Someone I know called me this week to say they had been hit by scammers. But the more they told me about it, the more alarm bells were ringing. Guess what? There are scams based in protecting you from scams!
It’s called phishing, and even though we most often hear about it in terms of emails, it can come through callers to your phone, too.
I think we often imagine scammers as someone not very smart, one person calling from their house. But there are whole companies set up with technology to make it appear that a legitimate company is calling you, and employees trained in psychology to use your anxiety or kindness against you.
Here’s how they almost scammed my friend: she answered the phone and the professional-sounding person on the other end asked if she had an Amazon account. (Red flag #1: a legitimate company will not ask if you have an account with them.) She then said she was from Amazon and there was a charge for $1500, did my friend make it? “No!” Okay, said the scammer smoothly. She then proceeded to ask some questions, inferring that she had my friend’s account right in front of her. (These people are very good.) “Okay, let me transfer you to a fraud representative at your bank.” (Red flag #2 – companies do not transfer you from their company to another organization.)
Because it was framed as “saving you from a fraudulent charge,” it got my friend’s anxiety pumping. And as we often talk about, when we are anxious, we don’t do our best thinking. Scammers know that, and take advantage of it. My friend gave her debit card number to the second scammer, who was pretending to be a rep at her bank.
(We were able to stop all of this in its tracks and no harm was done. And that debit card has been canceled!)
The sad fact is that we need to be suspicious of every email, every text, and every phone call that comes to us. Scammers can create whole websites that look legitimate, and as my friend learned, they can make it seem that they have multiple levels of people to “help” you.
So what do you say if someone you don’t know calls and asks for information about your bank accounts, credit card numbers, address, or heck – what your favorite color is?
“Nunya.”
What?
“NUNYA BUSINESS.” (Say it out loud.)