Scam call from "Apple"

Sunny

Sunny

SF VIP
Location
Maryland
I got a strange call today, supposedly from Apple telling me my icloud banking information has been breached, and saying I should not use icloud. I have no idea what information they could be talking about, and I never get on icloud anyway, though I have some vague idea that a lot of my stuff is getting saved "up there."

I was supposed to press 1 to speak with an Apple representative. At that point, I hung up.

I googled it, and learned that this is a pretty common scam. Here's one item about it, dating back to 2018:

Keep in mind that Apple never calls people out of the blue to tell you that your account has been compromised. They only call when you ask them to call you for service help. On its website, Apple says, “If you get an unsolicited call from someone claiming to be from Apple, hang up and contact us directly.”
 

Sunny said:
I got a strange call today, supposedly from Apple telling me my icloud banking information has been breached, and saying I should not use icloud. I have no idea what information they could be talking about, and I never get on icloud anyway, though I have some vague idea that a lot of my stuff is getting saved "up there."

I was supposed to press 1 to speak with an Apple representative. At that point, I hung up.

I googled it, and learned that this is a pretty common scam. Here's one item about it, dating back to 2018:

Keep in mind that Apple never calls people out of the blue to tell you that your account has been compromised. They only call when you ask them to call you for service help. On its website, Apple says, “If you get an unsolicited call from someone claiming to be from Apple, hang up and contact us directly.”
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I had almost the exact same call from Amazon the other day... apparently a £1k had been spent on my account and I had to press 4 to speak to someone if it had been a fraud... of course I ignored it, but they called me on my landline 4 or 5 times a day for 3 days before I finally unplugged the phone from the wall for a week.. once I plugged it back in it had all stopped .

I have no idea where they got my landline number from. The only people other than my family who have the number is my Doctor...
 
hollydolly said:
I had almost the exact same call from Amazon the other day... apparently a £1k had been spent on my account and I had to press 4 to speak to someone if it had been a fraud... of course I ignored it, but they called me on my landline 4 or 5 times a day for 3 days before I finally unplugged the phone from the wall for a week.. once I plugged it back in it had all stopped .

I have no idea where they got my landline number from. The only people other than my family who have the number is my Doctor...
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Did they know your name, Holly? If not, they may have just gone down a list of random numbers.
 

hollydolly said:
No they didn't address me by name... but my landline is unlisted
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Ours is also unlisted but we still get them. I think they just run through all the phone numbers looking for a hit.

Got a call last week (It went to our answering machine.) saying that because we haven't been paying our power bill the electricity was going to be turned off in twenty minutes, yikes! So I grabbed all the beer out of the fridge, put it on ice, and waited. Nothing ever happened but it was fun waiting.. burp🤭 🍻
 
These "scammers" have gone into overdrive this year. The Only way to avoid them is to have "caller ID" on the phone, and if you don't recognize the number or name, just let it ring. In the rare case of it being a legitimate call, they can leave a message, and we can call them back.
 
Don M. said:
These "scammers" have gone into overdrive this year. The Only way to avoid them is to have "caller ID" on the phone, and if you don't recognize the number or name, just let it ring. In the rare case of it being a legitimate call, they can leave a message, and we can call them back.
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I have had these scammers to leave messages wanting me to call them back but the product they were wanting me to call them back about, I had never owned. I just turned around and blocked these numbers. Now they try but they can't make it ring. I LOVE IT!!!!!
 
AprilSun said:
I have had these scammers to leave messages wanting me to call them back but the product they were wanting me to call them back about, I had never owned. I just turned around and blocked these numbers. Now they try but they can't make it ring. I LOVE IT!!!!!
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Yup, a call blocker is a handy device. I put one on our phone 3 or 4 months ago, and so far it has blocked almost 400 numbers.
 
I've blocked all the numbers that look suspicious or that I learned were suspicious by answering the phone. In this case, I picked up because I was expecting a consultation call from my doctor at 11:30, and this call came at 11:25, so it caught me off guard.

Just got a message on my voice mail from a hotel chain telling me that I had a free night. I hung up in the middle of their first sentence. May have not been a scam exactly, but really annoying. I wish our phones had a spam folder, the same as our email's do. I guess the "block" function is as close as we can get.
 
Sunny said:
I've blocked all the numbers that look suspicious or that I learned were suspicious by answering the phone. In this case, I picked up because I was expecting a consultation call from my doctor at 11:30, and this call came at 11:25, so it caught me off guard.

Just got a message on my voice mail from a hotel chain telling me that I had a free night. I hung up in the middle of their first sentence. May have not been a scam exactly, but really annoying. I wish our phones had a spam folder, the same as our email's do. I guess the "block" function is as close as we can get.
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I can block numbers easily enough on my iphone, but I can't find a way to block numbers on my landline
 
This is nothing new but the usual nickel and dime suspect scammers are now joining the lucrative Nigerian-419 scam which historically has raked in small fortunes globally. It's so bad that the FBI actually has an office in Lagos. I did a piece on this when I joined. I think it's in the financial sub-forum. When a phone number is requested by the bots I give them the primary scam busters phone number 908-355-9969. The bots can't recognize it but the live scammers still fall for it every time and this number is well known. Well stupid is as stupid does. lol.
 
Many times I’ve encouraged my DH not to answer an unknown number on our home phone. There’ve been times when it was an important call. Last one he didn’t answer (prodded by me) was regrettable. It was his doctor calling back on his time off. He left a message. DH really needed to talk to him. Getting another call is almost impossible.
 
Jules, yes, that's always a possibility. Sometimes we have to make split-second decisions as to whether to pick up or not. People say, "Don't pick up unless you recognize the name of the caller," but not all calls come with ID's attached. Often, all you see is the number. Yet, it isn't a scam call, it's just someone you don't have listed as a "contact."
 
Yes I get that call once in a while. I don't own an Apple device. I don't have caller ID on my landline either. It's not a big deal for me to answer the phone when it rings, if you keep hanging up they give up after a while.
 

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