The Silliest Scam

Quicken Kristina

It’s April, and since April starts with April Fools Day, what is the silliest scam call or email you have ever received?  Last month, a scammer left the most ridiculous voicemail message I have ever heard.  They claimed that I had over $750 worth of failed login attempts and gave me a number to call to cancel the order.   I was tempted to call just to find out who was selling failed login attempts and if they wanted to buy some from me.

I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe April!

Quicken Anja

Ahh yes, the wonderful age of scam calls!

I generally don't answer phone calls from numbers I don't recognize, but with having recent doctor's appointments at different clinics, I've had to answer phone numbers I don't recognize that at least start with my local area code.

I believe the most recent one was the typical "We've been trying to reach you about your car's extended warranty". Regardless of which scam it is though, once I realize it is a scam call, I hand the phone to one of my children to handle the rest of the call. 😏

It can be quite entertaining to witness too! Highly recommend. 👍️

Quicken Jasmine

Hello Everyone!

Most of my scam calls are pretty boring, however, every once in a while I do like to do a few fun things to mess with them. Sometimes I pretend they have contacted a pizza place, I "place" the order for them and then give them a RIDICULOUSLY overpriced quote. Or I will pretend that I am also a scam caller and two can indeed play at that game. Every once in a while, if I am feeling really goofy, I will just start screaming like a banshee into the phone. 😎😂

Rocket J Squirrel

I got a good one on my phone the other day. Capitalization & punctuation preserved.

WELLS FARGO:
A transaction of $1138.83 at WALMART#929 in LOS ANGELES CA on debit 4**** reference- (my actual mobile phone number)
Reply "YES" to approve, Not you? reply "CANCEL" and follow the link to cancel

The transaction is obviously bogus. Did I mention I don't have a Wells Fargo account? Something tells me it's the link that would have polluted my phone.

NotACPA

I have Caller ID and Call Screening on my landline. The scammers can only get thru if THEY (not a robot) call and to get thru they'd have to reveal THEIR phone number to me.

Screening blocks about 15-20 calls per DAY!

Rocket J Squirrel

My landline has caller ID, is unlisted, and is on the national Do Not Call list. I would still get a dozen "800" or "888" toll-free number calls per day.

So I changed my tactics and started answering them. The instant they identify themselves as wanting money (99% of them) I hang up without a word. This actually seems to get the message across and they don't call again.

BK

Not necessarily a silly one; I was carrying my duffle and my ski bag in Geneva's train station where someone approached me asking for directions. I immediately turned my head and saw another dude behind me up to no good - he quickly walked away. I pointed them out to the police. 10 mins later saw them being detained.

On the phone calls topic, I transferred my old landline to the free Google Voice. There is a "Screen Calls" setting feature where the caller must identify themselves and then press # before the caller can get thru and ring the phone. On top of that GV has a very good spam blocking detection. As a result, the phone rings maybe once a week with legitimate calls.

I signed up with my provider's spam detection feature on my cell phone which successfully blocks majority of spam call attempts at their end before they reach my device. Also enabled the setting to ring for only my contacts, and rest go straight to VM.

Pedro504

I recently received a rash of email scams indicating updates for fairly large amounts have been charged to my credit card for various software subscription renewals, then urging me to call the number listed to discuss the charges. Of course, there are no actual charges on my cards and there are no renewals due. To a fault the emails are in plain text, with no graphics and littered with misspellings and poor grammar. Perhaps these are AI generated 🙄

UKR

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20354679#Comment_20354679

A real smart Artificial Intelligence program would not stoop to doing that. It would know better.

DavidKR

Not silly, but sometimes I do answer the calls on my landline. Yesterday a guy asked, "How are you?" I said, "I am an honest man. Are you an honest man?" Pause. Click. It's good if I can leave them with something to think about. Probably better for both of us than leaving them with ears burning from curses.

Boatnmaniac

One night when I was visiting with my mother she got a call from someone claiming to be with the police in Brazil. He said that her grandson (my nephew) had been arrested down there and he needed to pay a fine so he could get released from jail. There was static sound on the phone but you could hear a male voice in the background with a broken, crackling voice asking his grandmother to help him out so he could get out of jail and come home.

My mother said into the phone, "Casey?" The caller said, that it was Casey.

Then my mother asked the "nice" gentleman on the phone to hold for a moment while she gets Casey on the phone so the caller could explain to him what kind of trouble Casey had gotten himself into this time. (Yeah, I wasn't the only family member meeting with my mother that day.)

Unknown

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