Category: Telephone

Vishing

I didn’t think we needed a specific term for scam phone calls, but here we are. Following in the footsteps of smishing and quishing, we also have the term vishing. Vishing is another portmanteau, created from voice + phishing. When you see or hear about vishing, they’re referring to any phishing/cybercrime carried out over the phone or through other verbal means.

Vishing Examples

You may know of some of these vishing scenarios already, but they’re worth rehashing. Some of these employ live human voices, while others might use recorded messages or even AI-generated speech.

  • Big Tech Impostor: An important technology company calls to urge you into action. The call may claim to be from Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, etc., and they may claim your account has been compromised or your data has been stolen. Others calls seem to come from Norton, McAfee and the like, where they state your PC is infected, or you are due some special refund. These calls often become a remote control scam.
  • Big Merchandise Impostor: Most of us place orders with Amazon or Wal*Mart, but that doesn’t mean they’ll call you out of the blue. Calls announcing that your shipment has been lost or damaged, will probably morph into a refund-based scam.
  • Pretending to Be Your Bank: Is that call really coming from your bank, or is it an impostor. Be suspicious if the person on the phone wants your PIN, or a texted code or anything else sensitive from you.
  • Television/Broadcast/Satellite Impostors: Xfinity, Dish, DirecTV and more are commonly impersonated on calls offering discounts and refunds.
  • The Grandparent Scam: Vishers call their victims, trying to pass themselves off as young relatives in trouble. Even worse, this scam is changing to employ AI-generated voices that sound very convincing. Family members report receiving calls that claim someone dear to them has been kidnapped.
  • Police Department/Court Systems/IRS Threats: If you need to pay your taxes, settle a court order or be arrested, a government employee will not call you to take payment over the phone. But these vishing efforts succeed everyday, because people are often afraid of these entities coming to their doors.

Advice & Notes about Vishing

vishing
  • Most vishing calls use Caller ID spoofing, to make them more convincing. Please remember that Caller ID is not always truthful.
  • Do not harass or aggress a caller, if you figure out they are a scammer. In rare instances, the cybercrook will respond by swatting their victim. Just hang up on them.
  • Some vishing calls originate from your trash. A crook may harvest an account number or some other PII after doing a little dumpster diving. I recommend you shred all sensitive paperwork before you dispose of it.
  • If you haven’t put your number on the National Do Not Call Registry, now’s the time. It won’t solve your telemarketing call problems, but it might decrease the unwanted calls coming in.
  • Let all unknown callers roll to voicemail. Do not answer mystery callers.
  • Some vishers look to leave a voicemail message about an urgent situation. They may use tools that send their call directly to your voicemail inbox! The recording will state a phone number to call, but that will typically just connect you to the scammers. Do not call these crooks back!
  • Don’t speak to a robocall or any suspicious caller. Some experts worry that talking on a recorded line may make it easier for a crook to steal your spoken words to create voice-mimickry used in their next vishing calls.
  • Vishing calls are getting better everyday, and you may find yourself on a call that you can’t figure out. If you’re feeling torn, hang up the phone! Call the company back, using a number you can trust, either from a printed invoice in your possession, or from their website.

Caller ID Spoofing

Caller ID spoofing, or phone number spoofing, is important to understand. If you’re not familiar with this practice, let me explain:

Caller ID Is Fallible

When you receive a phone call, most phones display some identification about the inbound call. You may see:

  • First Name, Last Name, Area Code and Phone Number
  • Business Name, Area Code and Phone Number
  • Private
  • Unknown Caller

You need to know: The info shown on your Caller ID can be altered. Both the number and the name on your Caller ID display could be inaccurate or untrue. It is easy and often free for someone to change (spoof) their Caller ID info.

Legality

Phone call spoofing, as a practice, is legal in our country. But using spoofing to defraud or cause harm is illegal. If this gives you some pause, if you’re wondering why spoofing is legal at all, consider some possible legitimate uses:

  • Law enforcement may need to alter their identity as they investigate crimes.
  • Collections agents might spoof their Caller ID info so that a debtor won’t avoid their calls.
  • A doctor or counselor may spoof their number when calling a patient to maintain a crucial level of privacy.
  • Friends might use Caller ID spoofing for pranking each other, without causing harm.

Scammers!

Of course, the main point of this post is to talk about scams, and make you alert to them. Scammers love to use Caller ID spoofing when they call their potential victims. They know that people tend to believe what they read, especially when it flashes by quickly. Robocallers and spammers also use phone spoofing, but the biggest danger is from scams like these:

  • Caller ID shows the name of a US Court System or the IRS, and the caller says you need to pay off your fine/charges now, or be incarcerated.
  • Apple/Microsoft/Amazon/Facebook Support shows on the Caller ID, and a robocall tells you that your account has had suspicious activity on it. Press 1 to be connected to an agent who will help (steal) your account.
  • Your bank shows on the Caller ID, and they are calling to reset your PIN and password, as someone has tried to hack into your accounts.

To be absolutely clear, the above examples are scams. The IRS, Microsoft, your bank, etc. are NOT going to call you for account changes or payments. Please hang up if you ever answer a call like these!

Scams of all kinds use spoofing to make their calls show the same area code and exchange as your number. This is called Neighbor Spoofing. They make their number look very close to your number, so that you think it is someone local to you and might answer more quickly.

It is also possible for someone to spoof your exact phone number. This can be done to confuse you and get you to answer. But it can also be done to deflect blame to you. If you ever get angry calls from other people, telling you to stop with the spam calls, understand that a bad actor may be using your number in their spoofing scheme.

How to Defend Against Call Spoofing

You’re doing it right now. Maintaining awareness that Caller ID is not to be trusted is the best defense against Caller ID spoofing. After that, you can consider some extra tactics:

  • Talk to your phone provider and see if they offer/recommend any particular call screening options or apps with spoofing protection.
  • Put your phone number on the National Do Not Call Registry.
  • Don’t answer unfamiliar numbers. Let every unexpected mystery call roll to voicemail.
  • Report persistent spoofing problems to your phone carrier and/or the police.

Do Not Harass a Phone Scammer

I just saw some really bad advice on Reddit. Someone suggested that when you take a call from a scammer, you should put some effort into complaining, to waste their time and convince them to not call anymore. Please do not do this.

The chance of you convincing a scammer to change their deceitful ways is fairly close to zero. No one will remove you from their scammer call list, and in fact, they may deliberately pass your info around to other scam-call companies. There is no version of this phone call where you gain anything of value from it. But also, there is a small risk of danger.

In rare instances, a scammer may swat their victim. Swatting is when someone reports a fake emergency to the police, that targets a victim and their residence. The swatter may lie about a bomb threat or a domestic situation, leading police to speed to the scene. I will state the obvious here: You do not want the police coming to your door, weapons at ready, prepared for a violent situation.

Swatting is rare, but it does happen. Some scammers are just that evil, and secure in the thought that they cannot be tracked down. So the safest thing to do in the face of a scam phone call is to simply hang up, without further comment.

Preserving a Voicemail Message

Let’s say you have a special voicemail message. Maybe it’s critical to a lawsuit you’re involved with. Or perhaps it’s a precious memory from a long-lost friend. If it’s important to you, then it needs to be protected! Don’t take your voicemail for granted, as it can be deleted or lost, like computer data.

If you have a valuable voicemail on your smartphone, please know that you can copy it to other locations, and then back it up. Here are some possibilities:

iPhone users: Tap on a voicemail, and then look for the Share button (looks like a box with an arrow pointing out of it). Tap that Share button to find a wealth of options. You should be able to copy the voicemail to Notes, Voice memos, or even attach it to an email message.

Android users: Tap on a voicemail and look down low for a Send To… option. Tap this to reveal choices for saving the recording to Google Drive, attaching it to a text message or sending it along in an email.

If you don’t see a Send To… option on your Android device, play the voicemail all the way through to the end, and then check again. If your phone still doesn’t offer that option, tap or tap-and-hold on the voicemail and look for pop-up options like Save or Save to Phone.

My preference is to email the audio message as an attachment. Creating an email is an easily-saved item, but also, the attachment is usually a universal MP3 file, which can later be downloaded, saved to a computer, backed up to another drive or shared with any other computer user.

Safeguarding a voicemail sent to a landline is a different ball of wax. Every telephone company is different from the next. Comcast, for example, allows for voicemail web access if you are an Xfinity Voice customer, and you can download/save voicemail files from their website. Shentel, on the other hand, offers no voicemail backup tools. If this becomes important to you, contact your specific provider to ask what is possible with their phone service. Or consider making a re-recording using another device, as described in this article.

DSL Troubleshooting

An ISP in Wales recently solved their town-wide DSL problem by locating and disconnecting a resident’s old TV. It’s an extreme example of a common problem with DSL service: DSL signal is very touchy and vulnerable to interference. And that interference can be caused by so many different things along your phonelines. If you have persistent DSL problems, here’s some troubleshooting info for you:

  • Connect your DSL modem’s phoneline directly to the wall jack. Only use the phone cable provided with the modem by your ISP. That phone cable from the dollar store or that line that came with your fax machine may not be an adequate replacement.
  • Do NOT route the modem’s phoneline through a surge protector. Avoid connecting the modem’s phoneline to duplexers or splitters or couplers, unless directed by your ISP. If possible, eliminate splitters and couplers elsewhere in the house.
  • Disconnect old fax machines, answering machines and rotary telephones elsewhere in your house. Really, anything attached to a phone jack in your home could be offending your DSL modem. If your DSL behaves better after detaching some of these devices, you can reconnect them one at a time to figure out which is to blame.
  • All other devices connected to your phonelines must run through DSL filters. These filters are typically supplied by your ISP — call them if you need some! An unfiltered device can upset your DSL modem, even from across the house. Your DSL modem should not be filtered, unless your ISP supplied you with a special duplexer for attaching both a modem and a phone to the same jack. That sort of dongle is actually filtered on one side (for a phone) and unfiltered on the other (for your modem).

Also, make sure not to stack your DSL modem on top of your router or any other electronics. Stacking can lead to overheating, which causes frequent outages until the modem is totally cooked!

Each time you make a change or improvement to your wiring, reboot your modem. But do NOT use any hard-to-reach Reset button, unless directed by your ISP. If you use the Reset button (usually by inserting a toothpick into a hole on the rear of the modem), you may erase important settings and make your situation worse.

If all else fails, it may be time get a new modem. Besides normal wear and tear, DSL modems degrade due to power surges that travel over the phone lines. I recommend you go to your ISP for your replacement modem, to ensure that they support you with any future issues.

The Thank-You-for-Your-Purchase Scam

thank you for your purchase scam

A common email scam starts with a message, stating you made a purchase, when you truly didn’t. The Thank-You-for-Your-Purchase Scam may appear to come from Microsoft or any number of well-known companies. Click here or here to view some examples of this scam.

$500 for “Microsoft Windows Defender Firewall Online”? Many people will miss that that doesn’t make much sense, nor does the From: address. The panic from an unwanted $500 credit card charge often causes people to jump for the phone, but please don’t call or respond to this message! Also do not click any links inside the email. Remain calm and recognize this for the ploy that it is.

The bad guys want you to pick up the phone and dial that shady number. They want you to ask for a refund, because once you ask for anything, they’ll try to manipulate and feed you more false info. If the caller cooperates, they stand to lose a lot of money through remote control trickery. And if a caller wises up and ends the phone call, the cybercriminals will snag the phone number from their CallerID. They inevitably share that info with other scammers, which leads to more scam calls later on.

It’s best to disregard this email, if you get it. Just delete it. If you need further peace of mind, simply call your credit card company and talk to them about it. Review your statements and you’ll see that this charge never happened.


I’ve written about many different flavors of this scam. Familiarity will help you dodge these, so please check out my other blog posts:

Apple App Store Purchase Scam

The Norton Auto-Renewal Scam

The Geek Squad Scam

The Microsoft 365 Renewal Scam

Accidental Payment Scams

The Hybrid Paypal Scam

The McAfee Renewal Scam

The Bitcoin Purchase Scam

And one last thing: if you or someone you know has fallen victim to one of these scams, I am here to advise and help. Please reach out to me for advice or remote support!

AT&T Notifying Some Users to Buy New Phones

Some AT&T users are receiving emails and texts this week, telling them to upgrade their phones or lose service. Some people are asking if the messages are scams (because of the grammar and spelling). And others are getting annoyed because their phones are not that old.

These messages are legitimate. And yet, they are not clear on all the details. Here’s what AT&T cellular customers need to know:

In February 2022, AT&T will kill off their 3G network. After that, older 3G-reliant phones will stop working. Phones that are 4G-compatible (and support HD voice) will continue to work.

So, you don’t really need to do anything until February 2022. Don’t rush out to buy a new phone, if your current one is working just fine.

AT&T has put together a list of phones that will work on their 4G service here: https://www.att.com/ecms/dam/att/consumer/help/pdf/Devices-Working-on-ATT-Network.pdf If you don’t see your make and model of phone on the list, and you think it should be (because it’s a newer phone), contact AT&T to press them on the issue. And if you don’t like what you hear, then you have plenty of time to shop around for a new cellular provider!

The Big iPhone Throttling Settlement

In 2017, Apple got in hot water for slowing down some of their iPhones. They did this for legitimate technology reasons, but because they didn’t disclose it properly, it looked really bad. Their lack of transparency made it seem like they were deliberately slowing their older phones, and many suspected it was done to drive new iPhone sales.

A class action lawsuit ensued, and it has finally come to a head. If you were affected by this iPhone issue (iPhones 6’s and 7’s with specific iOSes), you can stake your claim to your share of the settlement. Check out:

https://www.smartphoneperformancesettlement.com/

To sign up for your payment, you’ll probably use the Claim Form Online link to submit your info. Please know that you’ll either need your iPhone serial number, or you’ll have to use their special Search Tool, submitting your AppleID and other personal info. If you did not own a relevant iPhone, then you will probably not succeed in signing up for a payment!

It looks like claims must be submitted by 10/6/2020 so that they can wrap things up by December and start mailing out checks for the new year. If all goes well, you’ll get a whopping $25. Per qualifying iPhone.

GetHuman

If you’re looking for the quickest way to contact a large company, check out https://gethuman.com/ .

You do NOT want to Google for a support number, unless you really know what you’re doing. That’s how a lot of people find and call fake companies and scammers. But GetHuman is trustworthy, and will only show legitimate contact numbers.

GetHuman goes further, though — it will tell you what numbers to mash on your phone, to quickly navigate/bypass the robot menus and speak to a living being at that particular business. If a company has a callback feature, it may also reveal a button to quickly use that!

And if the company you’re trying to reach has no support number? GetHuman will tell you and advise on the next best way to get a hold of them.

Update: ContactHelp is a similar site to GetHuman.

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