Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Suspicious activity on your Social Security Number! Really?

Already These Fools Have Called Me Six Times Today!

Rapacious phishers want to score your social security number and possibly banking information.  But not mine; I'm wise to their game.   

They believe if they call enough times, perhaps the recipient will become anxious and frightened.  If so, it's likely that person will take action and attempt to call Social Security Administration.  

But if one tried to call today, I'd bet the SSA phone lines are bombarded trying to reassure fearful folks.  

Once you become so anxious, unable to speak with someone at SSA, that just plays into the scammers game.  The next time they call, it's easy to just Press One to get hooked into their favorite sport.  Be it identity theft or some other twisted racket, beware of major consequences.

Robo-Bot Dials for Your Dollars  

I listened to the robotic male voice.  His message seems to have been written by a non-native English speaker.  Who knows, it could be a communistic plot, there's so many these days.  Is is China, North Korean, or Russia?  I wish I could say.  Here's the voice mail message transcribed: 
" .....case just press one thank you. This call is from the department of social security administration. The reason you have received this phone call from our department is to inform you that we just suspend [sic] your social security number because we found some suspicious activity. So if you want to know about this case just press one thank you. "

Toll-Free Phishers

Maybe you think they are legitimate if they have a toll free number.  It's easier than you think to score a toll free number.  Frankly I have two.  Today's list of toll free numbers used by these crafty little bots.  
  • 888 810-0927
  • 888 810-0917
  • 888 810-0922
  • 888 815-0011
  • 888 815-0014

Urgent: Quick Tip

The clue to avoid falling for this or any other phisher is because they want you to believe it is so urgent that you won't give it a second thought.  It's precisely how very smart folks fall prey to pressing matters.  It's the rush to fix.  So they don't pause to consider that the information is coming from a random, unreliable source.  Be alert, be diligent. 

Do more than pray that you don't fall prey.  Checkout the source.  All I did was do an internet search for one of those numbers to discover it was previously identified as "Unsafe Caller." 

Why Doesn't Congress Act? 

Right now the FTC has a useless "Do Not Call" registry.  Congress should outlaw all automatic dialers.  But, no.  Our congressmen cling to this technology for their own purposes.  

It's OK for them to use robotics to call you to get out the vote or ask you to participate in a survey, or provide "information" as to why we should care about their particular platform. Hey, You there in Washington, how about legislating penalties upon service providers.  I'd suggest a 100K fine for each incidence of deceptive information transmitted for the sole purpose of fraud.