Strance PayPal phone scams
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Lately I receive a lot of PayPal fraud calls. What’s odd is that I often only hear their automatic teaser, telling me that my account has been charged with ~500 € and that I shall press 1 to get forwarded to PayPal support. In many cases the call ends after that. But why?
In some cases, I get someone with an accent I'd identify as Indian. But often the call is disconnected after just a few words. Last time I was asked to please speak English which seems odd to me because it's a German number. Also, I WAS speaking English and I think my English is at least decent.
When I have time, I try to play along until they get suspicious but they seem to have very strange triggers. For example:
On one call I acted surprised about the amount I’m being charged and played dumb when they asked me if I tried to by bitcoins with my account. I told them I have never heard from something called pitloins and can’t afford to lose that money because I had to feed my cats - no suspicion there. But then I was asked what phone I have and when I told them I had a google Nexus 5 they got really suspicious and asked tree more times. Then out of the blue asked me if I had them on speaker, which I had because I wanted my friends to share the fun. I said "I have" because I needed to see the display to install the remote app as they asked me to but then they called me an asshole and disconnected.
Another time I tried to set up a VM for them to connect to and got them for ~10 min. but they would not accept that I told them that I only use PayPal on my son’s laptop which I had to find first. The asked me if I tried make a fool out of them. I didn’t know how to keep on the act and said yes. Then they called me an asshole and disconnected. Not sure
How does their scam work? I know they want me to install a remote access tool and open my PayPal account so that they can trick me into transferring money to them. But how can that work when most of the calls get disconnected way before they even talk to me? Do phone companies detect theses calls and block the origin and all ongoing calls? Or is their phone system actually that bad?
While writing this I realise I'm not sure if there were different people talking to me. Maybe it’s always the same guy or same few guys who now recognise me after a short while. But in that case, why is my number not on the top of their blocklist, why risk wasting time trying again with me?
I’m curious if anyone has experience with that particular one. It always seems to be the same “group”, the exact same message is played (not sure if that amount or currency varies), maybe the same caller on the other end of the line. Mostly suppressed numbers, sometimes not though.
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Lately I receive a lot of PayPal fraud calls. What’s odd is that I often only hear their automatic teaser, telling me that my account has been charged with ~500 € and that I shall press 1 to get forwarded to PayPal support. In many cases the call ends after that. But why?
In some cases, I get someone with an accent I'd identify as Indian. But often the call is disconnected after just a few words. Last time I was asked to please speak English which seems odd to me because it's a German number. Also, I WAS speaking English and I think my English is at least decent.
When I have time, I try to play along until they get suspicious but they seem to have very strange triggers. For example:
On one call I acted surprised about the amount I’m being charged and played dumb when they asked me if I tried to by bitcoins with my account. I told them I have never heard from something called pitloins and can’t afford to lose that money because I had to feed my cats - no suspicion there. But then I was asked what phone I have and when I told them I had a google Nexus 5 they got really suspicious and asked tree more times. Then out of the blue asked me if I had them on speaker, which I had because I wanted my friends to share the fun. I said "I have" because I needed to see the display to install the remote app as they asked me to but then they called me an asshole and disconnected.
Another time I tried to set up a VM for them to connect to and got them for ~10 min. but they would not accept that I told them that I only use PayPal on my son’s laptop which I had to find first. The asked me if I tried make a fool out of them. I didn’t know how to keep on the act and said yes. Then they called me an asshole and disconnected. Not sure
How does their scam work? I know they want me to install a remote access tool and open my PayPal account so that they can trick me into transferring money to them. But how can that work when most of the calls get disconnected way before they even talk to me? Do phone companies detect theses calls and block the origin and all ongoing calls? Or is their phone system actually that bad?
While writing this I realise I'm not sure if there were different people talking to me. Maybe it’s always the same guy or same few guys who now recognise me after a short while. But in that case, why is my number not on the top of their blocklist, why risk wasting time trying again with me?
I’m curious if anyone has experience with that particular one. It always seems to be the same “group”, the exact same message is played (not sure if that amount or currency varies), maybe the same caller on the other end of the line. Mostly suppressed numbers, sometimes not though.
In many cases the call ends after that. But why?
Because they auto call thousands of people, expecting very few people to even answer.
If they have 5 scammers crammed in a closet somewhere, and they're all on a line, there's nowhere for you to go, so the call disconnects if it can't be transferred. Keeping you on hold costs money.
In some cases, I get someone with an accent I’d identify as Indian. But often the call is disconnected after just a few words.
Number spoofing and auto calls are cheap...
It's a very low barrier of entry even in countries with low costs of living. It's not like a scam center has to be on the ball and know what they're doing.
Lots of them are just bad at it. But that's still good enough to trick 80 years old enough to make it worth it.
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In many cases the call ends after that. But why?
Because they auto call thousands of people, expecting very few people to even answer.
If they have 5 scammers crammed in a closet somewhere, and they're all on a line, there's nowhere for you to go, so the call disconnects if it can't be transferred. Keeping you on hold costs money.
In some cases, I get someone with an accent I’d identify as Indian. But often the call is disconnected after just a few words.
Number spoofing and auto calls are cheap...
It's a very low barrier of entry even in countries with low costs of living. It's not like a scam center has to be on the ball and know what they're doing.
Lots of them are just bad at it. But that's still good enough to trick 80 years old enough to make it worth it.
It’s a very low barrier of entry even in countries with low costs of living. It’s not like a scam center has to be on the ball and know what they’re doing.
Nothing I hadn't suspected but somehow I feel disappointed.
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It’s a very low barrier of entry even in countries with low costs of living. It’s not like a scam center has to be on the ball and know what they’re doing.
Nothing I hadn't suspected but somehow I feel disappointed.
Blame politicians for not stopping number spoofing.
It's insane that someone can pay to use existing numbers, and today it's only really used by scammers.
If all these calls showed up as coming from a random foreign country, no one would ever answer them.
There's a very easy solution to this.
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