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Scammers Using Do-Not-Call List For Identity Theft
from the that-can't-be-good dept
A woman in Arizona apparently received a phone call from a bunch of scammers soon after putting her father's phone number on the federal "do not call" list. From the description, it sounds like a traditional identity theft scam. She received a phone call from someone claiming to be Arizona Attorney General's Office and the "Arizona Federal Trade Commission" (which should have set off alarm bells already - how is it "federal" if it's Arizona?). Then, he asked the woman to verify the information she put into the do not call database, but said in order for her to be able to sue telemarketers who violated the list, she needed to give them her bank account info. The woman quickly realized it was a scam. The more interesting question, though, is how these scammers got her information out of the do-not-call database? It's possible it was a coincidence, but the timing suggests not. Some are wondering if they hacked into the database to get the info. Of course, another possibility is that they set themselves up as a secret middleman. They could have set up some sort of website that looked just like the FTC's, but is slightly different, and waited for someone to go there by accident. Then, they just take that info and use it to make their scam phone calls.
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Low Tech?
Isn't it also possible that based on the high percentage of response to the Don't-Call list that they are just calling people at random from the phone book and asking if this is the person who signed up?
A certain percentage will say no and hang up.
A certain percentage will say yes, realize it's a scam and hang up
A certain percentage will say yes, not realized it's a scam and give up the information.
A certain percentage will say no, "but since we've got you on the phone, would you like to register, and if so, give us your bank account info".
It's those last two groups of people that make us all shake our heads and wonder what is wrong with them.
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Do-Not-Call list publicly available
Isn't the Do-not-call list publicly available. ie. how would the telemarketers know not to call a number if that information was not available to them ?
Just curious
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