WARNING Blank Robo Calls
The Perfect Bank Robbery or blessing from God?
I had someone from Nigeria (A very
corrupt government) saw my eBay ad foe electronics. He said he owned a company
that was burned down and was in desperate need for electronic devices and asked
if I could get them for him. I accepted and he sent me a money order for $3000
dollars. I deposited it. Then withdrew enough to buy his computer parts. I used
part of it to purchase the parts from eBay. Then the money order came back as counterfeit.
The bank shut down my account. I could not cash checks from my customers
anymore. I had to go to each bank it was drawn on and show a driver’s license.
I was almost homeless. I still had $1600 in cash in my truck. I then bought a
used natural gas van that was big enough for a bed behind the drivers cab, and
room for my gardening equipment in back. I kept my gardening route going and
had a van to eat and sleep in at the park. Then I bought a small cheap trailer for
the remaining $800, and moved it into a space at the trailer park I was living
in. After a few months the bank realized I was not responsible for the fraud
and canceled the $1600 I owed them. I reopened my accout with no problem. The man
in Nygeria threatened to kill me a few
times if I didn’t give him his electronics. I just laughed and hung up.
God
works in mysterious ways. This saved my life.
Reward for those who want to STOP robo call criminal activity by the Federal Trade Commission.
https://www.npr.org/2013/01/02/168444025/reward-offered-to-help-stop-robocalls
These phony IRS, Amazon, bank account bunko calls may be promoted by Russia and China as an attack on our communications and economy.
“When you
answer your phone and there's no one on the other end, it could be a computer
that's gathering information about you and your bank account.
Here's an experience some of us have had. The phone
rings. You pick it up and say "Hello. Hello. Helloooo." But nobody
answers.
It turns out there could be someone on the other end
of the line: an automated computer system that's calling your number — and tens
of thousands of others — to build a list of humans to target for theft.
Build A List
Vijay Balasubramaniyan, CEO of Pindrop Security, a
company in Atlanta that detects phone fraud, says that in any number of ways,
the criminal ring gets your 10 digits and loads them into an automated system.
Maybe you gave your number to Target or some other big
retailer that got hacked. Maybe you entered an online raffle to win a free
iPhone.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, these robocalls
are on the rise because Internet-powered
phones make it cheap and easy for scammers to make illegal calls from
anywhere in the world.
That initial call you get, with silence on the other
end, "[is] essentially the first of the reconnaissance calls that these
fraudsters do," Balasubramaniyan says. "They're trying to see: Are
they getting a human on the other end? You even cough and it knows you're
there."
Gather Account Information
The next step is gathering information about your bank
or credit card account. You get a call with a prerecorded voice that tells you,
for example, "[we're] calling with an important message about your debit
card. If you are the cardholder please stay on the line and press 1. Otherwise
please have the cardholder call us at 1-877..."
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If you're
thinking about ignoring it, the message tries to scare you into paying
attention with a warning: "A temporary hold may have been placed on your
account and will be removed upon verification of activity."
That
number leads to another automated system that prompts you to share personal
details like your date of birth, your card number and secure PIN, the
expiration date, your Social Security number.
It can be
tricky because many real banks have a similar system. And, Balasubramaniyan
says, fear does kick in. He recalls a big scam in 2014 in which criminals
pretended to be the IRS calling to collect back taxes. (The agency
says the scam is still
going on.) If you wanted to call back or have time to talk to your spouse
before paying over the phone, the fraudster wouldn't let you go.
Balasubramaniyan recalls, "They're like 'OK, if
you want a moment to process this, we're going to send the law enforcement in
front of your doorstep.' "
Pindrop
keeps a "honeypot" — about a quarter-million phone numbers that
aren't being used by real people, which the company uses for research. Workers
enter the numbers into sweepstakes and online databases, to see what kind of
fraud hits.
Company
researchers estimate 1 in every 2,200 calls is a fraud attempt. And they've
observed an interesting detail about the fraudulent 1-877 numbers. If you call
back from your phone — which the criminals dialed — you get the prompt to enter
personal data. If you call back from somewhere else, you get "this number
has been deactivated." So a regulator or police officer that's trying to
crack down will think, incorrectly, it's out of commission.
Hijack Account
Once the
criminal ring scrapes enough information on you, it has humans call your
financial institution. Banks and credit card companies hire Pindrop to help
them detect fraud.
In a
real-life example, provided by one call center, the operator has a hard time
hearing the caller and apologizes.
The
caller, who is pretending to be the account holder, wants to know his available
credit — to make sure the account is worth pursuing.
"Got
it," the operator says, eager to provide good customer service. "Your
available credit is $34,999."
That's
good money. The caller says, "OK, can you help me update my address
today?" and he proceeds to take over the account.
Solutions?
Now, there
are clues that the guy calling isn't legit. There are long breaks in his voice
when he says, "I'd like to know the available credit in my account."
Internet-based
phone services divide your voice into little packets, wrap them up and ship
them across the network. If a packet gets lost, you get a break in the audio.
The size of the break varies, by country and by network conditions. The
specific device you use (Samsung Galaxy, MacBook Air, for example) and the
voice itself give additional clues.
Pindrop
has a tool that puts about 147 clues together and rates how trustworthy the
caller is in real time. So an operator can tell, Balasubramaniyan says,
"this call is supposed to come from a landline in Atlanta, but the audio
is telling us it's a Skype call from West Africa."
There's no
similar tool available for the average person. Balasubramaniyan says your best
bet is to make sure the number you're calling matches the number on the back of
your credit or debit card, or the bank's website.
Pindrop
declined to name its clients, because of nondisclosure agreements, but it says
three of the four biggest banks use its services. The startup has gathered
millions of samples from call centers and, based on analysis of unique callers
and devices, Balasubramaniyan believes his team has identified a specific
criminal group in Nigeria.
The ring,
nicknamed "West Africa One," has a dozen members according to
Pindrop. And they have varying skill levels. If a bank account has a larger
credit line, it goes to one particular fraudster who's particularly adept at
manipulating call center operators.
"The fraudster who's attacking the
$100,000-and-more account has so much information at his disposal, he's done so
much research on the account, that he's flawless on his call," Balasubramaniyan
says. "When the call center agent asks him a particular question, the way
he answers, the pauses that he takes, all of that is a work of art as compared
to someone going after the smaller-sized accounts."
Balasubramaniyan says while Pindrop has shared this
information with its clients, he does not know if they are pursuing criminal
investigations.
'Just Hang Up'
The FTC is trying to combat the rising number of
illegal automated phone calls.
"It is the No. 1 consumer complaint that we
receive," says Patty Hsue, an attorney who leads the FTC's effort against
robocalls. The agency receives an average of 170,000 complaints per month about
robocalls, she tells NPR's Audie Cornish.
The FTC recommends that consumers "just hang
up" on the robocalls.
"We don't want consumers to engage in any way
with robocallers," Hsue says. "A lot of times when you get a robocall
you have the option of pressing 1 for more information or pressing 2 to ask to
be removed from the list. And in either case, pressing 1 or 2 basically lets
the robocaller know that it's a live person on the other line who's willing to
engage and that could lead to additional robocalls."
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