As the previous excellently-written informative post explained, this is a phantom debt scam! My caller had a thick Indian accent and said that I needed to pay an outstanding debt from AT&T. I have never used AT&T either for phone or DirecTV service. And I have had my number for 15+ years so it was not like my number was recently used for AT&T service. On my call, the scammer asked for me and got my name right, but heck you can get anyone's name, number, and address from the Internet or marketing databases these days. Many companies sell marketing databases containing millions of names, numbers, and addresses, and some of these marketing CDs even contain your email addresses, whether you are a homeowner, retired, married, single, above a certain income level... probably even your favorite foods, considering how much data Google mines from your googling searches lol. So having a scammer call you by your name is just an old trick to try to sound like a personal call. I once worked for a legitimate home improvement telemarketer during one summer home from college during the 1980s, generating leads and setting up appointments for actual sales of siding, awnings, storm windows, carports. We manually dialed each local-area number (at least it was touch tone and not rotary lol) and we dialed using custom-printed marketing phone books that only contained names, numbers, and addresses of homes, with no apartments or businesses listed. I would start my call with a loud cheerful "Hi, may I speak to George?" as if I was a friend calling. George would then likewise reply cheerfully until he realized that I was trying to set up an appointment for our home improvement salesperson to meet with him. But using my friendly voices calling each person by their name, I still earned a lot of commissions each time that our salesperson closed a sale from my generated lead. Having previously worked for a legitimate telemarketer, I know all the telemarketing tricks that these India scammers now also use. The kindest thing that you can do to telemarketers or phone scammers is to yell at them and quickly hang up. But like a cat that toys with an insect without actually killing it, I like to act like a dumb gullible victim with these phone scammers, feeding them totally fake personal and financial information and dragging them along on the phone call to burn up their time and energy. Never actually tell them that you are playing with them. Just hone your acting skills and sound interested in their fake scam or sound concerned with their fake threats until they hang up frustrated 20 minutes later after they try to charge to the fake credit card numbers that you give them lol.

August 4, 2020

credence

June 1, 2020

Auto warrantee

May 19, 2020

They have the wrong number

February 12, 2020

Scam caller don’t lnow this caller!!!

February 5, 2020

Legal scam

February 3, 2020

Social security scam. It’s an automated recording

January 25, 2020

[deleted]

January 22, 2020

Keeps calling almost daily. When I answer nobody is there or they hang up. Never leaves a voicemail just silence.

January 21, 2020

They hung up on my bot

January 16, 2020

Scam call no message

January 15, 2020

They call a day!!!

January 9, 2020

This is a phantom debt collection scam by criminals phoning from India! This is what the Federal Trade Commission calls a phantom debt collection scam where the scammer pretends to be a debt collector, lawyer, or law enforcement and threatens to sue or arrest you using harassment (repeated phone calls), lies, threats, and intimidation to collect on fake debts that you do not owe. More than 95% of all North America phone scams originate from crowded phone rooms in India that run numerous fraud, extortion, and money laundering scams every day ranging from fake pharmacies to posing as fake Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple representatives.. Another version of these phantom debt collection scams is the frequent extortion scams perpetrated solely by East Indians posing as Social Security or IRS officers threatening to sue or arrest you for fake unpaid back taxes. The East Indian scammer usually references vague and fake financial accounts that are unpaid, fake names of the debt collector handling your fake debts, fake ID codes for your fake debt, and they often falsely say "our numerous attempts to contact you at your home and workplace have been unsuccessful and this is our final attempt", which is all false and intended to make it sound urgent. The scammer then asks for your Social Security number and either tells you that you can settle the debt by paying with a credit card or demands that you wire transfer the payment for the fake debt or asks you for your bank account and routing number. Here is how to tell the difference between a real debt collector and a scammer: A debt collector must tell you information about your debt such as the name of the creditor, the exact amount owed, and if you dispute the debt, the debt collector has to obtain verification of the debt. A scammer either avoids providing this information or provides false information. A debt collector has to mail you a printed-on-paper "validation letter" within five days of first contacting you. If you do not dispute the debt in writing within 30 days, the debt collector has the right to assume the debt is valid. Scammers always pressure you to settle the debt immediately, often demanding that you make a money transfer from you bank that can be untraceable; this is very common with East Indian scammers posing as debt collectors and fake IRS officers. A scammer may threaten to tell your family and employer about your debts, but a real debt collector can only ask other people about your address, phone number, and place of employment; they cannot tell other people about your debts. Scammers will ask for your bank account and routing numbers and Social Security number, whereas real debt collectors will not. Ask the debt collector for their name, company name, street address, and a callback number, which all real debt collectors will provide. Every one of the thousands of East Indian scammers will also immediately fail this test since all of the East Indian scammers use spoofed fake Caller ID numbers or disposable VoIP numbers. If you suspect a scam, contact the creditor the debt collector claims to be working for and find out who has been assigned to collect the debt.

January 9, 2020

Credence resource management

January 8, 2020

I’m not sure what the call was for. The person stayed silent.

January 8, 2020

I didn’t know what that is

October 1, 2019