Community Newsletter: Q&A: Are they phishing over the telephone now?!
- 4/25/08 4:05 PM
phishing
by tallman167 - 4/19/08 5:51 PM In reply to: Are they phishing over the telephone now?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
The credit card scam has happened to me numerous times. I just hang up. The same with the insurance on your car warranty. I just hang up like you. What else can you do.
phishing
by dale leath - 4/19/08 6:17 PM In reply to: Are they phishing over the telephone now?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
i thought i was the only one getting those calls it is ridiculous i think it is just lazy cons out to rip off people as the law needs to cover the consumer as make this more of a crime than a slap on the wrist as for me i also had a comment i recently purchased a toshiba 65"dlp hdtv that is great but i noticed that they are not making dlp tv's any more just lcd well i think i got the last and best one i think just as they got it right they quit lol well as the gas goes up we had better watch out for all the little things now as next you get in car at mall to leave and notice you have no gas just a warning here hope i can be of help here as we get relaxed in the summer and times are tough..
Telephone Scammers
by Ponhook - 4/19/08 6:28 PM In reply to: Are they phishing over the telephone now?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I also am bothered with this type of nuisance. This is what I recommend.
Have telephone answering machine. Have Phone Caller ID. You can then see who is calling and if it is not familiar do not lift the receiver.
You should be generally aware of your legitimate callers. If the caller is legitimate the caller will leave a message. It is my the Scammers will not leave a message.
Unwanted phishing calls--my way of preventing/handling them
by roanna103 - 4/19/08 8:22 PM In reply to: Are they phishing over the telephone now?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
he easy answer is to simply screen your calls. I never pick up the phone when it is ringing unless I KNOW who is calling. Caller ID is quite often no help as far as identifying callers, so I always wait for the caller to identify themselves, and when I give someone my phone number for any reason I tell them I screen my calls and they just have to speak up and I will pick the phone up if I am at home. I have Comcast, and you can set it to reject unknown callers ... phone will ring but machine does not go on, caller ID shows only "unknown caller" with no number shown. I also have my phone set to answer after two rings. I have had no problem with the types of calls you mention since I trained myself to check caller ID as soon as I hear the phone ring. Those kinds of people do not leave messages.
Vishing: at least as dangerous as phishing!
by Agent00CR - 4/19/08 9:05 PM In reply to: Are they phishing over the telephone now?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I am glad that you are bringing this up, Judie, as this is definitely a very important topic. I commend you for this and for not responding to any of the voice phishing requests.
Vishing, as it is now called, is a combination of the words "voice" and "phishing". It specifically uses the technology known as VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). Advantages of using VoIP are relatively low costs compared to traditional phone service, especially when calling long distance, and easier capability of spoofing/masking numbers that appear on one's caller ID. Spoofed phone numbers often match legitimate customer service numbers of the financial institution vishers are trying to represent.
Because people are not as educated about vishing, it can be more dangerous than phishing; perhaps you could give lectures on phishing, but the practice of vishing and the term itself may seem foreign to many people. In other words: mysterious e-mail = bad; message heard with own ears = okay. Criminals are counting on ignorance and an increased trust of phone calls to steal financial information and thus people's identities.
What can we do? Spreading the word is the key. You can also file a complaint with the Internet Complaint Center (http://www.ic3.gov) if you believe that you have received a vishing message or are a victim of one.
Please treat all requests for any of your sensitive financial information with educated skepticism, as Judie did. I work for a bank and often legitimately need to discuss such information with my customers. Although my phone calls are smoother and quicker when my customers do not question my requests, I feel extremely uneasy when I sense that they are blindly trusting the caller with whom they are speaking. I would abide by my company's Privacy Policy whether or not it were established or even legally required, but my point is that some of my customers probably have little solid proof of my own employee identity (when I initiate a phone call) before divulging information to me.
Some of my wiser, more savvy customers question some of my requests, and I tell them with utmost sincerity and appreciation that I respect their need to verify my identity; likewise, I respect them as a customer more, and I never express any impatience with them for this (like I said, I commend such behavior). I provide my full name, contact information, and other relevant identifying information before asking them to call our customer service line or a known personal banker so that they can verify me and call me using our employee directory. My customers usually feel safe and satisfied afterwards, and we proceed with our business without issue; I, of course, only discuss sensitive information only to the extent that it is appropriate and necessary.
I highly recommend that all customers of financial institutions do this if they are cold-called regarding their account or a supposed legitimate application for an account (loan, etc.) and feel uncertain about the caller. If he or she does not sincerely commend you for your discretion and comply with your request, the employee may or may not be legitimate, but that employee certainly has much room for improvement when it comes to good customer service. Use your instincts before deciding to continue with the call, and do not feel guilty about hanging up if necessary.
Please note that vishing requests normally use recordings and text-to-speech messages, so the only interaction allowed is your voice or keypad entry of the requested information. Because you probably do not have any means of verifying the caller, do not hesitate to end the call if anything seems suspicious.
By the way, although much of my explanation here is my own, I cannot take full credit for the information. I Googled the word "vishing" for references to support my response, and found similar descriptions at Wikipedia and FBI.gov:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishing
http://www.fbi.gov/page2/feb07/vishing022307.htm
I recommend visiting these sites and doing your own research on Vishing if you need more information.
How to respond to those kind of phone calls
by Droid - 4/19/08 11:49 PM In reply to: Are they phishing over the telephone now?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I always respond to those pre-recorded calls by hanging up immediately. After all, if it's not important enough to speak to me in person, it's not worth listening either.
As for those callers who try to get your personal details - the clues are all there - they hardly ever know which car / credit card / bank account they are supposed to be discussing with you.
I have actually had phone calls from two real banks who wanted to confirm my customer details before they would tell me what they wanted. This seems like a really odd thing to do since after all, they called me so they knew who I was. My response was to request the 2nd and 4th digits of my password, which totally threw them and in both cases they suggested I call them back using the standard customer services number.
The bottom line is, be polite but tell them nothing & call them back. Don't use any phone number they give you!
answer for Judie
by gataone - 4/20/08 6:57 AM In reply to: Are they phishing over the telephone now?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have been getting these messages for some time also, and although isn't a very tech answer it works for me- I let my answering machine answer calls - my children ands friends know to start talking even when the message part is still playing. Phishers don't talk to answering machines, and after a few tries they give up.
phisy phone calls
by bluebery - 4/20/08 7:32 AM In reply to: Are they phishing over the telephone now?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Yes I have received these calls ALOT. especially the credit card one...I even tried to stay on for the real person and cut them off by saying to rfemove me from there call list. I was hung up on in mid sentence.
Another hum dinger I received was from the Houston jail. I accepted because i thought it was a family member who has an outstanding traffic ticket. Anyhow, the caller claimed to have gotten the wrong number, only recieve one call and was just picked up for a traffic warrant. The kicker was his child was with him and he needed to get ahold of a family member at work to pick the child up. He gave me the number but then said she was out in the feild and I would have to enter a certain extension to get her. I siad I would and hung up. I immediatley called the phone company and reported it. It was a common fraud phone call. The funny thing is that this man "who could only make 1 phone call" called back 2 more times that afternoon till I just picked up and refused the phone call.
Next Weeks Question on recorded messages
by MomboMan - 4/20/08 8:38 AM In reply to: Are they phishing over the telephone now?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have received these, mostly the car warranty variety. First, register your phone numbers with the NATIONAL DO NOT CALL list; www.donotcall.gov/. It takes 30 days or so to get into the system. After that, when you get these calls, either tell them directly that you are on the list and they are violating federal law if they don't stop, our simply check your caller ID and report the number to the registry as a violator.
Phishing over the phones now?!
by ggisby - 4/20/08 8:40 AM In reply to: Are they phishing over the telephone now?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Dear Judie, I am glad that you pointed out this issue. As a foreign student in a college in Virginia I have seen foreign friends passing their Credit Card information to somewhat kind of cheerful voice on the phone. Sadly today with the advance of e-shopping, where you can buy almost everything with so little information asked, it is not safe to buy on some good looking/good pricing web sites. And much more should we be aware of giving away any kind of information over the phone! For two main reasons I advise not to give information on the phone:
1- Banks, Credit Card and Car Insurances companies already have your information on their database, and if they want to confirm your person on the phone they usually ask for a harmless information, as such as birth-day, billing address, phone number (?!) and others.
2- Most of these companies advise you that they do not call to ask any personal information, or even passwords. If needed to communicate with you a mail is sent in advance with a phone number or another ways to contact.
The most important of all is to you to verify the credibility of the information. Is it really time to renew you car insurance? Is your Credit Card really having problems? And if it is time to do so consider calling the numbers that are listed on your documents. And give them the information of those who are calling you, and they will verify their credibility and take the proper decisions to stop it.
Phreaky phone phishers
by sarasvatia - 4/20/08 9:49 AM In reply to: Are they phishing over the telephone now?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Ask yourself this: if a total stranger came up to you on the street with those questions, would you oblige them with an answer? If you wouldn't, why would you consider giving the phone phrauds your time and attention.
No, I don't get those calls anymore, b/c I no longer have a landline. I have Grand Central (grandcentral.com) which offers a boat-load of faboo features (http://www.grandcentral.com/support/howitworks). For example, you can assign the 3-tone sound with "out of service" message to annoying callers, or simply block the latters' numbers. All you end up with is calls you want or need.
I have been without a landline for 4 years and managed quite well. Since Grand Central, I don't see why anyone would even need a landline.
By the way GC's website is one of the best designed, easiest to read and to follow among all the websites I have visited. Even better, if you have a question, comment or suggestion, their customer service is outstanding. The only thing I regret is following GC's advice re Gizmo, whose sound quality sucks big time and their customer service is unhelpful on their best day.
Yep...me too!
by BridgetW - 4/20/08 11:21 AM In reply to: Are they phishing over the telephone now?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I'm amazed at the creativity of those seeking to sell, scam, con, etc. I too have recently had the calls about holding on to discuss my credit card (I have exactly zero credit cards, so I just hung up). You can sign up for the "do not call" list through your phone company. Most unwanted calls are avoided by signing up, however, you may still get some. I will NEVER hold when I answer the phone and say "hello" and a computer tells me to hold! You're calling me and you have the nerve to me on hold? I don't think so! And if you think it really is a call concerning a credit card (or auto, or whatever) that you currently DO have, then they should already have ALL of your information. If they don't, then they are misrepresenting themselves. NEVER NEVER NEVER give out ANY personal information, unless you are the one initiating the call. And even then, certain things are still off-limits (in my opinion), such as giving my social security number. I don't even like to give it to my own bank when I'm in person discussing my account. The amount of fraud these days is so overwhelming that it makes sense to err on the side of caution.
On another note, our local newspaper recently ran an article about credit card theives who aren't stealing numbers...they are using computers to randomly select groups of 16 digit numbers in hopes of hitting a real one. Now that's scary!
similar experience and searched for it on google
by Frits - 4/20/08 12:29 PM In reply to: Are they phishing over the telephone now?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
This a similar experience. I searched the number on internet, and see what turned up:
http://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/4012445875
My name is fishfrog (between the reactions on this whocallsme site)
The number was 4012445875. Try google this number and you'll find more "Who calls me" sites.
Later on they tried another time, first double checking my surname and name, then telling they were from the APC power company ore somithing like that. I should heve attended a congres or so. All conversation in English! (I live in a Dutch speaking country). When I started asking questions about that congres they hang up.
Do Not Reply
by nate01pa - 4/20/08 1:14 PM In reply to: Are they phishing over the telephone now?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
The phishers have cast their lines in a different pool because more and more people are getting wise to email attempts. But the advice is the same: DO NOT REPLY.
1. Make sure you are on the Do Not Call List. Violators can be hit with a healthy fine if they are actually traceable.
2. Always use an answering machine even if you are sitting next to the phone. Don't rely on telephone-company supplied voice mail. You can listen to the message without even picking up the phone.
phishing phone calls
by rcrazied - 4/20/08 6:06 PM In reply to: Are they phishing over the telephone now?! by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I too keep receiving the warranty one and don`t have a warranty on my vehicle since I bought it 2nd hand.I too have been very concernd also I keep getting these programs that they put some kind of voice mail on my phone and just add the bill to my phone bill without my approval.How can they do this...I`ve also had to put a block on my cell phone they would send me a text and give you a few min.to respond and if you don`t respond,right away they automatically give you this program that costs 9.99 a month.If anyone can figure out what gives them the right to do these things and how we can keep track oof all this let me know as once it took 3 months before I found that I had a differnt charge on my phone bill besides taxs that i don`t understand to begin with...
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