Comments on: This is a public service announcement

By: neo

neo — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 03:39:18 +0000

Michael Riley:

Calling the bank number would contact the actual bank – but I’m not sure that doing a return call to the most recent call number would work. Just to be certain, it would probably be best to dial the bank phone number as a new number.

By: neo

neo — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 03:36:47 +0000

Catherine:

Wow.

By: R2L

R2L — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 03:36:44 +0000

charles on October 28, 2025 at 3:58 pm:
“… what I did convince her to say was “I don’t handle my finances, my sons do that for me.” ”
That sounds like a pretty good solution.
But I had the thought that perhaps even better would be: “I don’t handle my finances anymore, my 12 year old computer savvy grandson does that for me”. The message being if you are a scammer you might fool me but you definitely would not fool him, and he is only 12, to boot!!
🙂

By: Selfy

Selfy — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 02:36:57 +0000

In case my previous post was unclear, I do think the call from the Indian-sounding gent (sounded like a call center also, IIRC) was legit, although with number spoofing you never know. I didn’t give him any info (I’m quite suspicious) and IIRC he didn’t ask for any.

Also I remember the first time years ago when another south Asian left a message on my answering machine that I owed the IRS money and an “officer” was on his way to arrest me. One never wants to hear that, so I was initially concerned until I thought about it. Now I just laugh at email like that which I receive.

By: Selfy

Selfy — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 02:11:54 +0000

A couple years ago I got a call from “[major US bank which I have an account with] Security Department”. The caller had an Indian accent and asked me if a particular charge on my debit card was legit. [IIRC it was.] I happened to be not far from a branch of the bank, so I went there and the man who helped me checked my account and said it was OK, and the phone number from the call was legit. He also recommended using a credit card instead of a debit card for purchases, since it’s safer and you can earn points.

I blocked two numbers (one incoming and one outgoing) for the bank on my phone, and only accept calls from one number now (although they never call me.)

Hope this doesn’t muddy the water too much. 🙂 Thank you Neo for this heads-up!

By: Dwaz

Dwaz — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 00:33:24 +0000

Early this year I received a call late one night at work purporting to be from the Sheriff’s department. Supposedly I had ignored a jury duty notice and unless I paid now (I can’t recall the method, but it wasn’t gift cards heh) I would have a warrant out against me come morning. American accent for sure.

By: Catherine

Catherine — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 00:14:49 +0000

About a year ago I received a voice mail msg (I never answer the phone if not a known contact) – said he was officer somebody with the county sheriff’s office. Asked for me by name, said he just had some questions. I looked up the sheriff’s # – was the same as shown on my phone. I dialed directly rather than redialing. The officer who answered had the same voice as the message – and said he had not called – this was a scam call, they’d had a number of them. Glad I didn’t just redial – clearly they spoofed the #, as well as sampling the voice —

By: Michael Riley

Michael Riley — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 23:08:16 +0000

Just a thought, when he saw that the number matched what the bank had on its website, instead of picking up the call, had he initiated a call to that number, wouldn’t it have gone to the actual bank?

By: TommyJay

TommyJay — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 22:15:25 +0000

There was the ambient sounds of a call center,…

That’s always a red flag. Dozens of people in the background yammering on phones.

By: Sgt. Mom

Sgt. Mom — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 22:05:57 +0000

I damn near got taken by one of these calls, about three years ago – my bank CC had been used for fraudulent charges by someone who wasn’t me a couple of times, so I was almost convinced when I assumed the caller was from my bank calling back to verify. These slimeballs are so very good at spoofing local numbers.
We’ve set up my phone now that it goes to the message if the caller is not among my list of contacts. I’m sure that I’ve missed a couple of genuine clients that way … but the spam calls were coming thick and fast – four in one morning alone.
I hope that Trump’s justice department gets around to really cracking down on these slimes, even if they are in foreign countries … and yes, Joe, we have noticed that an unusually large number of these scammers do have an Indian accent … and that most of them are really not adept in colloquial American English.
I’m a bit sorry for anyone with an Indian accent who is genuinely working a non-spam, non-scummy enterprise where they deal with the public, but I’m afraid most of us hearing that accent hang up even before they can get three words out.