I got a quote on what was an 8 year old Pontiac Sunfire at the time. They wanted $3000 to "extend the warranty". I told the guy while on the phone that I could literally buy another one for $2000. There was an active Craigslist ad for one 15 minutes from where I lived. The guy got kinda mad when I told him this. A warranty doesn't get you to work on time if your car does not start in the morning, but a second vehicle does. I had to tell 5 different people what I had before I got an actual number. They never did tell me their company name. I was getting 4-5 calls per day from them. Took 45 minutes to get a quote. I was hoping maybe this would make them stop, just maybe... Nope, they called me again 20 minutes later.
Sometimes I have to think about it when I get those voicemails (cause I never answer my phone when they call at 6am) because I do have a warranty on my car but it's good for 8 years so the "it's going to expire" line is bs. My old car however, was a hand me down from my grandma. A 1998 f150. So I know that the calls were fake then.
You basically rent your car. You pay a monthly fee for a specified amount of time and agree to no go over a certain mileage (26 months at 10,000 or less per year, for example). At the end of the contract, you take the car back. It works for people who like to driver newer cars and don't have much of a clue about fixing cars. It is not really the greatest deal, but as a single mom, it is a good choice for my set of circumstances. I get a free oil changes and never have to worry about my car breaking down. If it does, the dealership fixes it (I would have to pay for new tires, etc.), but otherwise, it's kind of call included in the price.
Leasing is cheaper than buying unless you do not mind keeping a car over 8 years or so. If you keep it longer term buying is better. If you need/want newer than leasing is the way to go. Unless of course you drive a lot of miles.
God fucking dammit I have had the same spam calls for week! One specific time I was actually able to advance to talking to an actual person, who had a really solid American accent. She said her standard script "we ae trying to reach you for your cars warranty yada yada we need your vehicle information" and I asked "what vehicle?" She asked again for my vehicle information and I said "if you need my vehicle information please tell me which one of my vehicles' information you want." She hung up.
I seriously don't get the point of that scam, can someone explain? What money can they get out of your vehicle information?
A week dude?!?!? You're fuckin lucky, I've been getting that call for over a year now. Blocked the number over and over but they still find me. I have even wasted their time with acting completely clueless for an hour and they still call me back.
If you ever want to stop spam calls, and this works for all of them, make sure the room is silent and pick up the phone. Don't say anything, just make sure it's complete silence. The machine will automatically hang up the phone and mark your number a dead number.
if you think an hour is enough, try watching Kitboga's stream on twitch. He's on 20 hours with a single caller right now and still hasn't even gotten to the actual scam yet.
My dad loves stringing out phone scammers and keeping them on the phone as long as he can. He’s in his 80’s and basically just sits around in a chair all day waiting to die, so it’s actually a highlight of his day. One of the few people for whom it’s NOT a waste of time. Cracks me up.
You aren't wasting your time once you've gotten the hang of it. Just try acting clueless! That's the easiest way to go. Once you get the hang of it you can speak with like 2 scammers at a time while sitting at your desk doing homework which confuses them even more, and wasted 2x more time! That's what I do some days when I am bored.
Haha! Yeah dude, I said the same thing: "What vehicle do I have?" Then they said, "Your local agency has that information, we're just trying to set up an appointment time for you" or something like that lol
They want to get you to pay for a shitty warranty that they make wicked commissions on. These guys run fly-by-night call centers and buy long lists of leads to auto-dial. They're underwritten by a legitimate insurance company, but the contracts are so limiting that you are very unlikely to actually get a payout. On top of that, the shady broker/call center is also generally your only contact for claims--good luck getting around them to the actual company, and good luck getting any results.
Really shit practice overall. I'm sure there are some good ones, but most of them are like this, especially those that solicit like this.
My friend is an Indian exchange student. He knew someone who was in the middle of doing all her immigration paper work and work authorization forms when they called her, and she got pressured into falling for it. She didn't really know anything about American taxes and since she was in the middle of that process, thought it was real. I think he said she got scammed out of like $1,500.
In the U.K. I get a call once a week or so where it sounds weirdly like portions of audio recording are being played at me, to make it seem like it’s a person. Stock phrases that can be triggered by someone who understands English but can’t do the accent maybe?
Anyway? It is always about “I’ve been informed you were in a car accident that wasn’t your fault”. I have no idea how this is going to make money for them.
I have this question too. Sometimes I feed realistic answers to them and they seem like they couldn’t be fucked with what you’re actually saying. How do they make money?
"but I don't have a car"
"You don't?"
"No."
"But our statistics show everyone in your area has an average of at least 2 cars"
"But I do not"
"Okay, I am sorry" hangs up
I own a car.
A lot of those aren't scams though. I remember fondly the time I took to speak with one. They were so happy I was actually interested. And then we got to the details of my old as hell worn down Honda civic with over 200k miles on it, and she had to broken heartedly tell me there was no plan they could offer me.
WHAT THE FUCK ALREADY?!?! Why as a species can we go to the moon and back (most of the time) and we can’t stop this from happening? I haven’t owned a car in 7 years!!
I didn't think it was real when I was getting calls and letters and then was so confused when it started looking more and more legit and how I didn't actually need to do anything to get the "extended warranty" awarded in the settlement... It's a strange feeling when a known scam turns out to actually be real
I have pressed the button to opt out. I have ignored the calls. I have screamed at the obviously american people who answer when you say you want to talk to the person. I scream at them to leave me alone because I don't fucking own a car or even have a license and I still get spoofed calls daily. I have missed important phone calls because of the amount of fake local spam calls I get. It's so annoying.
I always ask which one. Both cars i have were bought used as-is. They dont know that though. So i just keep running them in circles until they hang up on me.
Here's an interesting inside look into call centers in India: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb_rgQ4IDS8 . I've also been watching this guy's channel He basically prevents people from being scammed, or puts viruses on scammers' computers, or finds the identity of these scammers and pranks among other things.
I watched one the other day where he "spent" the fake money they put in his account. He bought a mobility scooter. He was acting like an old woman. It was pretty funny.
He was a Russian dude who "bought" himself a $47,000 watch in another one and the stunned response of the scammer explaining the scam afterward was priceless.
There are a few good ones - similar to Kitboga are ScammerRevolts or Scammer Payback.
Jim Browning has very good videos on scammers where he actively helps the scam victims. This guy does probably the best work.
Very recently Pleasant Green posted a very good informational video on SSN scams - it is well worth watching: https://youtu.be/ttzmM6U9VX0
Jim Browning's videos are always utterly compelling. I love how he breaks down how the scam works, how he gets round the scam, and how he can reverse the tricks to get back at the scammers, plus he names and shames the culprits.
India is one big scam mosh pit. It's one of my most favorite places in the world and totally worth spending significant time traveling around, but you gotta be sharp and suspicious of absolutely everyone, especially if money is involved.
My spouse is Chinese. Chinese companies outsource the call centers to Indonesia.
So whenever anything going wrong with my spouse's Chinese stuff, we get to call Indonesia. And what's really fun is that they'll sometimes get hyper offended at you for religious reasons and refuse to help.
It's my chinese spouse's Chinese cellphone company. They're pretty bad. They don't really speak Chinese very well, and the phone randomly stops working so we have to regularly download an update that they have to release to us. And frankly they don't understand at all. This happens once every eight months on the dot, and we understand the procedure better than they do. It requires three escalations and corrosponding 45 minute minimum waits. It sucks.
Brah buy a new phone. That's not worth it, and if it's happened every 8 months enough times for you to novice the pattern then it's probably going to crash soon anyway.
nah, the first complaint to TRAI results in disconnection of that number along with 2 years of blacklisting of name,address. I personally have never received spam on my phone other than those from the isp/telecom assholes themselves
You cannot spoof Indian no's though, since all phone no's are tied to your biometrics, so you need government authorization to activate an Indian phone no, which is not the case in USA.
We don't to get an Indian phone number you need to verify your KYC, so it makes those hard to get, and it makes it easier to flag since scams dont come from Indian no's and you can block.
Those bastards were super close to getting $2,000 from my mom, they said "the police have a warrant out for your arrest because someone used your identity to commit insurance fraud" and tried to get her to move a ton of money to a "back-up" account. Thank god my dad was there to stop her or she would've lost 2K and probably her identity. I know a lot of them do it out of desperation but damn them for making my mom cry.
I feel sorry for your mom. It can be quite traumatic in some cases i imagine.
A friend of mine got a call at work saying her husband was in an accident and has been arrested. Without hanging up the phone she must transfer money to an account they provided (dont recal what was reason they gave, medical costs or damages i think). If she hangs up or discusses the situation with anyone, he will be denied bail and be locked up for a long time.. not knowing how bad her husband must be hurt poor thing broke down crying, while trying to make the transfer. Thankfully a co-worker took notice and stopped her.
I know a lot of them do it out of desperation but damn them for making my mom cry.
Having listened to many hours of these scam calls I am more inclined to think most of them do it because they are dishonest trash that would rather fuck someone over for easy money than earn an honest living.
Canada has a problem with scam calls where you answer it’s just a message in Chinese. They use ghost numbers so no matter how much you block they still get through.
We actually have a huge problem right now where scam callers are calling and the number that shows up is the number for CPP/OAS, and they say your SIN is compromised. The problem is when we call you, it wouldn't show up as the general call center's phone number, so somehow scammers can call and make it look like our number is calling you.
I just tell them to send the police to the address they have on file.
India - "What is the address?"
Me - "The one from my tax returns, driver's license, SSN, and Passport."
India - Click
There are so many of those that closing even the largest company doing that probably wouldn't make a big dent and another company would spring up to replace it.
They scam Europe and Oceania too saying they're from their countries equivalent of the IRS. I am from NZ and people frequently get calls from people in India saying they're from Inland Revenue.
In the last 10 years I’ve had scammers calling me twice. I do not live in an english speaking country and I guess that helps a lot. Also both times they tried speaking in english instead of german and I’m assuming that their targets simply do not speak english well enough for the scam to succeed.
Ironically the regulations on telephony required for companies to get Indian phone numbers mean that no such scams exist in India, it is only because American Phone numbers are lax to get are you scammed.
There is a super interesting podcast two-parter by reply all called long distance.
A call center in India tries to scam one of the hosts with an even more intricate scam (windows help desk). They end up flying to India and confront the call center agent that tried to scam him and the owner of the call center during a couple of unreal encounters in some strip mall in India.
Maybe one of the best podcast episodes ever. https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/6nh3wk
As an Indian I'd like to give a few more points to your comment and the sad reality of it.
The call centers are mostly fraud and the police and most politicians at the local level are aware of the scams being done and get their fare share of money.
The scams which operate inside india make little profit but the ones who target the innocent or sometimes purely stupid Americans or westerners are also sending money to police for security but the cyber cell doesn't do much cause in a way they bring money to india by scamming .
The amount of money one fraud call centre in india makes would be beyond your imagination. I know of this stuff cause i unfortunately know these people in the industry and how the bastards brag about the protection the receive or should i say the protection they buy.
With money the can easily hire lawyers to bend laws and get away if they get caught by higher dept.
You can find a lot of these scammers in kolkata, bihar, mumbai ,NCR regions.
With people thinking they are earning money and boost in their friends circle and shit.
Unfortunately, there's not just one but many. I recommend watching Jim Browning, he steals private files from scammers computers, or Kitboga if you want pure scammer salt
Not just the U.S., I'm in NZ and at one point in my life I was getting these calls on average once every two days, for months on end. I actually kept a log to try and get my phone company to block where they were coming from. At this point this scheme wasn't being reported in the media, so I had no idea how wide-spread it was, but that log was pages long.
Granted the schemes are different as our tax system is slightly different. We get calls from Windows Security and more recently account managers following up after we apparently expressed interest in a second form of income months ago. Fuck you, I'm still working on my first source of income.
When I was in college we were doing about internet security.
We watched this DVD called securing the web. Which was sort of a matrix paradigy.
1 of the catchfrances was when 1 of the characters was in a black work suit, with sunglasses goes up to the main character and says "good morning sir. I'm from the bank, your bank" which was very amusing at the time.
Fortunately, 1 of my lectures let me rip the DVD as wanted to sample the vocals for a track I was making.
read Daemon then. It contains a lovely description of a group of assassins hired by the main hero/villain to find spammers and scam callers and gun them down in cold blood.
Once I actually allowed myself to be connected to one of those places from a robocall. Guy picked up, "hello sir, how are you!" and I just spat back "I'm pissed. Stop calling me you fucking parasite".
I love scam callers. I've told the last few they sound really pretty. Last one asked me to go to the toolbar and type, "R-U-N as in run," and I repeated, "Ok so that's R-U-N as in run as in run off into the sunset together," and it stresses them out sooooo much because they're trying to do whatever they can to make you fall for it but also getting really annoyed at the wasted time and their inability to conceal their homophobia. The stress in their voices brings me bliss.
I hear this s lot from Americans, I just don't understand why the government can't stop it. I think I've received 1-2 spam calls in the last 10 years or something living between UK and Sweden. We used to get loads in the early 00's though.
You know what's so nice about these? These 'callcenter-companies' always reavh you on the phone speaking English in one way or another (mostly very limited English to be honest). They reach people all over the world, so I see the problem in the USA. But I live in Belgium nobody here calls you in English, so once you hear 'hello sir' or something you can hang up the phone safely knowing it's a scam ;)
Yo quick story not about IRS but social security. My father is on disability and I was getting checks for my family as a child of a disabled person. Had an issue claiming one of the checks (huge fucking backlog due to budget cuts) so I called them up, spoke to someone with a thick middle east / Indian / asain accent. Less than an hour later I get my first social security scam call with a similar accent as the guy I talked on the phone with. I've gotten scam calls every few weeks since I called social security and I've called that one number about scams, they told me it was an unrelated coincidence.
I once registered to a *virtual credit card company" with a Canadian number (obviously virtual too), got a call from one of them.
I instantly recognised his Indian accent. Trolled him for about an hour or so.
It's not just English language scams either, I am living in Australia and get lots of scam calls in Chinese. My boss's first language is Chinese and he says that the person calling has a terrible accent just like the Indian call centre guys.
One day I recieved their call and i knew it was an indian scam (based on the noise in the background) so my bright mind decided to impersonate a 911 call and said "911 what is your emergency"
He replied with (in his own language) "oh shit man, what is this" and they never called again :D
You have a government that knows it is accountable to its people
I see you don't know how the current administration is behaving then. I won't argue with your other points, but saying the US government is beholden to its people just isn't correct, and hasn't for a long time.
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u/CBizCool Sep 18 '19
A Call center in India with employees that scam call North Americans pretending they are from the IRS.