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Scammers Are Out Full Force

Discussion in 'Gadgets & Tech Talk' started by Kate Ellery, May 20, 2022.

  1. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    Eight-year-old shamed in Vermont school over pronouns

    In Vermont’s Randolph Elementary School last year, a third-grade boy was disciplined and made to apologize to a girl classmate who instructed those around her that she desired to be addressed by the pronouns “they” and “them.” The boy in question had remarked to another boy simply, “That girl ran 15 laps.” This was a verboten use of trans-English, and the girl promptly reported the boy to the language police.
     
    #31
  2. Mary Stetler

    Mary Stetler Veteran Member
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    My daughters live in Vermont. It is like going to another planet. Very sad.
     
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  3. Mary Stetler

    Mary Stetler Veteran Member
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    I treat my oven and my laptop the same. When my oven gets super dirty, I move. And when my laptop gets full, I either set it to default or get a new one.:rolleyes:
     
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  4. Beth Gallagher

    Beth Gallagher Supreme Member
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    I would be "That Woman," showing my butt at the school board meeting. :D
     
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  5. Thomas Stillhere

    Thomas Stillhere Very Well-Known Member
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    They're trying to make that Christmas money. Just got one from ....... Freddy FedEx. "Last Notice your package is awaiting pickup" or something to that effect. You know millions of people will open that email and send their life history to get that package. I always place the junk into spam and it does help to some extent. You would think the government would stop all the stealing and private information theft online simply using certified business email addresses issued to commercial and large corporations that do have a need to send messages, no license then no email accepted by all the email providers. I guess the government is too busy helping the IRS do the stealing.
     
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  6. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    The problem is that the US Govt cannot control the offshore guys. It is insane how this technology has made it cheap & easy for scammers to reach out to hundreds of millions of people with a single click.
     
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  7. Kate Ellery

    Kate Ellery Supreme Member
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    We have a flood of text messages saying we have an unpaid toll road bill ( with a link of course )
    Apparently our account will be frozen until it’s paid ……well that’s strange ..cause SA doesn’t have any toll roads for us to have any account or unpaid tolls

    We’d have to travel to Sydney or other places in NSW to find toll roads and that’s about 2 days drive away.
    of course I’m well aware it’s a SCAM :mad::(
     
    #37
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  8. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    I recently got a Voice Mail claiming to be my Medicare prescription plan provider. They used my name and requested a call back. My Caller ID identified it as "Potential Scam," but I never answer a number I don't recognize anyway. So I went to the plan provider's website to see if I could verify that being their number. They use the (888) toll free area code, and this call was from (855). I then went online and looked up the phone number. Not only has it been used to get data from this same prescription plan's members, it's also claimed to be the IRS. I sent the prescription plan company an email, but they cannot do anything about an off-shore scammer. The only place my info on this is stored is with the plan provider and the drug stores that have filled scripts for me. No doctor's office has my script data...they have no reason to.

    I agree with Ken's observation that our data should not automatically be stored "for future use." I pay medical co-pays online with my credit card, and on one site the "Save This Card For Future Use" box is always checked by default. There's one medical payment site that brings up a screen to save your credit card info after you've finished the transaction, and it is designed to make you think this is a requirement. There is no "Decline" option, and there is no "Done" button. You have to close the browser tab and slam the door in its face. Then there's the requirement some places have to provide a cell number so they can send a "confirmation text." ba$tard$
     
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  9. Thomas Stillhere

    Thomas Stillhere Very Well-Known Member
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    Last week I had my phone shut down due to a battery charge or something, it did take a good charge and started working very well no problems. I had a voicemail notice of a scam phone number that is well known all over the country , the last 4 digits were 9969 I believe. So as usual I just cleared the notice and every single time I turned off my phone and it was restarted that notice would come back. I did everything you could do to trace it if it was on my phone but it was nowhere to be found. I reset the phone several times finally doing a complete factory reset, still the notice would come back. Had the voicemail turned off at the carrier and it still came back when I turned on the phone. I finally found a notice of that calling number on the phone and deleted and blocked the number and no more notices. The only thing I can figure was when my phone died something had to happen that left the notice out of view for what ever reason. If it had continued I was going to have a new phone number issued. It has been just fine now and from now on I will block every unknown call I get. Like you I always try to trace them and see if there is some history because I have only 3 family members and one cousin and one good friend calling me from time to time. I was really getting pretty mad with that number showing up each turn on of the phone. I thought to myself how to hell would a spam caller know when I turned on my phone. I keep everything shut off on the phone and turn on something if I need it then turn it off again.
     
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  10. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    Let's play a game...

    scammer hangman.jpg
     
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  11. Mary Stetler

    Mary Stetler Veteran Member
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    I got a call that had hubby's factory name in the caller id!!! I answered and they asked if it was 'my name'. Then asked for my medical insurance numbers.
    Since hubby is long retired, and on medicare, there is no reason his old factory would have need for the info. The caller had a foreign accent but if I were 20 years younger I might have complied. They called again and got hubby and every question asked, he just answered why, finally just hanging up.
    But how they had that company name and an employee???
     
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  12. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    I wonder how they knew my name, phone number and insurance carrier. As I said before, I read of others having the exact same thing done to them with this same carrier...so it's not just random dialing. If a drug store database had been hacked, I would have read of folks with a multitude of insurance carriers getting calls from that number, so my carrier's system must have been hacked.
     
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  13. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    That is a really scary thing to have happening as a scam, when we think that it is a legitimate call from our health insurance ! When I get a call from Humana, I add the number to my list of Humana numbers, so it should show up as real when they do call me, but if they used a number i do not have on file, then I will need to be more careful to make sure that it is actually Humana.
     
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  14. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    I do the same thing with all my health care providers. "Call backs" from doctors do not always come from the main number, so they get added to my Contacts List. I likely would have double-checked anyway, but my Caller ID saying "Potential Scam" made sure I was careful (and I get some number of such identified calls.) But this is the first time the caller had my name and mentioned a legit business I deal with.

    edit to add: I only read of the scammer claiming to be WellCare and the IRS. Since everyone deals with the IRS, and no other script insurer's name was mentioned, I'm thinking it was WellCare's database that got hacked.
     
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    Last edited: Feb 14, 2023
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  15. Kate Ellery

    Kate Ellery Supreme Member
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    Hubby got two ..Calls … yesterday claiming to be Amazon who said someone had used his credit card and they were phoning him to delete / fix things if it wasn’t him who purchased the items
    ….he said the usual …..get lost scammer…but not that polite

    These scammers must have group meetings and brainstorm how to set up the next scam …..
    I used to be a trusting person regarding $$$$ well scammers changed all that.
     
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    Last edited: Feb 14, 2023

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