FAKE phantom debt collection scam by Puta'ng Ina Ka criminals phoning from the Philippines. This is what the Federal Trade Commission calls a phantom debt collection scam where the scammer pretends to be a bank (often impersonating Credit One, Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank, Bank of America, Capital One, American Express, or US Bank), credit union, ADT/Vivint, debt collector, credit agency, billing department, lawyer, or law enforcement and threatens to sue or arrest you using lies, harassment, and intimidation to collect on fake debts that you do not owe. Debt collection scams are very common because many people carry debts, so it is easy for scammers to phish for gullible victims. And debt collection scams have vastly increased this year to prey upon the larger number of people in debt. The Filipino scammer asks for you by your name in order to sound like a personal phone call to gain your trust, but they are randomly auto-dialing everyone. The scammer may say "I am calling on a recorded line" just to sound official, but it is fake! The scammer either mentions an unpaid debt and past due amount that must be paid immediately or says that they have frozen your account due to fraudulent activity. The scammer then asks for your online banking login credentials, Social Security number and date of birth "for verification purposes", and says you can settle the debt by paying with a credit card, prepaid debit card, or eBay gift card, or demands that you wire transfer the payment, or asks for your bank account/routing number. Or the scammer pretends to offer a "50% settlement" deal where "you only have to pay half" of your fake debt. This same Filipino scammer also impersonates tax, debt and loan financing companies everyday, fake fundraisers collecting donations for various fake charities that the fraudsters keep for themselves, pretends to offer fake Medicare, health insurance, auto insurance, and car warranties, and they impersonate banks and tv/internet services. About 50% of North America scam calls come from India and 45% come from the Philippines. Foreign scammers run thousands of fraud, extortion, money laundering scams every day such as posing as a fake pharmacy, fake Social Security officer saying your benefits are suspended, IRS officer collecting on fake unpaid back taxes, debt collector threatening you for fake unpaid bills, fake bank/financial/FedEx/UPS/DHL scams, posing as utility/phone/internet companies, pretending to offer fake health insurance, car warranty, student loan forgiveness, credit card and debt consolidation services, posing as Amazon to falsely say an unauthorized purchase was made to your credit card, posing as Microsoft/Dell/HP/Apple to say your account has been hacked or they detected a virus on your computer, fake "we are refunding your money" or "your account has been auto-debited" scams, fake Google/Alexa listing scams, fake solar panel and home purchase offers, fake fundraisers asking for donations, fake phone surveys, and the scammers try to steal your financial and personal data. Indian scammers often rotate through fake tech support, subscription auto-renewal, and fake pharmacy scams on the same day. Filipino scammers run many loan and tax/debt relief, Social Security and Medicare identity theft, auto/home/health/life insurance, and fake charity donation scams. Scammers use disposable VoIP phone numbers (e.g. MagicJack) and telecom software to spoof fake names and numbers on Caller ID. Scammers spoof thousands of fake 8xx toll-free numbers. CID is useless with scam calls unless the scam asks you to phone them back. CID area codes are never the origin of scam calls since scams use spoofed CID numbers from across the US/Canada, numbers belonging to unsuspecting people, invalid area codes, and fake foreign country CID numbers; e.g. fake women crying "help me" emergency scams spoof Mexico and Middle East CID numbers. Scammers often spoof the actual name and number of businesses such as banks to trick you into thinking the call is valid. How can you avoid being scammed by phone calls? NEVER trust any unsolicited caller who: sells something (most unsolicited calls are scams so your odds of saving money are very poor); asks for your Medicare or Social Security number; offers debt relief, loan services, Medicare assistance (people who are old or desperate in debt often fall for scams); offers a free gift/reward; threatens you with arrest/lawsuit; asks you to access a website, download a file, wire transfer money or buy prepaid debit/gift cards; claims your account is frozen or has suspicious activity; says a subscription is refunded or auto-renewed/auto-debited; and all recorded messages. Recordings are far more likely to be malicious scams and not just telemarketer spam. All unsolicited callers with foreign accents, usually Indian or Filipino, are mostly scams. No other countries are infested with phone room sweatshops filled with criminals. Most Filipino scammers speak better English than Indian scammers. Filipinos speak English with a subtle accent that may sound Hispanic. To hide their foreign origin, some India scammers use non-Indians in their phone room. Scams often falsely say that you previously contacted them or visited their website. Indian scammers play fake Amazon recordings. Amazon account updates are emailed, not robo-dialed. Many banks use automated fraud alert calls to confirm a suspicious purchase, but always call the number printed on your credit card to verify if the fraud alert is real or fake. Scammers impersonate phone/cable/internet companies, offering fake discounts or service upgrades. Indians impersonate the IRS and Social Security Administration. The IRS/SSA never make unsolicited calls and never threaten to arrest you; they initiate contact via postal mail. Real lawsuits are not phoned in, especially not using recorded threats lacking details; legal notices are mailed/couriered. The police, FBI, DEA never phone to threaten arrest; they show up in person with a warrant. Scammers try to gain your trust by saying your name when they call; your name, address, birthday are public data. Many scammers, especially female Filipinas, use "romance scam" tactics of sounding really friendly as if they are your best friend or lover to try to gain your affection and trust, hoping that you let your guard down so they can easily steal your identity and money. Scammers often play recordings speaking English, Spanish, or Chinese that is easily generated using text-to-speech translation software to disguise the origin of their overseas phone room. Some speech synthesis sound robotic, but most AI speech sound very realistic. Scammers often use interactive voice response (IVR) AI/NLP software that combines voice recognition with artificial intelligence, speaks English with American voices, and responds based on your replies. IVR calls begin with: "This is fake_name, I am a fake_job_title on a recorded line, can you hear me okay?"; or "Hi, how are you doing today?"; or "Hello? Are you there?"; or "Hi, may I speak to your_name?" IVR quickly asks you a short question to elicit a yes/no reply so it hangs up if it encounters voicemail. One myth is that saying "yes" to IVR lets scammers use your voice sample for other scams. IVR understands basic replies and yes/no answers. To test for IVR, ask "How is the weather there?" since IVR cannot answer complex questions. IVR usually transfers you to the scammer, but some scams entirely use IVR with the robot asking for your credit card or SSN. Phone/email scams share two common traits: the CID name/number and the "From:" header on emails are easily faked, and the intent of scam calls is malicious just as file attachments and website links on scam emails are harmful. Scams snowball for many victims. If your personal/financial data are stolen, either by being scammed, visiting a malicious website, or by a previous data breach of a business server that stores your data, then your data gets sold by scammers on the dark web who will see you as fresh meat and prey on you even more. This is why some receive 40+ scam calls everyday while others get only 0 to 2 calls per week. If you provide your personal data to a phone scammer, lured by fake 80%-discounted drugs or fake loan and debt services, you receive even more phone scams and identity theft can take years to repair. Scammers often shout profanities at you. Google "Hindi swear words" and memorize some favorites, e.g. call him "Randi Ka Beta" (son of whore) or call her "Randi Ka Betty" (daughter of whore). Scammers ignore the National Do-Not-Call Registry. Asking scammers to stop calling is useless. Scam recordings often tell you to press a keypad number to be placed on their Do-Not-Call list or to unsubscribe from their scam texts/emails, but those keypad commands are fake and they say that just to sound legit. Scammers often provide a toll-free callback number to look like a real business, but they regularly shed old callback numbers so you can never reach the scammers once you have realized that you were scammed. Scammers tell you their callback number just to gain your trust long enough to steal your identity and money and then they frequently switch to using new callback numbers. You do these scammers a favor by quickly hanging up. YOU SHOULD SCAMBAIT ALL SCAMMERS -- slowly drag scammers along on the phone call, provide fake personal and financial data (16 random digits starting with 4 for Visa, 5 for MasterCard), ask them to speak louder and repeat what they said to waste their time and energy.

July 10, 2024

This is a phantom debt collection scam! This is what the Federal Trade Commission calls a phantom debt collection scam where the scammer pretends to be a debt collector, lawyer, or law enforcement and threatens to sue or arrest you using harassment (repeated phone calls), lies, threats, and intimidation to collect on fake debts that you do not owe. Although more than 95% of all North America phone scams originate from crowded phone rooms in India that run numerous fraud, extortion, and money laundering scams every day such as pretending to be fake pharmacies, posing as fake Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple representatives, and pretending to offer credit cards and student loan forgiveness, some of these phantom debt collection scams are committed by Americans, but many phantom debt scams also come from East Indians using text-to-speech translation software to generate a pre-recorded message without a foreign accent. Another version of these phantom debt collection scams is the frequent extortion scams perpetrated solely by East Indians posing as Social Security or IRS officers threatening to sue or arrest you for fake unpaid back taxes. This scam call begins with a pre-recorded message that often includes robotic text-to-speech customizations of the message to call you by your name in order to make the message sound like a personal phone call and to gain your trust. It is easy to acquire huge phone database listings of millions of names associated with phone numbers and addresses and have the robo-dialer automatically say your name. The synthesized speech may also be recorded in Spanish or Chinese to target immigrants. The pre-recorded message usually also references vague and fake financial accounts that are unpaid, fake names of the debt collector handling your fake debts, fake ID codes for your fake debt, and they often falsely say "our numerous attempts to contact you at your home and workplace have been unsuccessful and this is our final attempt", which is all false and intended to make it sound urgent. You are then asked to either press "1" or phone them back, often at a different number since these scams spoof hundreds of fake Caller ID numbers, and then you actually speak to the East Indian scammer. The scammer then asks for your Social Security number and either tells you that you can settle the debt by paying with a credit card or demands that you wire transfer the payment for the fake debt or asks you for your bank account and routing number. Here is how to tell the difference between a real debt collector and a scammer: A debt collector must tell you information about your debt such as the name of the creditor, the exact amount owed, and if you dispute the debt, the debt collector has to obtain verification of the debt. A scammer either avoids providing this information or provides false information. A debt collector has to mail you a printed-on-paper "validation letter" within five days of first contacting you. If you do not dispute the debt in writing within 30 days, the debt collector has the right to assume the debt is valid. Scammers always pressure you to settle the debt immediately, often demanding that you make a money transfer from you bank that can be untraceable; this is very common with East Indian scammers posing as debt collectors and fake IRS officers. A scammer may threaten to tell your family and employer about your debts, but a real debt collector can only ask other people about your address, phone number, and place of employment; they cannot tell other people about your debts. Scammers will ask for your bank account and routing numbers and Social Security number, whereas real debt collectors will not. Ask the debt collector for their name, company name, street address, and a callback number, which all real debt collectors will provide. Every one of the thousands of East Indian scammers will also immediately fail this test since all of the East Indian scammers use spoofed fake Caller ID numbers or disposable VoIP numbers. If you suspect a scam, contact the creditor the debt collector claims to be working for and find out who has been assigned to collect the debt.

January 17, 2020