Phone Scams: Just Hang Up

The state of modern society keeps deteriorating. Scams and con schemes are rampid. They keep getting more and more "clever". Here are some tips to spot them and to not get screwed over.

• Passwords. NEVER, EVER give someone who calls you any of your passwords or PIN numbers. This is common for bank and tech support scammers. For banks, often times theifs will have your ATM or credit card numbers but are missing a PIN. Once you give them the PIN, your account will be empty in less than 3 minutes. Internet tech support should never ask for your user name and password because they should already be at the admin level and can do anything to your account they need to without your consent (read, real tech support screws up more than they fix). If real tech support calls you, they should give you the incident number that you previously created. Scammers shouldn't know this number.
• Official Sounding Calls. The IRS will NEVER initiate a call to you. They send you snail mail. There are also a number of IRS email scams. The IRS is not smart enough to send you email. NEVER give out your Socialist inSecurity Number to "verify" yourself.
• Official Sounding Calls. If you get a call telling you that you've won the lottery or a contest when you don't have a lottery ticket nor a contest entry form, just hang up.
• Official Sounding Calls. If a hospital or doctor's office calls you but doesn't know who you really are, just hang up.
• Official Sounding Calls. If a call scammer gets pissy with you before you hang up, tell them you'll call back the official number later and then hang up before they can respond. This tells them that their scam will be found out because you'll be calling a real number later and finding out that you have no communications.
• Official Sounding Calls. If telemarketers get pissy with you before you hang up, tell them "you don't pay for this phone." Hang up.
• If you're on a Do Not Call list, tell the person that and just hang up. If you're sure you're on a Do Not Call list and get a call from a company you know you don't have relations with, you're definitely getting scammed. The scammers have an automated phone system call bank that starts with a number and counts up until they get a hit. These systems are trivial to build. For example: if they're calling Dallas numbers, they'd start with 214-555-0000 and continue with 214-555-0001, 214-555-0002, 214-555-0003, and so on. This will also catch people with "private unlisted" phone lines they paid extra for.
• Telemarketers and some con schemes will use an auto-dialer that will automatically put you on hold and tell you to press any key to talk to an "official representative". NEVER press a button. Just hang up. There's a possibility that they might try to somehow reverse charges on you (maybe send you an invoice for phone consulting services) or will call back and try some other scams later on. Once they find out you're a real phone number with a real person, you're screwed. This is similar to email spam. Never respond to it. Once you do, you're on EVERYONE's spam list FOREVER. On the small chance that this communication may come from a valid source, make a real person pick up the phone and call you... not some damned machine. If that person gets pissy with you, shove the last sentence back in their face.
• Cell phone scammers will call and hang up. They often do this late at night. They'll try to make it seem like an important call. If you don't recognize the number, delete the log entry. If you do call back, you'll be connected to a charge line that will bill you $10/minute. You've just been proven a sucker and screwed. Be sure to know that their system will keep calling you back and billing you as much as possible for as long as possible before they get caught. If someone really wants to talk to you, they'll leave voice mail and properly identify themselves. If someone in this scam does leave you a voice mail sounding urgent, mumble to yourself "you're an idiot and deserve to be screwd" and hit delete. If you happen to pick up the phone in this type of scam and the person sounds desperate, just say "wrong number" and hang up. Sometimes they'll try to be "clever" and hang up mid-sentence like they got disconnected. Don't fall for it. You may want to block that number for future security as they'll probably try again.
• Cell phone spammers will often send SMS/text messages. If you don't recognize the person, delete it. If the message contains a web link, NEVER (and I mean NEVER) open it. These links often contain tracking methods that will identify you as a real person and then you'll be spammed forever. If remote images are automatically loaded (future text message format or existing emails), you've just been identified and screwed.
• Caller ID Tricks. Caller ID isn't that hard to block or spoof. If you get an "Unknown Number" call, let it roll over to voice mail. If it's important, you'll have a message from someone you know. Land line Caller ID can be spoofed after the line is picked up. If you see one ID and it changes to something that looks important after the line is picked up, you're being scammed. Just hang up.
• Summing it all up: If you don't know the person or number, just hang up. If you get someone from some official entity asking for your identity, just hang up. If you get a voice mail from someone you don't know, delete it. If you get an SMS/text message from someone you don't know, delete it. If the phone call is real and important, it will be from a person/entity you know who already knows you. If you say you'll call back the official number, they should be fine with that. Just because you have a phone doesn't mean that you're under any obligation to pick up every call, return every call, and pay attention to every call. This is your phone, not theirs.
• There's no way to avoid all of these 100%, but someday I want to build a home phone system with Caller ID monitoring that will play the 3 DTMF "Line Disconnected" tone sequence to anyone not on the list and to unknown sources. Spammers and con artists don't like wasting time. If they're more established and already have a phone number list, there's a strong possibility that this method would automatically remove the number.