Courier scam call?
TSasha Smith
Posts: 27,346
in The Commons
My brother said he got a call from someone claiming to be a courier trying to get a hold of me. How would the scammers get my brother's cell number?
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Comments
even if it was legit why would they have his #?
was the number ever associated with your address?
did they ask for you by name?
when anyone states they are authorized to make a charge on your credit card "end in xxxx" ask them what it starts with. Likely they have no idea, becuase they just those last 4 which can be obtained by some rudimentary data mining.
If a company is using proper credit card data security, the agent may not be able to see anything but the last 4 digits.
Debt collectors looking for someone with your name, or close to it. Checking property records, auto license records, if they can't get your number trying everying in your area with the same last name hoping for a lucky hit.
If they call back, have your brother ask for their number, business name and address. If they're legit, they'll provide them. Or if his phone has their number saved, type it onto a search program complete with dashes and see what comes up.
Is your brother's number on your computer or in your contact list that you have saved on the 'cloud' somewhere?
It sounds like harassment from a private citizen that's gotten your personal information somehow. I once had a person that had to be a person from an internet forum (I know what forum and who it is to file charges should they try again) call the local public library and reserve a book in my name. Of course when the library called me to tell me they had the book I knew nothing about it as I hadn't even been to the library in a year and had no interest in the topic of the book they reserved in my name.
Really though, you shouldn't be bringing your legal troubles or security troubles to an internet forum. You should be taking security matters to the police and for the legal troubles if you can't afford a lawyer you should look in your county or urban area for lawyers that do limited types of work on a charity basis for the poor. You usually still have to pay some out of pocket but the rest of the expenses are covered by the charitable organization.
And once again the internet is rife with SW that trolls, pirates, and various criminal organizations use to rifle through private, public, and business computers. You should really watch where you get SW and even images, 3D models, tutorial PDFs, and quite a few other things. It doesn't have to be blantantly obvious - I've gotten my browser hijack just by clicking a link near the top of Google search results and from the well know SourceForge they had in the last couple of years cases of popular free SW being replaced by trojan SW or the original SW hijacked to harbour trojans, spyware, and so on.
I only brought it up to figure out what to tell my mum and my brother. My mum has been getting similar harrasment calls except for her. They say they will go to her place of work (but she works from home)
While some companies may prevent a rep from seeing the who # the point was that those last 4 can be obtained by someone living in a dumpster with a discarded cell phone and picking up wi-fi from the Pump 'n Munch across the street. They are absurdly easy to obtain and very often a common component to add "legitimacy" to a confidence scheme to obtain the rest of the card by asking you to verify the entire number.
Mrs. Penguin, We have been authorized to make charges for your credit card ending 4321, if this is a mistake can you verify the card for me and the name that appears on it so I can reverse those charges?
This is why this scam is a $4,000,000,000,000.00 industry.
There are ways on the internet to buy such numbers in bulk, often along with other data. I've even heard of call centers of rather reputable companies doing such a thing. It's illegal of course, at least in my country.
There's not much you can do about it, unfortunately. Just be very careful with any kind of calls you receive of people you don't know + plus always remember that no one has something to offer for free 99.999% of the time and 100% when they're at the phone or at your door. ;)
Plus, be careful who you give which data. And never upload someone else' data without their permission. E.g. to let facebook access your mailbox (and thereby extract your addressbook) or share your phonebook with apps is a very classy one.
About what others do with your data you shared with them, there's not much you can do about it. When you give data away, which you have to do here and there, you lose control of it. Some of it will end up in the wild and then you might get calls like this, or worse.
Just curious: Are both, you and your brother listed in a (+the same) phonebook or something like this? He even with his mobile number? That would be an easy explanation.
Well it still is a fact a lawyer or the police will have to solve this for you. I'm or anyone here is not familiar enough with the laws of your jurisdiction but I do know that most jurisdictsions forbid the types of calls you are receiving except during certain hours of the day and they must not threaten you in any way. Bankruptcy is not transferrable. Your mother and your brother can never be held accountable for you legally and that includes your financial debts, even if you were or are bankrupt or headed in that direction. Such 'collection businesses' are not the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of any government and have absolutely no rights to enforce, change, or interpret the law. Other businesses, that are trying to call you to take out loans or transfer loans are lower interest or buy extra 'extended' warrantees for your car(s) or other properties are simply scam artists trying to take advantage of your perceived naivity. Legitimate credit offers will come via post, they don't call you. While they can lead to bankruptcy too they aren't the scam artists that these 'businesses' calling you are.
How do I block "No Caller ID" numbers on iOS 10 on 6s? I just got a call from "No Caller ID" and I hate it.
Based on no knowledge at all, you cannot block an unknown number, but you may be able to blanket decline all calls made from a withheld number. However, if your country is anything like the UK that'd also likely include establishments like hospitals and doctors.
Or (a quick search showed) there are Apps out there which might help.
I am looking into changing my numbers.
I was advised not to answer any calls from unknown numbers and if I do answer ask to have everything in writing.
I have VoIP from Time-Warner Cable and blocking 'Unknown Numbers' is as simple as configuring it in there online VoiceZone website. The problem is these VoIP Virtual PBXes easily spoof fake caller identification, even using real people's names and even using your Area Code and the city branch exchange of your telephone number to trick you into trusting them. I've even gotten calls from 000-000-0000 before as both the caller ID and the calling number. And once my own phone number was reported as the calling number and my real name as the caller ID.
You should change your number and if you can afford it have it privately listed. Also, then you could buy a very cheap mobile phone for your glove box in your car for emergencies and buy a prepaid plan for t-mobile and anytime an business asks for your number give them that number of your mobile in your glove box. You don't want to use a number that will get someone else harassed so a prepaid mobile number of a phone that is almost always turned off is the best way to waste their time without you wasting your time or anybody else's.
I might still do all that myself but those calls are about done with and I know not to answer them. It is costly to do that though.
I just got a voice mail from an unknown source threatening me with some scary nonsense. I put the number into Google and found it was the same number as the courier scam. What really annoys me is they will not say their company's name or who has this problem with me. I want whatever they are threatening me with written down on paper. I am not talking to anyone on the phone about these issues.
99.99% of the time nobody actually has anything concrete (or even imagined) to threaten you with...it's a scam, pure and simple.
It's simple, you change your number & pay to have it unlisted.
Hmmm, doing a search on Google.com about courier & scam tells me you should check your banking, credit card, PayPal, and online accounts where you store your information. Someone has definitely breached an online database, gotten your private information, and is using your information to harass and possibly defraud you.
You need to try and stop them from doing that.
After you do that, you need to choose a different password for a site like DAZ 3D than for your credit card company as you don't know how DAZ 3D is storing your private information or how the credit card company is storing your information. In each case pick a long difficult password and don't write in down anywhere electronically except when you set your password or login.
Unfortunately there is little you can do about your username but it your usernames for financial accounts should not match each outher or DAZ or Amazon or so on.
Finally, even with a difficult password there are business servers that get breeched quite often by criminals and your difficult password is not a deterant in such cases.