By Frank Shears, February 5, 2020
SCAMMERS CALL THE VILLAGE
I have heard many complaints from people in the Village about scam phone calls. This is not a minor threat to us. It is real and it does work for the scammers. Here is how it works.
They target an area and purchase a list of telephone numbers that are located in that area. Then they enter the list into their computerized automatic dialers. An automatic dialer is a computer that automatically calls each number on the list and when the call is answered, it transfers the call to one of their agents (scammers). Then they hit you with their scam.
They do a couple of things to confuse you including Spoofing the phone number they are calling from. Their goal is to get you to send them either money or enough of your personal information to make it easy to steal your identity. All hope is not lost, however, because there is a Federal Trade Commission Consumer Information web site that has a lot of good advice about how to prevent them from succeeding. There is even a page in that web site to help keep you informed of the latest scammer tricks via email notifications whenever a new one is discovered. It will help you spot a scam call.
Click here to get on their email list to receive email notifications of the latest scams being used and how to spot them.
This web site is a wealth of information about these scammers. I strongly encourage you to visit the web site to learn about the different ways scammers are using to cheat you out of your hard-earned savings and/or personal information. PLEASE protect yourself with this information and spread the word about this web site.
I hope this helps you and yours stay safe and secure
Regards,
Frank Shears aka Bubba McGillicuty
Note from the editor: Thank you for reading. Please comment below and share your scammer stories. Also let us know how you deal with scammers.
Click here to visit our Private Facebook Group.
MACHINE SCREEN & BLOCK
02/06/2020 — 12:59 pm
Thank you Bub!
For those who don’t know, “spoofing” is making the caller ID show a lie. They can even make the incoming caller ID you see show your neighbor’s phone number or even your own phone number! I have had both happen to me. Once a stranger called to insist that I quit calling him, but I had never called him! He argued that his caller ID showed my number. I had to explain spoofing to him and that my line had not been in use at the time he was called.
Our household retains a landline number to an answering machine for all non-personal use. We let it screen all calls, meaning we let our answering machine take every call. We set the minimum number of rings before it picks up. We set a downwards ring tone as the default. We set an upwards tone for numbers we put in its memory. We set special ring tones for special people. We try to remember to tell those we are expecting a call from that we screen all our calls, so talk to the machine to give us time to get to the phone. Most solicitors hang up on the machine. We use the generic automated answer that comes with the phone so that strangers do not learn anything from it. When we do get a message we think is legitimate, we return the call by looking up and dialing a phone number we KNOW is legitimate, NOT referring to the number left on the message. We recently got a phone with a call block button that can be pushed to interrupt an unwanted caller and prevent that number from calling ours again. The caller ID can also be used to block calls from numbers displayed with unwanted messages. When you use an answering machine, you never pick up a call you are not sure about. Never rush to return a call that you were not expecting. Investigate first or ask around.
Andy Kramek
02/06/2020 — 2:24 pm
There is another little ploy that you can use in conjunction with your answering machine to stop spam calls. Almost all spammers use, as Bubba explains, automated dialers to initiate calls. Many of these dialers randomly generate numbers and then call them. When a dialed number is answered the machine flips the call over to a live operator. However, such dialers also keep logs of those numbers that actually do ring as “active” so that they can be re-called later.
A simple, but effective way to stop these is to download the Special Information Tone (known as a SIT) for vacant or blank numbers. It can, and does, stop robo-callers. SIT tones are three precise, sequential tones which are used by telephone companies to convey information about the condition of the phone line. The most commonly used SIT tone is the vacant number intercept SIT, that “boo-eee-ooo” sound you get when a number is no longer in service.
Simply record this SIT as the prefix to your answering machine message and then leave silence for at least ten seconds before beginning your real answer machine message. When the dialer calls, it will “hear” the SIT tone for “number not in service” and will immediately disconnect and move on to the next number in its list. More importantly it will also flag that number as not in service and will not call it again.
You can download the SIT tone as a .wav file from here, and then play it back from your computer or phone into your answer machine.
http://www.yourhomenow.com/sound/sit-tone.wav
IGNORE SOLICITATIONS
02/11/2020 — 7:21 pm
Mail scams are aimed at the village as well. Postcards soliciting “as is” cash purchases of village real estate by “Matt” (likely untrue) (no last name stated & no business name stated). The return address is likely a lie. This seems to be an attempt to get seniors to call and divulge their social security numbers, etc. DO NOT TRUST SOLICITATIONS!