I received a voice mail the morning of Nov. 2, 2018 from an 800 number which was obviously spoofed, because they left a Washington State phone number. The message was with a correct American accent, but there were minor defects in wording that told me the script was written by a non-native speaker. The voicemail said that there had been irregularities with my Social Security account which might require legal action. When I called the number that was in the voicemail, a guy with an East Indian accent answered it "Social Security" and asked for my Social Security number. I assume that if Social Security called me, they would know it.
When I questioned whether he was really part of the Social Security Administration, he said that if I doubted it, he would pass my file to the local office for legal enforcement. There are a lot of gullible sorts who would hand off their Social Security number.
I have reported this to SSA as fraud.
The next call from the spoofed number with Social Security as the caller ID was a message from Officer Jack Dawson warning that I needed to get back to them to avoid turning off my Social Security check.
The callback number is in Port Angeles, Washington. I called the sheriff's department and they tell me that they are getting a lot of calls about this fraud, and the number is not actually in Port Angeles at all, although the exchange is. Somehow they are re-routing calls from a Port Angeles exchange to somewhere else. I would love to know how. Have they taken control of the phone company switches?
Today's call: still defective grammar and word use, but the American accent is a computer-generated voice. Somewhere, there should be a phone company that cares about the security of their phone numbers. But who? Who owns the switch in Port Angeles, WA?
Here's a company that provides local U.S. numbers for India.
Just noticed: the number they are spoofing to call me really does belong to Social Security. These crooks are good at their "job."
More likely spoofing the number by hacking an IP phone or whatever the heck they do these days. Number is probably originating from a call center in Bombay...or whatever it's called these days.
ReplyDeletethere's no real security within the phone system. once you're plugged in at the right level, everything trusts everything.
ReplyDeletethat said, i'd take the details from your sheriff's department with a grain of salt. it's probably just somebody "legitimately" buying a number from that area, and getting it sent to one of the voip service providers. from there, who knows who is getting the calls.
They probably have. At a job fair a while back and a man there told me the scammers have legally purchased blocks of unused phone numbers to then use to contact people. I don't know how true but I would not be surprised the phone companies are involved- "Legally."
ReplyDeletenevadacarry: The 800 number calling me is clearly VoIP spoofing. But the 360 they want me to call? Can that be done with VoIP as well?
ReplyDeleteYes, they get real jobs. The IT sector has lots of them, often ones who replaced American workers for far lower pay.
ReplyDelete