topic Re: Attempted Scams in Buying

Attempted Scams

finnf-3 — Wed, 18 May 2022 03:33:58 GMT

I have had a number of mobile calls today from various phone numbers from Adelaide to Queensland regarding a purchase I have suppose to have made on E Bay for $500.00. I have not made such purchase.

I called one of the numbers back without verifying any payment and the female person who my call said she was from Ebay Security and I must pay for the purchase. When I told her it was a scam and I will not be paying she said that the internet to Ebay would be cut off. I have not been cut off and I have changed my log in details.

I am posting this for Ebay Community hoping you will not get caught in this scam.

Best Wishes, Frank

Re: Attempted Scams

papermoon.lady — Wed, 18 May 2022 03:39:33 GMT

It is actually an old scam that has been going around for quite some time. Better not to answer an unknown number at all, or to hang up immediately.

Genuine eBay calls are also confirmed in a message they send.

Re: Attempted Scams

sandypebbles — Wed, 18 May 2022 03:43:27 GMT

Since you have called them back, expect to get a lot more calls than you already have

None of them will be real

These scams are as common as the day is long and have been posted about numerous times

Sadly some people still choose to ignore all the warnings

The same woman that phoned you likely told the next person they called they were from a bank/ Telstra/somewhere else other than eBay

Re: Attempted Scams

countessalmirena — Wed, 18 May 2022 04:12:28 GMT

Scammer call centres have employees trained to follow any one of numerous scripts purchased by the “boss”.

They will claim to be eBay, Amazon, Norton, PayPal, Telstra, the ATO, solar rebate, etc., etc.

NEVER call back.

DON’T ENGAGE.

Without realising it, you’ve already given the scammers a lot of information, and they will either use that information in a subsequent scam attempt, or they will on-sell that information to other scammer call centres in a bulk list.

TELL SCAMMERS NOTHING. Don’t confirm or deny that you have an eBay account. The more you argue with or engage with scammers, the more they know about you… and knowledge is money to them.

Re: Attempted Scams

jellybirddesigns — Wed, 18 May 2022 04:25:49 GMT

I won't answer any call from a number that is not in my contacts. Period.

If it a genuine issue, they will leave a message.

I get several calls a week from all sorts of numbers and funnily enough they never leave a message, but I'm sure if I answered them they would tell me they're from Ebay, ATO etc.

Please never, ever call back to talk to them - they're scammers! Why engage them at all???

My mother learned this the hard way, unfortunately and fell for a scam call from her "bank". Lost tens of thousands of $$$.

Re: Attempted Scams

*sons_and_daughters* — Wed, 18 May 2022 14:31:01 GMT

I was getting hammered with scam calls from ebay and Amazon for quite a few months. They seemed to have back off a bit now. For now. What I am getting hammered with now is scam text messages supposedly from Westpac. Of course, they want you to click on a link.

The other day I got a message, which was obviously a scam due to the atrocious spelling. Not 5 minutes later, I got that exact same message from the legitimate Westpac number. For the unknowing, when it comes up as a legitimate number, it would be tempting to click on the link (the message was saying my account had been blocked). The links themselves looked extremely dodgy, but for an older person, they could be quite concerned.

As for calls, I don't answer numbers I don't know. If it's important, they'll leave a message and I will call them back. I have had quite a few ebay and Amazon robocalls leave messages on my message bank. Bit hard to hit 1 in a voice message! They are very much robotic and automated.

Interestingly, a few months back now, Telstra said they had implemented bots to try to significantly cut down on scam calls and messages. Since that was introduced, my scams have gone through the roof! When the scammers are spoofing real numbers to use, the bots wouldn't know to block it because it's a real number.

Re: Attempted Scams

jellybirddesigns — Thu, 19 May 2022 06:13:14 GMT

This is what happened to my 76y/o mother - the scammers spoofed the bank number, which was actually in her phone as a genuine contact. They called her on a Friday afternoon and kept her on the phone for over 3 hours! She finally twigged that something was wrong and managed to get to a branch before they closed, but by then it was too late. She lost 60K and as a token of "goodwill" the bank gave her back just $15k about 4 months later.

The scammers tried calling her on and off for a few weeks afterwards with the same story, but by then she had learned her lesson.

On a side note, my father lost $250k in an email scam where the scammers cloned a similar address to his own email and then asked the accountant at his office to make a bank transfer, which she did without question as he is the owner. She didn't realise the emails were different.

Re: Attempted Scams

countessalmirena — Thu, 19 May 2022 08:42:27 GMT

The ruthlessness and remorselessness of scammers can't be overestimated.

They deliberately target the most vulnerable, and they won't feel sympathy or empathy if they know the person is on a low fixed income, has no other savings or resources, is disabled, is elderly, is mentally susceptible to being scammed; rather, those are check marks for an easy mark.

One of the more worrying things about scams now, though, is that some are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and are designed to fool the tech-savvy and the "careful". It's worth adding an extra dose of "careful" to one's morning coffee, and to regard even an apparently genuine email with a note of caution. It doesn't hurt to phone the person who is the purported emailer, just to double-check about any new or altered arrangements involving money or personal information - always using the phone number one already has.

Re: Attempted Scams

davewil1964 — Thu, 19 May 2022 09:48:23 GMT

I've had several over the last few weeks claiming to be about an Amazon purchase. I don't have an Amazon account. Maybe the scammers know something about how Amazon works. The only criterion I fit of those you listed is elderly, though.

I don't get emails (except for 'bank' ones that I only see if I check my spam folder), although I do get SMSs. Those have reduced since Telstra blocked the 'delivery' ones. So it seems they have decided phone calls are the way to go.

Re: Attempted Scams

domino-710 — Thu, 19 May 2022 10:01:05 GMT

I actually thought it very simple.

Don't connect over the phone - unless you personally have asked for a call - regarding any issue - know the issue being discussed.

It's a bit - don't call me - I'll call you.

How easy is it to just - hang up.

Re: Attempted Scams

davewil1964 — Thu, 19 May 2022 11:38:17 GMT

It is simple.

I don't get scammed, ergo the scammers fail in their attempts.

Re: Attempted Scams

countessalmirena — Thu, 19 May 2022 15:25:05 GMT

@davewil1964 wrote:
I've had several over the last few weeks claiming to be about an Amazon purchase. I don't have an Amazon account. Maybe the scammers know something about how Amazon works. The only criterion I fit of those you listed is elderly, though.

davewil, you’re the savvy type who isn’t likely to be scammed. By anyone. Even if you had a hundred Amazon accounts and the scammers claimed that your account had been fraudulently used to order stuff and they offered you a refund and before they’d even got to the bit about Anydesk.

Just to clarify for everyone reading this thread, the vulnerability criteria used by scammers is not for the “Give this one a try” (cold calling /cold texting / cold emailing) directory, but rather the “confirmed” list they create on their computers with comments about how easy it is to scam person N: weaknesses, blah blah, name of grandchildren, blah blah, trigger words, blah blah, credit card number, blah blah, bank account details, income or pension, days on which income/pension hits their account… because once they’ve identified a mark, they regard that mark as a golden goose. They can go back and re-scam; they can pretend to be an anti-scam government department or police force working to get back the scammed money; they can pass along the details to other scam centres using a different script…

Every part of the goose is wanted. Get the goose’s eggs every single time one is laid… and when there are no more eggs, wring the goose neck, pluck its feathers (pillow filling), roast that goose, render any fat, and don’t let even the gizzard go to waste. That’s the scammer mindset.

Re: Attempted Scams

sandypebbles — Fri, 20 May 2022 00:52:54 GMT

Another trouble is, there are some people who take the attitude 'a scammer would'nt try to scam me' (a good example is my ex)

He gets an email from his email service provider with a link to click because his account is in arrears (tells me he paid it, he better get onto them a tear them a new one)

I ask him if it a scam email

No, no, no, not him, nobody would try to scam mr. wonder

I ask him to give me a look at the email

Yeah, company has their own name spelled incorrectly

Point out that glaringly obvious factoid

"Oh they must have just made an innocent typo. blah blah blah"

I mean really 🙄

Re: Attempted Scams

papermoon.lady — Fri, 20 May 2022 01:30:08 GMT

@countessalmirena wrote:
The ruthlessness and remorselessness of scammers can't be overestimated.

They deliberately target the most vulnerable, and they won't feel sympathy or empathy if they know the person is on a low fixed income, has no other savings or resources, is disabled, is elderly, is mentally susceptible to being scammed; rather, those are check marks for an easy mark.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So true, Countess. An article about the most horrible scams I read some time ago (well, a few years ago) mentioned scammers who advertised ******* (I don't know if I can name it here, it is a substance used by some vets to euthanize sick pets) to suicidal, often terminal ill people, asking them to pay enormous sums with bitcoins (popular at the time) to buy it, and of course nothing ever arrived, so these terminally ill people were even deprived of their money in the last weeks of their lives.

Re: Attempted Scams

ratman0100 — Sat, 21 May 2022 07:13:00 GMT

OMG that is really disgusting on all fronts. They sure are a lower form of life.

Re: Attempted Scams

papermoon.lady — Fri, 03 Jun 2022 22:32:21 GMT

Who can really fall for this scam looking at the email address it comes from??? Or even words like "hold"?

I mean, honestly, scammers are bad, but if people weren't so gullible these scams would soon die. The reason why scams have been going on for so long is that scammers know how gullible some people are...

https://au.yahoo.com/finance/news/warning-to-millions-of-australia-post-customers-221246597.html

Re: Attempted Scams

fuschiapinkgirl — Wed, 13 Jul 2022 06:35:21 GMT

Not sure where to post this but I received an email supposedly from ebay

saying I was being billed for a gift card I did not purchase. I checked bank

balance & the money has not been taken out so I'm guessing it is a scam.

I did not know you can order gift cards from ebay either!