Some of you may know of this scam, but for those of you who don’t, or know of someone in your family who could be susceptible to this kind of thing, please read and pass this information along!
One of my friends got a phone call where they were told they had paid too much on a bill and they were being given back money. The caller asked to use a screen share, they logged into their computer, and got their information to send over the funds to my friend. Once transferred over, the caller says ‘OMG I MADE A MISTAKE I SENT YOU 1000 dollars, what am I going to do?’
My friend could clearly see he had an extra 1000 bucks in his account! The caller starts freaking out ‘I’m going to lose my job, oh no, I can’t get you to transfer it back or they will find out!’ the caller ‘thinks’ for a moment, and says ‘I know how we do it! I need you to buy Google Gift cards and I’ll stay on the phone with you, once you’ve got them, give me the codes and I’ll put the money back into the account and all will be ok!’ (this scam is also run with any type of gift card).
So my friend went out, bought the cards, gave him the codes, he hung up, then when he checked his account, he was 1000 dollars short! He called me and explained what happened and said ‘oh it’s probably just going to take a bit to correct itself I’m sure!’ I had to explain to him that while I wasn’t sure how that worked, it was a scam, I did some research, confirming it was a scam. We tried to contact Google to get the cards reversed but there is sadly nothing they can do!
I finally found out what happens due to one of my favorite youtubers, who toys with phone scammers and is quite the nerd himself. They will edit the data within your browser to ‘spoof’ you having more money in your account, make you believe a mistake was made then prey on your kindness and scam you of your hard earned coin!
So basically, if your unsure of who is calling you, and/or if it sounds too good to be true, ask them to send the refund in Cheque, and NEVER give someone you don’t know access to your computer!
Stay safe out there friends!!! – SarahTonin
Things & Stuff 