FAKE phantom debt collection scam by Puta'ng Ina Ka criminals phoning from the Philippines. This is what the Federal Trade Commission calls a phantom debt collection scam where the scammer pretends to be a bank (often impersonating Credit One, Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank, Bank of America, Capital One, American Express, or US Bank), debt collector, credit agency, billing department, lawyer, or law enforcement and threatens to sue or arrest you using lies, harassment, and intimidation to collect on fake debts that you do not owe. Debt collection scams are very common because many people carry debts, so it is easy for scammers to phish for gullible victims. And debt collection scams have vastly increased this year to prey upon the larger number of people in debt. The Filipino scammer asks for you by your name in order to sound like a personal phone call to gain your trust, but they are randomly auto-dialing everyone. The scammer may say "I am calling on a recorded line" just to sound official, but it is fake! The scammer either mentions an unpaid debt and past due amount that must be paid immediately or says that they have frozen your account due to fraudulent activity. The scammer then asks for your online banking login credentials, Social Security number and date of birth "for verification purposes", and says you can settle the debt by paying with a credit card, prepaid debit card, or eBay gift card, or demands that you wire transfer the payment, or asks for your bank account/routing number. Or the scammer pretends to offer a "50% settlement" deal where "you only have to pay half" of your fake debt. This same Filipino scammer also impersonates tax, debt and loan financing companies everyday, fake fundraisers collecting donations for various fake charities that the fraudsters keep for themselves, pretends to offer fake Medicare, health insurance, auto insurance, and car warranties, and they impersonate banks and tv/internet services. About 50% of North America scam calls come from India and 45% come from the Philippines. Foreign scammers run thousands of fraud, extortion, money laundering scams every day such as posing as a fake pharmacy, fake Social Security officer saying your benefits are suspended, IRS officer collecting on fake unpaid back taxes, debt collector threatening you for fake unpaid bills, fake bank/financial/FedEx/UPS/DHL scams, posing as utility/phone/internet companies, pretending to offer fake health insurance, car warranty, student loan forgiveness, credit card and debt consolidation services, posing as Amazon to falsely say an unauthorized purchase was made to your credit card, posing as Microsoft/Dell/HP/Apple to say your account has been hacked or they detected a virus on your computer, fake "we are refunding your money" or "your account has been auto-debited" scams, fake Google/Alexa listing scams, fake solar panel and home purchase offers, fake fundraisers asking for donations, fake phone surveys, and the scammers try to steal your financial and personal data. Indian scammers often rotate through fake tech support, subscription auto-renewal, and fake pharmacy scams on the same day. Filipino scammers run many auto/home/health/life insurance, Social Security and Medicare identity theft, loan and tax/debt relief scams, and fake charity donation scams. Scammers use disposable VoIP phone numbers (e.g. MagicJack) or they spoof fake names and numbers on Caller ID. Anyone can use telecom software to phone with a fake CID name/number. Scammers spoof thousands of fake 8xx toll-free numbers. CID is useless with scam calls unless the scam asks you to phone them back. CID area codes are never the origin of scam calls since scams use spoofed CID numbers from across the US and Canada, numbers belonging to unsuspecting people, invalid area codes, and fake foreign country CID numbers; e.g. fake women crying "help me" emergency scams spoof Mexico and Middle East CID numbers. Scammers often spoof the actual phone numbers of businesses such as banks to trick you into thinking the call is valid. How can you avoid being scammed by phone calls? NEVER trust any unsolicited caller who: sells something (most unsolicited calls are scams so your odds of saving money are very poor); asks for your Medicare or Social Security number; offers debt relief, loan services, Medicare assistance (people who are old or desperate in debt are often scam targets); offers a free gift/reward; threatens you with arrest/lawsuit; asks you to access a website, download a file, wire transfer money or buy prepaid debit/gift cards; claims your account is frozen or has suspicious activity; says a subscription is refunded or auto-renewed/auto-debited; and all recorded messages. Recordings are far more likely to be malicious scams and not just telemarketer spam. All unsolicited callers with foreign accents, usually Indian or Filipino, are mostly scams. Filipino scammers tend to speak better English than Indian scammers. Filipinos speak English with a subtle accent that may sound Hispanic. Scams often falsely say that you previously contacted them or visited their website. Indian scammers play fake Amazon recordings. Amazon account updates are emailed, not robo-dialed. Many banks use automated fraud alert calls to confirm a suspicious purchase, but always call the number printed on your credit card to verify if the fraud alert is real or fake. Scammers impersonate phone/cable/internet companies, offering fake discounts or service upgrades. Indians impersonate the IRS and Social Security Administration. The IRS/SSA never make unsolicited calls and never threaten to arrest you; they initiate contact via postal mail. Real lawsuits are not phoned in, especially not using recorded threats lacking details; legal notices are mailed/couriered. The police, FBI, DEA never phone to threaten arrest; they show up in person with a warrant. Scammers try to gain your trust by saying your name when they call; your name, address, birthday are public data. Scammers often play recordings speaking English, Spanish, or Chinese that is easily generated using text-to-speech translation software to disguise the origin of their overseas phone room. Some speech synthesis sound robotic, but most AI-speech sound very realistic. To hide their foreign origin, some India scammers use non-Indians in their phone room. Scammers often use interactive voice response (IVR) AI software that combines voice recognition with artificial intelligence, speaks English with American voices, and responds based on your replies. IVR calls begin with: "This is fake_name, I am a fake_job_title on a recorded line, can you hear me okay?"; or "Hi, how are you doing today?"; or "Hello? Are you there?"; or "Hi, may I speak to your_name?" IVR quickly asks you a short question to elicit a yes/no reply so it hangs up if it encounters voicemail. IVR robots understand basic replies and yes/no answers. To test for IVR, ask "How is the weather there?" since IVR cannot answer complex questions. IVR usually transfers you to the scammer, but some scams entirely use IVR with the robot asking for your credit card or SSN. A common myth is IVR calls record you saying "yes" so scammers can authorize purchases just using your "yes" reply, but scammers need more than just a recorded "yes" voice sample from you. Phone/email scams share two common traits: the CID name/number and the "From:" header on emails are easily faked, and the intent of scam calls is malicious just as file attachments and website links on scam emails are harmful. Scams snowball for many victims. If your personal/financial data are stolen, either by being scammed, visiting a malicious website, or by a previous data breach of a business server that stores your data, then your data gets sold by scammers on the dark web who will see you as fresh meat and prey on you even more. This is why some receive 40+ scam calls everyday while others get only 0 to 2 calls per week. If you provide your personal data to a phone scammer, lured by fake 80%-discounted drugs or fake loan and debt services, you receive even more phone scams and identity theft can take years to repair. Most unsolicited calls are scams, often with Indian or Filipino accents. No other countries are infested with phone room sweatshops filled with criminals. Scammers often shout profanities. Just laugh at their abusive insults. Google "Hindi swear words" and memorize some favorites, e.g. call him "Randi Ka Beta" (son of whore) or call her "Randi Ka Betty" (daughter of whore). Scammers ignore the National Do-Not-Call Registry; asking scammers to stop calling is useless. Scam recordings often tell you to press a keypad number to be placed on their Do-Not-Call list or to unsubscribe from their scam texts/emails, but those keypad commands are fake and they say that just to look legit. Scammers often provide a toll-free callback number to look like a real business, but they regularly shed old callback numbers so you can never reach the scammers once you have realized that you were scammed. Scammers tell you their callback number just to gain your trust long enough to steal your identity and money and then they regularly discard callback numbers and get new ones. You do these scammers a favor by quickly hanging up. But you ruin their scams when you slowly drag them along on the phone call, give them fake personal and credit card data (16 random digits starting with 4 for Visa, 5 for MasterCard), ask them to speak louder and repeat what they said to waste their time and energy.

June 28, 2024