest because you
didn’t show up for jury duty. The caller claims to be a jury
coordinator.

If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the
scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he
or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant.
Sometimes they even ask for credit card numbers. Give out any of this
information and bingo! Your identity just got stolen.

The scam has been reported so far in 11 states, including Oklahoma,
Illinois, and Colorado.

This (scam) is particularly insidious because they use intimidation
over the phone to try and bully people into giving information by
pretending they’re with the court system.

The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on
their websites, warning consumers about the fraud.