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What's the deal with all those weird wrong-number texts?

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Re: What's the deal with all those weird wrong-number texts?

#281

Post by tjbiddle »

teeray wrote: post #241
tjbiddle wrote: post #238

Sooo happy that someone did the research and write-up on this. I get a handful of these every week and I've been dying of curiosity. Tried stringing them along but could never figure out the end-game. Now - can someone answer why I get 10 calls a day with no one on the other end? Either I pick-up and it's empty and the call ends a few seconds later, or they leave a 7 second voicemail of nothing.

I think many times the autodialer does a bit of a pre-screening. Like, if I say “hello?” there’s a quick pause and then either the recorded spiel starts (which is more pre-screening) or I get connected to a call center (there’s usually a little “pop” sound). It’s like any other business… they want to be talking to qualified leads because they only have so many call center scammers. This is why Kit Boga et. al. are tr…

It's not even that though. It's just pure silence - regardless of whether I say something.

Re: What's the deal with all those weird wrong-number texts?

#282

Post by WHA8m »

chefandy wrote: post #126

For a while I grew quite fond of wasting phone scammers time. I’d pick up, talk suuuuuuper slowly— like Emo Phillips speed at one syllable every one or two seconds— interrupt with irrelevant questions or anecdotes, and overall just see how long I could keep them on the phone without giving them any information. The best strategy I found was telling them that, yes indeed I did remember owing the IRS or whoever money a…

What's the longest time you kept them occupied?

Re: What's the deal with all those weird wrong-number texts?

#283

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

jedberg wrote: post #260
chefandy wrote: post #126

For a while I grew quite fond of wasting phone scammers time. I’d pick up, talk suuuuuuper slowly— like Emo Phillips speed at one syllable every one or two seconds— interrupt with irrelevant questions or anecdotes, and overall just see how long I could keep them on the phone without giving them any information. The best strategy I found was telling them that, yes indeed I did remember owing the IRS or whoever money a…

I did that once while I was driving for an hour. They had already interrupted my podcast with the call and I didn't have anything better to do, so I engaged. They eventually caught me when I didn't give the same fake SSN twice.

caught you, heh

Re: What's the deal with all those weird wrong-number texts?

#284

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #184
spicybright wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow. I got EXACTLY the same message, only with a sick dog and an asian woman in a car. I did the exact some response you did too. So weird.

A bit over a year ago, I received over SMS a photo of a young woman using her mouth to lift up her shirt and reveal her bra. Her face above the very bottom of her nose is not visible. This was followed by the text "hi, is this Grèg frm Sañta Barbara?.? It is Jennifer." Clearly some sort of scam is afoot, but I don't know what it is. And virtually no effort has been made to be at all convincing, given the diacritics.

Multiple people I know rec'd this.

Re: What's the deal with all those weird wrong-number texts?

#285

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

AgentME wrote: post #251
SapporoChris wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, you are correct. However I had an interesting experience in the 90's where someone's number was somehow linked to mine. So their friends kept calling, for the first few times I politely said that X wasn't here, they had the wrong number. However I had a call blocker on my line, and after two or three phone calls I'd just add the number to the call blocker. I also had an answering machine, and eventually, I…

Somehow when I was in high school, my ex girlfriend's cellphone number became linked to my cellphone number so that if someone called me while I was already in a call, the new call would be redirected to her. It caused some awkward situations. I have no idea how it happened. I had once set her number as a speed-dial on my phone and also set it as a Verizon "friends & family" number so I could call her for free, so I…

Consider that she did it?

Seems an odd coincidence for it to be fwd to her number of all people.

Re: What's the deal with all those weird wrong-number texts?

#287

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

londons_explore wrote: post #263
brewdad wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A real buyer would have made a real payment.

With paypal, finding out what is a 'real payment' is actually pretty hard - they do these odd 'echeque' payments which are reversible for a number of days. they also do 'buying a product' payments which can be reversed through a buyer-usually-wins process, and 'friends and family' payments which are mostly-but-not-entirely irreversible. They all come with differently styled legit emails, which blend right in to the f…

Or the "buyer" crafted their own PayPal email.

Re: What's the deal with all those weird wrong-number texts?

#288

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

Spooky23 wrote: post #87
LegitShady wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the binary options guys were obvious scams to everyone but their victims, but if someone cold calls you to sell investments and you give them money you'd probably fall for a bunch of different scams.

Some of it is timing and bluster. I have a friend who is a smart guy, owns 4 restaurants, who got scammed by a fake utility company scam fishing for gift cards. They catch you at a vulnerable moment and are good at pressing buttons. Even with old people, people don’t realize how many sales and scam calls they get. My mom literally get 30-40 calls a day. Odds are, eventually you’re going to crack.

No post body was provided.

Re: What's the deal with all those weird wrong-number texts?

#289

Post by GnarfGnarf »

For a collection of brilliant, witty, hysterically funny reverse scams, check out http://www.scamorama.com/

Like the scammer who was persuaded to greet a planeload of passengers debarking from a Helsinki flight, with a big sign that said "I will blow you" in Finnish (https://www.scamorama.com/smurf.html)

Re: What's the deal with all those weird wrong-number texts?

#290

Post by nlnn »

chefandy wrote: post #126

For a while I grew quite fond of wasting phone scammers time. I’d pick up, talk suuuuuuper slowly— like Emo Phillips speed at one syllable every one or two seconds— interrupt with irrelevant questions or anecdotes, and overall just see how long I could keep them on the phone without giving them any information. The best strategy I found was telling them that, yes indeed I did remember owing the IRS or whoever money a…

I've had a lot of fun doing this with the "did you have an accident that wasn't your fault?" spam callers.

I always try to come up with a plausible accident that slowly descends into something, well, not so plausible.

My recent favourite has been admitting that I'd had an accident because my dog was driving my car at the time (he was begging me to, and I didn't want him growling all the way home, and he'd been such a good boy the whole trip so he deserved it).

Another is where I talk about an accident and a neck injury I'd received, until finally explaining that I'd been decapitated in the accident, and that it was causing problems with work, and how excited I was to finally get some compensation.

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