The other day, I saw a guy buying literally dozens of gift cards at the local grocery store. I asked him about it and he explained that for every $50 card, he got a $10 card for the grocery store, so 20% instant discount. He said they gave an old home that needs a lot of witk, so many lowes and Home Depot cards. He assured me he wasn’t doing all that work for a scammer in India.
Today, looking at the CCard bill, there was a charge to a CA jeweler we didn’t recognize so had to call the CCard company to dispute bill item and cancel that card. The employee said he does these disputes 6 hours a day out of his 8 hour days, 5 days/week.
Got a call on Monday from a neighboring state, from a specific sgt. in a drive through county sheriff office, urgently needing to speak with me, by name.
I am wondering if they tracked me by my car tags, maybe I was a witness to an accident.
Well, internet sleuth that I am, the reverse phone look up showed low risk for spam, but the sherif department had no numbers like the one I got the call from.
I searched the site for the named officer, but he had retired 2 years ago. And I found a YouTube video from 3 years ago, from that department, with that officer stating they do not contact by phone and that they are using his name in a scam.
I got a similar call about 3 months ago. My phone. I didn’t answer (unknown number), and message was supposedly from sheriff xxx, urgently needing to speak to DH (by name). I didn’t do as much sleuthing as you, but did look up the number of the mentioned county sheriff office. It wasn’t even close to the one calling my phone. I ignored the call, and assumed if that urgent, I (or DH) would receive another call. Never did.
PSA: have your elderly parents and other relatives freeze their credit accounts - our dear aunt got hit with 9 Payday loans totaling close to $20K! I took her to Chase and we cleared everything up (fortunately) but she hadn’t even reviewed bank statements for 3 months - banker asked her if she’d be ok adding me to the account (she’s 90 with no other living blood relative, I’m her neice-in-law) to keep an eye on her account. She was more than happy to. We then froze all her accounts. I will ensure she’s safe!
Also got a similar call about a year ago. Gave the name of a local deputy and it was not on line when I looked. I called the sheriff’s department and said they did not call me and did not know who that was.
I got a call recently from someone claiming to be a state police officer. Like everyone else, I didn’t pick up because I didn’t recognize the number. The beginning of the message sounded like a standard scam, but it continued on to a couple of very recent specifics that led me to think it might be real. I returned the call with a bit of trepidation. It was actually an officer, calling about a family member. He said that he had tried to make it clear in the message that this was not a scam, and he would not be asking me to secretly pay someone’s bail in gift cards.
DD got a call from a sheriff in another state asking all sorts of questions. She felt concerned so told him she would call directly to that sheriff’s dept. They verified he is a real deputy and sadly, he was calling because her info shows up somehow involved in someone else’s reported credit fraud. Things like email/DOB/ all sorts of old addresses going back two decades.
Another scam today—email from “Amazon” telling me the iPhone I ordered is on its way (of course I’d didn’t order any phone). It will be mailed to some other address and there’s a “toll free” number if there are issues. Of course that number will get you to spam central in India or somewhere.
Oh well, another email to ignore. It’s not even the email address I ever use to order anything.
I get those. If it seems like a wrong number, I’ll tell them “wrong number”. If they try to start engaging me in a conversation - block and report spam.
We get these, too. Usually, it is an inquiry about some property we never owned. I just delete them. I suspect if I respond with a text saying we never owned that property, the scammers would try to drag us into some RE scam. Nope.
I am getting the texts inquiring about a property at X address (in my area). I respond wrong person and then they reply saying if I don’t own the property, do I know who owns that property? Just odd
My husband started getting a lot of “get rich quick” messages on LinkedIn. The scammers finally figured out that LinkedIn is a big phishing pond. Grrrrr….
Ack! Auntie called today says a friend would like copies of her bank statements “for his records” I told her NO! And that all the banking documents are now being mailed to my house. I asked who this “friend” is (I’ve known her 25 years and never met this friend) “oh we’ve been friends for years!” I asked her “does he have a viable reason to have or see your bank statements” she said “no I don’t think so”
My paranoid nature thinks I know who was taking out the Payday loans in her name! Im so glad I froze everything.
The scammers finally figured out that LinkedIn is a big phishing pond. Grrrrr….