FTC Warns of Recent Surge in Robocall Scammers Pretending to Be Apple

[MacRumors]

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has issued a warning to raise awareness of a new and increasingly widespread robocall scamming scheme that pretends to be Apple and Amazon.

The robocalls come in two versions, according to the FTC. In the first, a recorded message tells the listener of a suspicious purchase made through their Amazon account, or that the e-merchant lost or is unable to fulfill a current order.

The second version is a scam targeting Apple customers and claims suspicious activity on their iCloud account.

In both scenarios, the scammers ask people to press 1 to speak with someone or give a phone number for them to call.

"Don't do either," warns the FTC in a blog post. "It's a scam. They're trying to steal your personal information, like your account password or your credit card number."

If you get an unexpected call or message about a problem with any of your accounts, hang up.

• Do not press 1 to speak with customer support
• Do not call a phone number they gave you
• Do not give out your personal information

If you think there may actually be a problem with one of your accounts, contact the company using a phone number or website you know is real.

Robocalls are a problem for users across devices created by Apple, Google, and others. While there are ways to block a number that's already called you on iOS, robocalls can repeatedly contact you using different numbers and methods, making them all the more difficult to stop.Earlier this year T-Mobile launched a free "Scam Shield" initiative designed to block robocalls and scam calls targeting T-Mobile, Metro, and Sprint customers.

T-Mobile competitors Verizon and AT&T have similar services, but charge for some features. Verizon, for example, has a free Call Filter service that IDs spam calls, but charges $2.99 per month for features like caller ID, blocking, and spam look up.

AT&T also has a free service for blocking fraud calls, but charges $3.99 per month for caller ID, reverse number lookup, custom call controls, and more. T-Mobile says that it is challenging other carriers to offer the same free services provided to T-Mobile customers.

Article Link: FTC Warns of Recent Surge in Robocall Scammers Pretending to Be Apple

 

[contacos]

I was really shocked by the amount of spam calls when I bought a prepaid SIM card for travelling in the US. I kept on getting calls from random people from "Cuba" and was like ??? this never happens here in Germany. The only ones that may call are your phone carrier but I made them stop.

 

[LeeW]

I have been getting a lot of these types of calls recently claiming to be from a range of companies, Apple, DHL, BT and so on. An odd Chinese message as well.

 

[adamw]

Stop the Robocallers and their fraud and spam solicitations. We need a better solution to stop them and protect people.

 

[justperry]

I have been getting a lot of these types of calls recently claiming to be from a range of companies, Apple, DHL, BT and so on. An odd Chinese message as well.

Stop the Robocallers and their fraud and spam solicitations. We need a better solution to stop them and protect people.

Move to the country the one below lives in.

I was really shocked by the amount of spam calls when I bought a prepaid SIM card for travelling in the US. I kept on getting calls from random people from "Cuba" and was like ??? this never happens here in Germany. The only ones that may call are your phone carrier but I made them stop.

I don't have a problem either, also from Europe.

 

[newyorksole]

There were some days where I’d get 5-6 calls a day. Now it’s about 1-5 a week. Still annoying though.

When I worked at Apple Retail, you wouldn’t believe the amount of customers who came in saying they fell for these scams and bought $2000-$5000 in Apple gift cards to pay these scammers...

 

[grjj]

"... contact the company using a phone number or website you know is real."
The issue becomes that many US citizens don't know how to tell if a site is real. They don't know what the address bar is, never mind how to use it.
Common scenario is their home page is "Google" so they type "amazon" into the google search then blindly hit the top result.
Problem is the top result can be a paid link to anywhere.

 

[Kirkster]

Got this phone call last night. You could tell it was a scam from second one. I was tempted to hit 1 just to waste their time...

 

[oldMac]

I got one of these from “Apple” about 6 months ago. I knew it was a scam, so I pressed 1 just to better understand how it worked. It seemed to actually call Apple support and the support rep thought I had called him.

Presumably the call was being recorded or listened to by the scammers who had initiated it, hoping that they could capture some authentication information that I would give Apple on the call. Pretty clever.

 

[icanhazmac]

18 calls in the same day, same number, approximately 20m apart claiming to be Apple support. Black Friday was 8 calls, different numbers each time claiming to be Amazon. If I only had a spare cruise missile and a location.

 

[Rogifan]

Silence unknown callers is amazing. I think I had over 20 calls silenced yesterday. You know they’re all scams or some political organization looking for money.

 

[Billyk711]

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has issued a warning to raise awareness of a new and increasingly widespread robocall scamming scheme that pretends to be Apple and Amazon.

The robocalls come in two versions, according to the FTC. In the first, a recorded message tells the listener of a suspicious purchase made through their Amazon account, or that the e-merchant lost or is unable to fulfill a current order.

The second version is a scam targeting Apple customers and claims suspicious activity on their iCloud account.

In both scenarios, the scammers ask people to press 1 to speak with someone or give a phone number for them to call.
Robocalls are a problem for users across devices created by Apple, Google, and others. While there are ways to block a number that's already called you on iOS, robocalls can repeatedly contact you using different numbers and methods, making them all the more difficult to stop.Earlier this year T-Mobile launched a free "Scam Shield" initiative designed to block robocalls and scam calls targeting T-Mobile, Metro, and Sprint customers.

T-Mobile competitors Verizon and AT&T have similar services, but charge for some features. Verizon, for example, has a free Call Filter service that IDs spam calls, but charges $2.99 per month for features like caller ID, blocking, and spam look up.

AT&T also has a free service for blocking fraud calls, but charges $3.99 per month for caller ID, reverse number lookup, custom call controls, and more. T-Mobile says that it is challenging other carriers to offer the same free services provided to T-Mobile customers.

Article Link: FTC Warns of Recent Surge in Robocall Scammers Pretending to Be Apple

Wish carries would concentrate on that rather than figure out how many service charges they can sneak in.
There is no reason they can’t figure out how to stop it.
I have been using AT&T for 20 years and they are gross when it comes to any sort of
customer service. Their billing dept is bigger than customer service dept

 

[Ironman226]

Is there a public database of phone numbers which are used by bots or scammers? I would like to import such a db to my phone.

 

[iapplelove]

I got one about a year ago. Caller id even said Apple Inc.

My gf just got one about a month ago, telling her the Apple ID she uses has been comprised lol.

For every 100 they hit, I get thy fool 1 or 2 people. Maybe more.

 

[PhillyGuy72]

There will be days where I won't get calls to my cell, or days when I'll get 5 or more annoyances! 😡

I am thankful for the "Silence unknown caller feature," then they get booted to my novel-like list of blocked trash! (I probably can clean these out, these scammers rarely use the same number after a week or two!)

https://imgur.com/a/KAfWLb6

 

[Billyk711]

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has issued a warning to raise awareness of a new and increasingly widespread robocall scamming scheme that pretends to be Apple and Amazon.

The robocalls come in two versions, according to the FTC. In the first, a recorded message tells the listener of a suspicious purchase made through their Amazon account, or that the e-merchant lost or is unable to fulfill a current order.

The second version is a scam targeting Apple customers and claims suspicious activity on their iCloud account.

In both scenarios, the scammers ask people to press 1 to speak with someone or give a phone number for them to call.
Robocalls are a problem for users across devices created by Apple, Google, and others. While there are ways to block a number that's already called you on iOS, robocalls can repeatedly contact you using different numbers and methods, making them all the more difficult to stop.Earlier this year T-Mobile launched a free "Scam Shield" initiative designed to block robocalls and scam calls targeting T-Mobile, Metro, and Sprint customers.

T-Mobile competitors Verizon and AT&T have similar services, but charge for some features. Verizon, for example, has a free Call Filter service that IDs spam calls, but charges $2.99 per month for features like caller ID, blocking, and spam look up.

AT&T also has a free service for blocking fraud calls, but charges $3.99 per month for caller ID, reverse number lookup, custom call controls, and more. T-Mobile says that it is challenging other carriers to offer the same free services provided to T-Mobile customers.

Article Link: FTC Warns of Recent Surge in Robocall Scammers Pretending to Be Apple

I guess that’s all they will do send out a email warning. They should maybe do something about the problem instead of sending a email

 

[rictus007]

T-mobile scam shield doesn’t work.... block calls from people on my favorite list... not sure why they need access to my contacts list. Stops working for few days multiple times per month ... I reported this issue but no fix yet

 

[7149041]

Stop the Robocallers and their fraud and spam solicitations. We need a better solution to stop them and protect people.

It's called "silence unknown callers" and is a setting in iOS 😉

 

[TroyBoy30]

i got one from apple yesterday

 

[hajime]

They like to call me using numbers that compose of the first six digits of my phone number. The remaining seems to be random variations. Does this happen to anybody else?

 

[sw1tcher]

The one good thing that happened during the early days of Covid-19 lockdown was the end of robocalls, telemarketing calls, spoofed calls, and spam SMS. Phones stayed quiet for 2 months. Now they're all back.

 

[SkyRom]

Not just Apple, spam/scams are up all over the place. Also: There's a free version of AT&T's mobile security that knocks down around 95% of the spam, or at least labels the ones that get through "Spam Risk" or "Telemarketer" etc. without charging the $3.99. Don't quote me on this but I think it's AT&T 'Call Protect' in the App Store.

 

[Maximara]

Stop the Robocallers and their fraud and spam solicitations. We need a better solution to stop them and protect people.

Sadly a lot of these robocallers are in countries that either don't give a flying fig or have so many other things on their list that these people are far down their list of things to fight.

 

[Maximara]

It's called "silence unknown callers" and is a setting in iOS 😉

Sadly this may not work. I got a call that spoofed my local police station's phone number and tried to get me pay a "fine". I was at my computer and started quoting actual laws...they hung up. Told the real cops but there really wasn't much they could do as nearest they could figure the call had actually come outside the country.

 

[phenste]

aha! My grandmother got the Amazon call recently. Good thing she’s literally never had an Amazon account—and I haven’t even put her number on her shipping address for my account. (in other words, easy to debunk, as if it didn’t sound spammy enough.)

Not surprised about this since e-commerce is spiking and they’re such big players. Either way, robocalling is a f— joke and I’m (genuinely) surprised it’s so difficult for the telco industry to tackle, but I know nothing about how that works, so…! *shrug*