dontravis.com blog post #494
For the second week in a row, today’s post is not one I planned on writing. But sometimes I need to write about things in order to expunge them. This is one of those cases.
****
Scam, Scam, SCAM!
The morning of Friday, April 16 opened
like many others. Get up, clean up, eat a bite, and then check the email
messages.
The day ceased to be “normal” at that
point. I opened one email in my inbox (not the Spam box) that shook me. I’ll
reproduce some of it below:
WE ARE RENEWING IT
FOR YOU
But I immediately focused on a couple of
things:
· I had a legitimate
Best Buy Geek Squad contract on a television set I purchased from them, and
· $499.99
Then started an hour-long song and dance I
will never forget. The male voice on the other end (slight foreign accent)
skillfully led me down the garden path so smoothly that I left all my native
suspicion, over-caution, and common sense lying in the gutter of this road we
were taking.
After having me fill out forms to cancel
the service, we eventually ended up in my bank account. Yes, that’s right. This
normally super-cautious dolt got talked into going into my online bank account
in order to see the repayment into my bank account (forget the fact that I
always pay for such service with credit cards). He even talked me into entering
the first of the two-part repayment, $350 and $199.99, into a form. I did so,
and he said to now check and see if the funds had hit the bank. No, but there
was a deposit from The Geek Squad substantially in excess of $350.
He went ballistic. I’d entered the wrong
number (I hadn’t) and had to return the excess immediately… right this minute.
And then my printer started spitting out details of my checking account,
showing that excessive deposit. At that point, some small part of my common
sense returned, and I called him a scammer. He indignantly asked why I was calling
him a scammer when I was the one who had his money. I told him I would return
it when the bank verified it was there. He was threatening to freeze my entire
bank account when I hung up on him.
I immediately went to the bank and talked
to a financial consultant (a very personable young lady who had seen and heard
it all before). She printed out both my saving account and checking account,
and the heart of the scam was revealed. My savings was reduced by the amount
the scammer had demanded. But lo and behold, there was an equivalent amount
deposited to my checking account.
The consultant changed my bank account number
while informing me the scammer did not have the ability to remove money from my
account, but they could move it around inside the account. They took the amount
they wanted to scam from my savings and moved it to the checking account, and
then made the deposit read as if it came from The Geek Squad. If I had “returned”
the funds as demanded, I would have been out the money. Fortunately, I came to
my senses in time.
I spent the remainder of the day
alternating between relief that I hadn’t lost any money and anger at myself for
being so gullible. But the story wasn’t over yet. The bank told me not to do
any more online banking until I had my computer checked for malware. Otherwise,
any malware they installed might give them my new account number. I wasn’t able
to get that scan accomplished until the following Tuesday. Then I spent the
remainder of the day, changing the banking information on credit cards,
utilities, and the like. The scan cost $135; the updating, hours.
Still, I was lucky.
****
I
chose to do this post to warn that anyone is vulnerable to gifted scammers,
even a reasonably bright guy who’s suspicious by nature and never opens emails
he doesn’t recognize… well, almost never.
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/donald.travis.982
Twitter:
@dontravis3
Don
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