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

[kingdomkids]

I have received many calls in the last few weeks. I think, for those tech savvy it is good to stay on the line with them for 5-10 mins, playing dumb and waiting till just before you give them your numbers. It prevents them from being on the phone with others who don't understand what is going on. They actually want you to go to www.anydesk.com and get you to give them access to your computer. I get to that last point then tell them to stop and hangup. They are trying to get you to give them control of your computer. Stay safe

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

 

[Mr. Heckles]

They are horrible! Sadly the elderly fall for them

 

[gnasher729]

I got a call that my ISP was cutting off my internet access because my account was used for illegal activity. I did press one, so that I had the opportunity to shout at some stupid woman, using names that should be used in anatomy only, and advising her in the strongest possible way to have sexual relations with herself. I hope it made her feel bad. Had it been a man, I would have asked him if he knows who his wife is spending the time with while he is trying to scam people.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I used to get a lot of Apple scam calls. I told them my name was Bill Gates and that they had the wrong number.

 

[Maximara]

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*

A key problem is VOI. Unlike old school POT it is easy to use the internet to spoof numbers which bypasses anything the telco industry can actually do.

 

[gnasher729]

"... 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.

All my debit and credit cards here in the UK have a phone number on the back to call. I would hope that's the same in other countries.

 

[DVD9]

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

The phone carriers could do that today if they wanted to. They allow them to spoof Caller ID too.

 

[Phil77354]

. . . I have been using AT&T for 20 years . . . Their billing dept is bigger than customer service dept . . .

Great point! And probably true for so many other companies, as well . . .

 

[triangletechie]

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.

The US is one of them.

 

[Phil77354]

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

Me too - and I agree that spammers do not seem to use the same number for subsequent calls!

 

[Phil77354]

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?

Yes. It is particularly easy for me to identify spam calls because when I relocated a few years ago, I retained my old cell phone number for continuity. Now, anyone calling me who is local will have my current area code, but calls from my previous location are 100% spam. I let them go to voice mail and then if a message is left, I will check it and block the number if it turns out to be spam.

 

[Unsupported]

I take inspiration from "The Major". I received a very similar call on my landline in Spain, also from a person with an Indian accent, but apparently calling from a UK number.

He said he was calling from "Microsoft Support" about a heating problem with my computer.

Of course I didn't tell him my computer was a Mac.

To cut a story about a 30 minute call short he wanted me to visit a site he gave me the URL of and login with a user name and password he would gve me.

Of course this would give him remote access to my computer.

Be like "The Major" - while you waste their time you are protecting some unwary sucker, somewhere...

Plenty more here from "The Major" 😉

https://www.youtube.com/user/palimpsest2011/videos

 

[grjj]

All my debit and credit cards here in the UK have a phone number on the back to call. I would hope that's the same in other countries.

Cards do, but phone calls, text messages, emails and web pop-ups don't.

 

[Plutonius]

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

It's actually pretty easy to avoid robocalls.

People shouldn't respond to any calls that are not on their contact list.

The small percentage of legit callers who are not on people's contact list will leave messages.

 

[Unsupported]

It's actually pretty easy to avoid robocalls.

People shouldn't respond to any calls that are not on their contact list.

I never answer calls from unknown numbers. Here in Spain I receive sometimes > 5/week.

I check them out at https://www.listaspam.com/ and/or https://www.responderono.es/ and if there have been reports, and the number is identified as spam I add it to my block list on the iPhone

This may work for other countries too:

Reverse Phone Number Lookup: Identify Spam Calls.

Recognize Spam Calls (Ping Calls, Robocalls) with the phone number reverse search / caller id lookup. Stop unwanted calls and get the caller id for an unknown number.

spamcalls.net

 

[F4C4]

You can also use this ancient spell/curse:
"May the fleas of a thousand camels invade your armpits..."

Works best if said in a calm elegant manner

 

[DesertNomad]

I get at least one spam call a day on my US phone. In 18 years I have never gotten one on my Czech Republic number.

 

[Phil77354]

It's actually pretty easy to avoid robocalls.

People shouldn't respond to any calls that are not on their contact list.

The small percentage of legit callers who are not on people's contact list will leave messages.

Good advice.

 

[w5jck]

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.

i signed up for this T-Mobile service. It is as useless as teats on a boar hog! It did nothing to stop or even slow down the number of spam calls. Best solution I’ve found is too set my iPhone XR to silence unknown caller calls and send them directly to phone messaging. It is still a pain, but at least I don’t have to deal with them verbally. Since phone messages are translated into text, I can easily see which are spam then block that number. But for each blocked number they spoof other numbers and the calls keep coming...

 

[TantalizedMind]

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.

Nope, I live in New York and get 5-6 spam calls a day. It’s just a daily part of life. Ignore the #’s you don’t know and carry on.

 

[Pirate515]

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...

Part of the reason why these scams worked on some is because the scammers were spoofing CID's of real toll-free numbers from Apple's main line, AppleCare as well as numbers of some Apple Retail Stores. I have received some of these calls at around holiday season last year, haven't received any this year (hope it stays this way). Of course, the scam was reliant on victims actually answering the phone; if they did not and called the number back, they would be in contact with real Apple and would not be scammed. In many cases, when I would call back I would encounter a recording from Apple warning that they are aware that there are fraudulent calls impersonating Apple's real phone numbers and not to make any payments or give out any Apple ID, personal or billing information to incoming callers.

P.S. Up until a few months ago, I was also receiving a sh*t ton of e-mails from "Apple ID". As of lately, they seem to have moved on to "PayPal", "Amazon", "Netflix", etc.

 

[Unsupported]

You can also use this ancient spell/curse:
"May the fleas of a thousand camels invade your armpits..."

Works best if said in a calm elegant manner

There's also, "May your earholes turn into a***holes, and my you s**t all over your shoulders..."

 

[phenste]

It's actually pretty easy to avoid robocalls.

People shouldn't respond to any calls that are not on their contact list.

The small percentage of legit callers who are not on people's contact list will leave messages.

There is unfortunately one realm of the world where this is not true—the medical world (ironically?). Providers often can’t leave messages due to HIPAA nor do they have caller ID; I’ve been told by my doctors (especially in telehealth times) to simply expect a call at a specific time (or within a range of that time), without indicating what the call might look like.

This might seem pedantic but I live with epilepsy and am frequently in contact with various providers, and it makes it harder to avoid robocalls. Just adding perspective to the mix.

On a related note, anyone know if it’s legit that you can stop robocalls by picking up and just not responding? The idea (so I’ve heard) is they’ll keep you on the list if you do respond, since they presume you’ll answer again. Seems like it could easily be a myth.

 

[phenste]

Part of the reason why these scams worked on some is because the scammers were spoofing CID's of real toll-free numbers from Apple's main line, AppleCare as well as numbers of some Apple Retail Stores. I have received some of these calls at around holiday season last year, haven't received any this year (hope it stays this way). Of course, the scam was reliant on victims actually answering the phone; if they did not and called the number back, they would be in contact with real Apple and would not be scammed. In many cases, when I would call back I would encounter a recording from Apple warning that they are aware that there are fraudulent calls impersonating Apple's real phone numbers and not to make any payments or give out any Apple ID, personal or billing information to incoming callers.

P.S. Up until a few months ago, I was also receiving a sh*t ton of e-mails from "Apple ID". As of lately, they seem to have moved on to "PayPal", "Amazon", "Netflix", etc.

Do you use an iCloud email address? Same over here with the spam emails. They don’t even get sent to my actual address yet they show up in my inbox, and I use SIWA + Hide My Email, which makes me think people have already figured out spoofing their algorithms. (Which absolutely sucks if so.)

 

[GumaRodak]

Its sad, but these scamms actually works a lot. You would be surprised how many ppls get scammed. They wouldnt make it if there is no profit, and the increasing trend speaks for it. Truth is that ppls are getting more and more stupid and thats the good thing for these scammers...