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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?

#291

Post by SapporoChris »

aaaaaaaaata wrote: post #285
AgentME wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Agreed, Call forwarding on busy or no answer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_forwarding Looks easy to set up and could easily be missed on the phone bill.

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

#292

Post by mormegil »

glogla wrote: post #279
nsenifty wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why the 2FA texts don't clearly state what the intent of the code is? Something on the lines of "you or someone tried to create a new Google voice number. Please enter this code xyz on the form to proceed".

Around here all banks that used SMS for 2FA did that. You'd get sms detailing the transaction - whether it's log in, transfer or anything. In case it is a transfer, the text included the amount and destination account. Everyone mostly went to "authentication apps" now but those still show what are you confirming. Not sure why it is not a common practice.

Yes, this is called WYSIWYS (what you see is what you sign) and I suffer whenever I receive a confirmation code saying absolutely nothing. However, when _you_ write the code to some trusted web app, there is that context, at least. But reading the code to some random person on the phone? No way!

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

#293

Post by 01acheru »

WHA8m wrote: post #282
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?

Not OP but once a spammer called me when some long stuff had just started building and I was just sitting there watching the logs, fixing some random stuff on the fly, rebuilding and so on. I stayed with them on the phone for something like 40 minutes, after a while they started getting more "violent" until they abruptly hung up when it was crystal clear I was pranking them.

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

#294

Post by coldpie »

cinntaile wrote: post #133
deepspace wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would the motivation be for anyone to reply to a text from an unknown person? I have also been getting these for months, in it was 100% obvious from the get-go that it must be a scam. I have never felt the slightest urge to reply.

I got a peculiar msg the other day from a number I didn't recognize. "Hey dude, Are you good? Do you still live in X?" Turns out it was an old friend that I hadn't heard from in a few years!

I've gotten two messages in the past month of the form "Hi, is this ?" from unknown numbers. There's a chance they're real acquaintances, but the likelihood of them just being spam finding my name & number in some online database is too high that I haven't responded. If they were real acquaintances, I guess they would tell me who they are, right? Dunno, feels weird.

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

#295

Post by dtgriscom »

nsenifty wrote: post #246
noveltyaccount wrote: post #131

Related. I listed something for sale on Craigslist recently and got a bunch of messages right away that asked obvious questions that were in the listing. One suggested that his wife pick it up, and can I take Zelle? Went silent when I said cash only. But the most interesting scammer said: "for my safety, can I send you a 6-digit number, and you confirm it, so I know the listing is not fake?" I say yes, unsure what th…

I don't understand why the 2FA texts don't clearly state what the intent of the code is? Something on the lines of "you or someone tried to create a new Google voice number. Please enter this code xyz on the form to proceed".

It's probably a fine line between "brief and readable" and "detailed but people cut to the chase and get burned".

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

#296

Post by nijave »

walrus01 wrote: post #59
eropple wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phone numbers have the same problem as email, though: because "everyone" is responsible, no one is responsible. The deluge of spam texts and calls to my public phone number is genuinely unpleasant and frustrating to deal with as, like, a person living in the world . I practically don't use email anymore for those reasons, and a phone number hangs around only because right now I can't not have one for legal-type reaso…

email, at least, you can fully implement your own antispam solution in whatever way you want at one extreme, you can just point the mx records for your domain at office365 or gsuite or similar and let them handle it at the other extreme, you can point the mx records at your own mailserver you admin yourself and do absolutely anything you want with the incoming smtp mail flow for antispam measures, sorting, filtering,…

There's still a little bit of control near the client end with things like call screening and phone apps that checks numbers against a database. You can't reject the initial connection (like DNS blocklists) but it's still something

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

#297

Post by fortran77 »

raverbashing wrote: post #254
deepspace wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would the motivation be for anyone to reply to a text from an unknown person? I have also been getting these for months, in it was 100% obvious from the get-go that it must be a scam. I have never felt the slightest urge to reply.

[flagged]

I’m a boomer. I don’t reply at all to any message from someone I don’t know. How dare you mock people simply because of their age.

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

#298

Post by fortran77 »

cultofmetatron wrote: post #157
wpietri wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Scamming people outside Israel was legal in Israel at the time. My head just exploded here. I think I need to go lie down. Please nobody tell the Florida legislature about this.

Quoted post unavailable.

This is an outrageous untruth.

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

#299

Post by notRobot »

nlnn wrote: post #290
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…

Lmao, those are hilarious!

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

#300

Post by chefandy »

WHA8m wrote: post #282
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?

About half an hour. Earlier I had seen a video on YouTube of someone just driving through a city I was considering moving to— just car sounds. So I told the guy to stay on the line while I was I was driving to Walmart to buy gift certificates because it was only a 3 or 4 minute drive and kept being like "oh damnit... I took another wrong turn" every now and then. Eventually he heard me typing and hung up.
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