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A LITTLE PARANOIA
GOES A LONG WAY |
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Always on the lookout for a little extra income, I slid my
laptop over to my wife at the kitchen table the other day.
"Check it out," I said as she reluctantly checked
my screen. "The average salary listed on Glassdoor.com for a Phone
Scammer is $31,284."
I wasn't kidding. Glassdoor is a nationally recognized
platform that allows users to anonymously submit and view salaries for
various industries. And Phone Scammers was apparently a job
classification.
"I think they meant call centers," my wife replied
as she scanned the listing. "I'm not sure why they classified it as
'Phone Scammers.'"
"Because it's all the rage," I explained.
"Maybe you start out in a legitimate call center doing surveys or
something, but I'm sure you can graduate to a full-fledged scammer in no
time at all."
"Besides," I added, "I get at least two or
three scam calls every day. It would be nice to hear from you."
"Sounds like too much work to me," she said,
sliding the laptop back over to me. "I don't like people hanging up
on me. How about email scams instead?"
"That could be lucrative," I replied, quickly doing
some research. "It says here that American consumers lost $56 billion
to identity fraud in 2020, much of it over the internet. And 49 million
Americans were victims."
Before she could answer, an email came in. It was from a very
good friend of mine, and it only said "We want to share some good
news with you" and then had a link to a TikTok video.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I
wasn't falling for this one. I didn't dare click on the link. My friend
would have been more expressive. He had surely been hacked and some
criminal was just waiting to get me somehow, someway.
That explains why we didn't learn about his son's engagement
until about three days later.
Paranoia reigns supreme these days, and rightly so. There is
a feeding frenzy among scammers just waiting to steal your money, your
assets and your identity. And I'm betting they're making more than $31,284
a year, or else it wouldn't be so prevalent.
There are so many different types, and many are getting old.
You don't hear much anymore about your long lost relative in Nigeria that
left millions to you, or your acquaintance who was mugged in Mongolia and
needs money wired to get home.
Others are sticking around. The top 10 still includes social
security card fraud, Amazon deliveries, free prizes, computer tech support
(I almost fell for that one), grandchild imposter, and phony debt
collection. They're all easily identifiable if you're aware of the
danger. Sadly, many people are not.
Then there are the highly sophisticated scams. There
are some very smart criminals out there, tech-savvy and ready to pounce.
They're getting better and better at what they do, and that's not a good
thing.
My company was recently hit with an elaborate scam, and we
barely escaped. The scammers posed as Bank of America employees, and they
were very, very believable.
First it was text messages, then phone calls, then emails.
All seemed legitimate. Our office checked to make sure they were actually
Bank of America employees, and they were. Except the scammers had
imperceptibly altered the email addresses of the actual bank employees.
At the last minute, a lucky break alerted us to the
impostors, and we managed to avert a major loss. The scammers just moved
on to their next victim, and sooner or later they'll be successful. They
are very good at their illegal and disgusting craft.
We alerted the bank and the authorities, but there is nothing
they could do. It's happening every minute of every day, and they're
overwhelmed. It's really up to the potential victims to be vigilant. The
only way to put these bastards out of business is to not let them be
successful.
So don't reply to strange texts, don't click on any unknown
links, and hang up the phone if it's a robocall or someone you don't know.
These scammers are fishing for a nibble, and once they get you on the
line, it's all over.
You might miss out on an engagement announcement, like we
did, but that's a small price to pay.
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