agent

[timelesstunes]

I'm trying to stop a scam, but there are no agents to talk to.  

[orangehound]

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@ainpie-10 wrote:

Did you give them the gift card codes already? If so, that would have been stupid as to why would someone need codes to give gift cards away as gifts. I’m assythat would have set off even more alarm bells then a priest just emailing you out of the blue for gift cards. Your only recourse if you did not send the codes out would be to try to stop shipment. Now, I’m not here to judge, but why would you not think to talk with him beforehand? Why would you think your priest would ask you to do this without ever even talking with him about any of this? Always assume ANY phone call or ANY email is a scam. There’s really nothing you can do if you can’t stop shipment and if you did give out the codes you’re out of luck.

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No need to be cruel.  The reason this scam works is because the connection between the Priest and the person is a deeply trusted relationship ... the scammer uses a similar email address to that of the Priest ... and the person doesn't question the weirdness of the request.

I knew a very smart person who was told that their pastor needed to help a family in crises, and he requested Apple gift cards.   Not food cards ... not general purpose cards, etc., but Apple?  Yes, any person looking at this from the outside would clearly see the scam, but she just simply trusted that the pastor had a reason for doing what he was doing.  Fortunately for her, she texted photos of the scratched-off cards directly to the pastor ... who then said, "What?  I didn't ask you for any cards."  😊

[simba6]

Classic scam.  But a new twist.       Yep, your money is long gone.  

[ainpie-10]

Sorry, that came out wrong. I didn’t mean the OP was stupid. I just can’t go an hour without my phone ringing without someone trying to scam for something. It’s really frustrating that in today’s day and age there isn’t a way to catch all these people. For example, everyone by now has heard of the scam of the car warranty, yet I still get several of those calls a day. 

[ainpie-10]

In face i just now got one of those fake amazon phone calls stating something was fraudulently charged to my amazon account. It never ends!

[eburtonlab]

everyone by now has heard of the scam of the car warranty, yet I still get several of those calls a day.

Not everyone has the benefit of hearing all the details of a scam before they actually encounter it themselves.

For some people, the very first time they hear about a particular scam is when they become a victim of it.

The fact that scammers still use an old scam technique is a good indication that the scam is still reaching new targets that have not heard of it yet; when everyone has heard about the scam and the scam stops working, scammers will stop making those calls, or more likely will change to a different type of scam. Many online scams are just slightly modified versions of scams that were quite common decades ago.

[kensgiftshop]

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@eburtonlab wrote:

Many online scams are just slightly modified versions of scams that were quite common decades ago.

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As long as it keeps working, they'll be around for decades to come.

[southern*sweet*tea]

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@eburtonlab wrote:

.

Some scammers go so far as to contact random people and leave a phone message or voicemail claiming to be a grandchild in some sort of legal trouble while on vacation. If the target calls back, the scammer will claim to be the grandchild's lawyer and request gift cards or money orders to bail the grandchild out of jail or pay a fine of some kind.

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I actually got one of those once, supposedly my grandson was in jail and needed bail money. Of course this will tug on any grandma's heart, but considering my grandsons are 11, 4 and 2 it didn't work. But I could see where it MIGHT if the grandma on the other end panicked and didn't think clearly.

[readabouthorses]

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@ainpie-10 wrote:

Sorry, that came out wrong. I didn’t mean the OP was stupid. I just can’t go an hour without my phone ringing without someone trying to scam for something. It’s really frustrating that in today’s day and age there isn’t a way to catch all these people. For example, everyone by now has heard of the scam of the car warranty, yet I still get several of those calls a day. 

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The next time you happen to answer one of those car warranty scam calls just tell them you have 20 vehicles so which one are they calling about ... silence ... and then they are gone. Once you get them off their little script they are done.

[releasethekraken_1]

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@readabouthorses wrote:

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@ainpie-10 wrote:

Sorry, that came out wrong. I didn’t mean the OP was stupid. I just can’t go an hour without my phone ringing without someone trying to scam for something. It’s really frustrating that in today’s day and age there isn’t a way to catch all these people. For example, everyone by now has heard of the scam of the car warranty, yet I still get several of those calls a day. 

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The next time you happen to answer one of those car warranty scam calls just tell them you have 20 vehicles so which one are they calling about ... silence ... and then they are gone. Once you get them off their little script they are done.

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Next time? I don’t answer a call if I don’t recognize the number. Most times, there’s no voice mail. If there is, I can read the preview and delete.

[readabouthorses]

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@releasethekraken_1 wrote:

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@readabouthorses wrote:

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@ainpie-10 wrote:

Sorry, that came out wrong. I didn’t mean the OP was stupid. I just can’t go an hour without my phone ringing without someone trying to scam for something. It’s really frustrating that in today’s day and age there isn’t a way to catch all these people. For example, everyone by now has heard of the scam of the car warranty, yet I still get several of those calls a day. 

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The next time you happen to answer one of those car warranty scam calls just tell them you have 20 vehicles so which one are they calling about ... silence ... and then they are gone. Once you get them off their little script they are done.

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Next time? I don’t answer a call if I don’t recognize the number. Most times, there’s no voice mail. If there is, I can read the preview and delete.

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The problem with not answering calls for me is that I have a bunch of calls that never show a phone number or a caller ID .. they just say "Incoming Call" and they end up being calls from my daughter, a friend, my bank or a scammer but you never know who it is until you answer it.  The phone company cannot explain why this happens since the calls are all over the place and some are scams and some are legit.

[a_c_green]

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@releasethekraken_1 wrote:
Next time? I don’t answer a call if I don’t recognize the number.

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Me neither. Caller ID has been around for about 30 years now (I feel old writing that...) but fortunately the scammers and robodialers are usually unable to set up their scams with either plausible names or even believable phone numbers to display.

If I don't recognize it, I let it go to voicemail, and there is almost never a message waiting, with the exception of those stupid class-action lawsuit trolls looking for victims of some product, or the car insurance doofuses, both of whom start talking as soon as the line picks up, without even waiting for our greeting to complete, so what does get recorded starts somewhere in the middle of their third or fourth sentence. 

Our landline gets the most calls, and we can listen to the machine without picking up, grabbing a handset if the caller is someone we recognize. (Our landline is included with our TV package, very convenient because it pops up the Caller ID in a corner of the screen when we're watching, and we don't have to go look at the phone to see who it is.)

[a_c_green]

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@readabouthorses wrote:
The problem with not answering calls for me is that I have a bunch of calls that never show a phone number or a caller ID .. they just say "Incoming Call" and they end up being calls from my daughter, a friend, my bank or a scammer but you never know who it is until you answer it.

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Your daughter might want to go on-line to her phone company website and see if she can set up her own Caller ID name as part of her user profile. I was poking around our family AT&T account one day to see why all five of our devices were only sending the billing name as Caller ID, and found where to set the Caller ID for each device independently to show the name of the person using it.

[readabouthorses]

Thanks for that tip. I'll tell her to check into that. I don't mind missing the other calls but I hate missing ones from her. She is disabled so I never know when she needs me to come to her house for something.

[kh-leslie]

Hi everyone,

If you believe that you or someone you know was scammed into buying eBay Gift Cards, visit our gift card page to contact customer service and find additional information related to gift card scams.

Thank you.