Description

I received a call from Target Card Services fraud department saying there had been 3 international charges in S. Africa, Egypt & London & they were calling to verify I had not made the charges. They transferred me to a “supervisor” who said he would help reverse the charges and issue a new card. He asked me to verify my zip code. They had my name, mailing address, and an old work email which seemed odd but I’ve had the card a long time. They asked if I used online card management services and wanted my username which I didn’t give. Then they asked for last 10 digits of my card # and I said I was not comfortable sharing. They said they could send a one-time code to verify identity. I received a very official looking email from [email protected] and read back the verification code. The email said to call 1-800-394-1829 if I had not requested the code. The caller said this proved it was a legit call & again asked for last 10 digits which I refused. At this point he became irritated & told me to Google the # on my caller idea to verify it was Target (I did this later and it is an official Target #) but I said I would be more comfortable hanging up & calling the number on my card. He tried very hard to discourage this saying I would just have to go over all the same information again but I hung up & called Target who verified there was no suspicious activity on my card & cancelled it. Within 1 minute after getting the scam passcode email, I got another email supposedly from Target with my username asking me to login to my account. The only information I gave was my zipcode & email address. This was a very sophisticated scam compared to other calls I’ve received. The other piece of odd info they provided was that the charges had been made on an iPhone 13 named Andy’s iPhone based in NJ and asked if I was in NJ. When I said no, they asked where I was and I just said my home state. But they already had my mailing address before they even called. My caller ID showed +1 (612) 304-6073 in Minneapolis which is a real Target #. Both people I spoke with were male with very thick accents. They were very polite until I started pushing back.