Americans lose $50M to phone scams in the last year
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Re: Americans lose $50M to phone scams in the last year
#2That’s not a staggering number, to be honest.
Re: Americans lose $50M to phone scams in the last year
#3Alternative headline:
Americans lose on average 16 cents to phone scams in the last year.
Re: Americans lose $50M to phone scams in the last year
#4Note this is reported scams. In some cases the victims may never even realize they’ve been scammed, and even those who do are frequently too embarrassed to talk about it openly. Many victims are also very old or recent immigrants and may not know how to report the scam. There are even scams that specifically target undocumented workers who may not want to report for fear of bringing unwanted attention to them by the government. I personally know half a dozen separate people who were either a victim or very nearly a victim of phone scams, so I have a very hard time believing the number isn’t much higher.
Re: Americans lose $50M to phone scams in the last year
#5My girlfriend was speaking to her father (mid-60s?) who was complaining about what a pain in the ass it was to get his new iPhone configured. He had called Apple support who would come the next day, but now he had to go to Wal-Mart to pickup the giftcards to pay for the service.
Wait. What?
So I guess he had Googled for iPhone support and got some bogus phone number. Aside from the potential monetary loss, the scary part was that had they come to the house, he likely would have let them in.
The world and the way in which we do business changes quickly, and red-flags for some aren't red-flags for others. But I'm really curious what search term lead to the fraudulent phone number in the first place -- how are these platforms so gameable?
Re: Americans lose $50M to phone scams in the last year
#6My girlfriend was speaking to her father (mid-60s?) who was complaining about what a pain in the ass it was to get his new iPhone configured. He had called Apple support who would come the next day, but now he had to go to Wal-Mart to pickup the giftcards to pay for the service. Wait. What? So I guess he had Googled for iPhone support and got some bogus phone number. Aside from the potential monetary loss, the scary…
No data to back this up, but at least in my experience victims finding a phone number directly from a Google search is actually pretty uncommon. Although, sometimes you’ll see fake numbers posted in the comments of news articles or YouTube videos that rank highly for search terms like “fix virus iPhone.”
The most common way people get targeted is either via a pop-up while browsing (e.g. “Your iPhone has a virus! Call xxx xxxx now to fix”) or just random cold calls. Scammers also circulate lists of phone numbers/personal information of victims to previous scams, so once you end up as a victim of one you’re much more likely to be a target for new/more sophisticated scams.
Re: Americans lose $50M to phone scams in the last year
#7My girlfriend was speaking to her father (mid-60s?) who was complaining about what a pain in the ass it was to get his new iPhone configured. He had called Apple support who would come the next day, but now he had to go to Wal-Mart to pickup the giftcards to pay for the service. Wait. What? So I guess he had Googled for iPhone support and got some bogus phone number. Aside from the potential monetary loss, the scary…
No data to back this up, but at least in my experience victims finding a phone number directly from a Google search is actually pretty uncommon. Although, sometimes you’ll see fake numbers posted in the comments of news articles or YouTube videos that rank highly for search terms like “fix virus iPhone.” The most common way people get targeted is either via a pop-up while browsing (e.g. “Your iPhone has a virus! Call…
Probably not the norm, but I have worked alongside a tech company that has 30+ million user accounts, and as such, has a pretty much constant stream of scammers wishing to take advantage of our user base.
The customer support dept. has a phone number to call, which is listed on the website. But you'd be amazed how many people are willing to call some random number so long as it shows up in a google result. Normally, it's older folks that fall for this type of scam.
The fraud dept. sends a handful of take-down requests to google per week; but it really doesn't do much to stem the incoming flow of support hotline scams. Once a number is taken down, they just create a new website and new fake number.
To reply to your comment more directly, I have no idea whether or not this scam type accounts for a significant portion of scams overall, but for my particular industry it sure is. In any account, the way people are scammed on our site changes all the time depending on what's available/easiest for the scammers, so the methods they use are constantly changing/adapting.
Re: Americans lose $50M to phone scams in the last year
#8Alternative headline: Americans lose on average 16 cents to phone scams in the last year.
Yes, you can play with statistics that way if you want to sweep the problem under the carpet. If only the victims could get their potentially life changing losses amortized over the country's population somehow.
Re: Americans lose $50M to phone scams in the last year
#9That’s not a staggering number, to be honest.
Agreed, it's lower than I expected.
But I've heard multiple stories of people being scammed for large sums of money over the phone and they tell nobody outside their immediate family. It goes unreported. They're too embarrassed.
Re: Americans lose $50M to phone scams in the last year
#10My girlfriend was speaking to her father (mid-60s?) who was complaining about what a pain in the ass it was to get his new iPhone configured. He had called Apple support who would come the next day, but now he had to go to Wal-Mart to pickup the giftcards to pay for the service. Wait. What? So I guess he had Googled for iPhone support and got some bogus phone number. Aside from the potential monetary loss, the scary…
How are people so "gameable" (gullible)?
Tech support, from a big-name company no less, wanting to get paid in Walmart gift cards? Jesus fucking Christ, how can you believe that.