Scam phone calls from "Apple"

D

DrBrisket

Recycles dryer sheets
Joined
Jan 14, 2017
Messages
102
Location
TX
Been getting a call every 30-45 minutes from "Apple" today. They leave a message that my iCloud account has been compromised...

Decided to amuse myself and actually answered the last call. It is clearly an overseas call center that is dialing for dollars with heavily accented English with lots of speaking noise in the background. The "support specialist" hung up on me when I was just trying to have a friendly conversation...The nerve!!!!:LOL:

Caveat emptor.
 
I recently got a call like that. I asked the guy calling from India call center, "Do you have a paper and pencil" "Yes " he said. "Write down this -Do Not Call List." I then took up his time by explaining what a DNC list was (for USA and TX) and droned on about federal penalties, federal and Texas state jail time, loss of license, ICE investigations etc. I think I scared them off.


Thank goodness retired folks have a lot of time on their hands.
 
DrBrisket said:
The "support specialist" hung up on me when I was just trying to have a friendly conversation...The nerve!!!!:LOL:
Click to expand...

mickeyd said:
Thank goodness retired folks have a lot of time on their hands.
Click to expand...

With my law enforcement background I've taken to a different tack. I begin by asking what color their underwear is, (male or female) and then the conversation goes rapidly downhill from there.

DW is appalled, but it seems to work. They don't call back.

Yup, retirees sometimes have way too much time on their hands....:LOL:
 
DrBrisket said:
Been getting a call every 30-45 minutes from "Apple" today. They leave a message that my iCloud account has been compromised...

Decided to amuse myself and actually answered the last call. It is clearly an overseas call center that is dialing for dollars with heavily accented English with lots of speaking noise in the background. The "support specialist" hung up on me when I was just trying to have a friendly conversation...The nerve!!!!:LOL:

Caveat emptor.
Click to expand...

Just for irony, I'd be tempted to forward them the one of the "Microsoft Support" scam numbers :LOL:.
 
I've found that my call volume goes up significantly any time I talk to them, no matter what I say. Punishment for wasting their time? Added to a list of phone numbers with a live human answering? Who knows. But now I just hang up without saying a word.

I've gone from several calls a day, to less than that per week.
 
Must be the new thing. I got an e-mail from Apple in my spam folder today saying I had a message that would be delete in two days - click here to view it. Unlike the phone calls, I don't mess around with the e-mails and deleted it without clicking on anything. I guess all the Microsoft Support scammers moved over and now work for Apple.
 
The last call I got was from a credit card debt group (I have no debt)
I decided to play along & when it got to the point where I was asked what amount of CC debt I had, I said 727 million.

"could you repeat that sir"
Certainly, I have aproximately $727 million in credit card debt.

Click :)
 
I tell them I am interested can you hold on a minute. Leave it on hold for 5 minutes then hang up ��
 
I wish you people wouldn't scare those callers. Now they started calling me. 5x so far this morning, and it is not even noon. I just let it go to voicemail. Does answering and talking to a semi-live person actually stop them from calling?
 
No Apple calls, but the new one I'm getting is: "Hello, we want to speak with you regarding your health plan issues you asked about."

I almost answered the first time. Everyone has issues with their health plan, I might have asked!

What a load of garbage these calls are. And I'm kind of mad at myself because 20 years ago I worked on VoIP and we talked about stuff like spoofing, etc. and blew off the threat at the time. What a disaster I helped create.
 
I get multiple every day. They spoof my area code and prefix (to make me believe that I must know them or something). What i did was change my ring tone for everyone in my contact list and left the remainder to the default ringer. Now when it rings, i know if it is friend or foe......so I can answer or ignore it.
 
erkevin said:
I get multiple every day. They spoof my area code and prefix (to make me believe that I must know them or something). What i did was change my ring tone for everyone in my contact list and left the remainder to the default ringer. Now when it rings, i know if it is friend or foe......so I can answer or ignore it.
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I get 1 or 2 on my cell phone every day, rarely does a day go by without one. I got 3 in one day last week from the same number, and that number called me a few times in the surrounding days. Most are from my area code but not from my exchange, I get a few of those, too. I have given my cell phone number to maybe 10 people, so I recognize their numbers, if not identified in my contacts book. So I get a legit call or text maybe once a month, the other 50 calls or texts per month are junk, making my cell phone little more than a receptacle for the garbage.

What I do now is just flip up the phone for a half-second then close it, terminating the call. (I pay per minute for cell phone use, so I don't want to burn up needless minutes with the junk calls anymore.) I know there's a little button on the side of my primitive cell phone to simply reject the call, but I can't always find it quickly.

Nomorobo blocks most of the junk calls on the land line, but once in a while a call gets through. That is happening less and less often in the last few months (YAY).
 
The last one I got was from "AT&T". I only answered since it was an 800 number and I had been dealing with an insurance claim.

They told me our AT&T account had been compromised and de-activated.

Then, how exactly, are you calling me on my AT&T cell phone?

Click.
 
Somewhat related, I got a notice from T-Mobile yesterday that unauthorized porting of your phone number has become a serious problem industry-wide. They asked me to set up a new separate PIN that will be required to port my numbers out.

Something everyone should look into. Calling your own carrier should give you the method for doing this with your account.

Here is a summary of the problem from Tom's Guide:

A port out scam is when a criminal impersonates you to port your phone number to another wireless carrier. A version of the port out scam, called the SIM swap scam, is when a hacker uses your information at your current carrier to change the SIM card and take control of your phone number.
With control of your phone number, a thief can gain access to any account that sends a text message to your phone to confirm your identity if you've forgotten your password. If the thief already has your regular password, he or she can intercept temporary codes texted to your phone as part of two-factor authentication, or log into online services (such as Google and Facebook) that let you use a mobile number instead of a username.
Once the thief has control of your email account and phone, it's often a small step to seize control of your bank account or other financial services.
The problem is that identity thieves can steal your phone number by just walking into a retail store, either a carrier outpost or a third-party seller, and pretending to be you with a minimum of information. Sometimes they can just call a carrier's customer-service line. (The information required to verify identity varies by carrier and retailer.)
Click to expand...
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/tmobile-port-out-scam,news-26574.html
 
"Apple" emails Galore !

I too have been receiving obvious (to me) fake emails from scammers, informing me that a charge has been posted to my Apple iCloud account - for services that I know I never subscribed to.... After browsing for similar reports of this on the internet, and I found many, I forwarded the first few to the Apple fraud email address, then began deleting them as they came in. I would say that I am seeing 1-3 of these per week, continuing to date.

Beware, this is an attempt to sucker you into revealing either confidential account login credentials, or revealing a credit card number, exp. date and verification code.

This began about 6-months or so ago, after the huge data breach of Equifax. I assume that, or one of the other hacks, released my email address, and now I am getting spammed.:mad:
 
CardsFan said:
The last one I got was from "AT&T". I only answered since it was an 800 number and I had been dealing with an insurance claim.

They told me our AT&T account had been compromised and de-activated.

Then, how exactly, are you calling me on my AT&T cell phone?

Click.
Click to expand...
Well done
 
When I lived in the States and got these kinds of calls I would say, "Excuse me, sir (or madam) do you realize you have a called an office in the FBI - the Federal Bureau of Investigation?" Answer: "Uh....<click>"

-BB
 
We still have a landline, so all calls (that Nomorobo doesn't filter out) go to the answering machine. Younger people tend to get confused when asked to leave a message, though. It used to be older people who had that problem.
 
Amethyst said:
We still have a landline, so all calls (that Nomorobo doesn't filter out) go to the answering machine. Younger people tend to get confused when asked to leave a message, though. It used to be older people who had that problem.
Click to expand...

Older people get confused too. Have a brother 6 years older than me, who, just tried to send a text to my landline. Despite me having the same landline number for about 30 years, he still assumed that was the number of my smartphone :LOL:.
 
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