Sorry I've been away for so long! I have had many misadventures in the last week or so, but I
came THIS CLOSE to being a victim of pfishing. That is a scam where you are contacted, by e-mail or phone usually, by creeps meaning to do you harm. And they almost got me!
I was caught up in the busy pre-Christmas hustle and bustle when the phone rang. Think I was baking cookies and had laundry in and had the vacuum out, that kind of chaos. The caller said he was from BankCard Services and wanted to lower my interest rate. Great. I was distracted, but yeah, go ahead, lower my rate. So I talked and talked, hunted down my cards, and talked some more. I talked to at least two people, maybe three. They were soooo nice.
To make a long story short, I gave them my full card number, expiration date and 3 digit security number. For two cards. Oh, and to be a complete moron, I also gave them balances and credit limits. Brilliant! I finally sat at the desk, and Googled Bank Card Services. Interest rate reduction scam came up! So I read it, and guess what! That's what this was, almost word for word.
We were just at the part where he said that for "$895 they would guarantee me that I would never pay a double digit interest rate on any of my cards again, and could I just record our conversation?". When I said "Let me think about it" he made some comment like "Good luck
paying off your balance at that rate, expletive deleted", and hung up on me!
So I called my bank Saturday morning and confessed what I had done, and they closed the account and sent a new card. They were able to determine that up until that time, no new charges had been made. Wow. That sound you hear is me, breathing a sigh of relief!
Another common pfishing scam is the e-mail, telling you that you have won a foreign lottery.
They go on and on. Pay attention, and just say, "Hey, I'm on the Do Not Call List. How'd you get this number?" And if you aren't on the list, get on it. Problem solved.
3 comments:
Bummer! At least the crisis was averted. It's hard when we have so much going on, isn't it?
btw - for the do not call list, if you have a business relationship with someone, they can still call you. I actually did a post on the whole DNC registry awhile ago. Good luck!
That is more than sickening. I'm so glad you didn't get totally burned. This could happen to any of us SO easily! Especially when we're multitasking, which is the vast majority of the time.
So glad this didn't end up terribly. My dad got "hooked" on the foreign lottery thing and luckily asked my opinion. He was all ready to send them $1400 so that they could "bring" him his million dollars. Yikes.
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