Cyber Crime Scam Alert: Don’t Fall For This (Admittedly Clever) Ripoff

The world is full of dishonest pieces of human trash who spent a great deal of time and energy figuring out ways to defraud honest people. Some of them are admittedly clever and here is one that has ensnared a lot of people.

#1: Someone calls you on the phone and says they are calling from a particular credit card company. Of course, they don’t know what cards you have so it’s a gamble to mention a specific one, but Visa and Mastercard are the two biggies so they are certain to guess right much of the time.

#2: The scammer tells you he is Joe (or whoever) and informs you that someone has illicitly charged $600+ dollars on your credit card (I’m sure the amount varies).

#3: You, of course, are quite displeased by this news. And here is where the clever tactic comes in because the thief doesn’t ask for any information from you. Instead, he tells you to call your credit card company to straighten this out. Then he hangs up and you hear a dial tone. This is smart because many of us are wise enough to never give a caller information over the phone. I know I don’t, and you probably don’t either.

The scam occurs because although you hear the dial tone, the scammer hasn’t truly hung up. So you call your credit card company and they will ask for legitimate information which you type into your phone. Every key on a phone makes a specific sound and the listening crook can get your information and voila! He can now use your credit card and he proceeds to run up large charges quickly, before you can catch on to what’s happened.

How To Protect Yourself: it’s easy to do of course. If you get a call from someone who says they’re from your credit card company. be sure that YOU hang up the phone and that the connection is truly broken. It’s certain that many of their fake calls are foiled in this way. BUT – since this scam is continuing, you can be sure that lots of folks don’t do that. The only reason these losers continue with their scams is that it continues to be profitable. After all, that ridiculous Nigerian scam has been going on for decades!