Description

This scam has been going on for several years now and this is the second time I am reporting it (the first was via telephone). The way it works is as follows: 1 - You receive a call from a random phone number. When you pick up, an automated recording tells you that you are eligible to lower your interest rates on your credit cards. They claim to be calling from or on behalf of Visa and Mastercard. If you would like to proceed, you are asked to press "1". 2 - If you press "1", you are sent to a live person. That person proceeds to ask you for your credit card information. If you act skeptical, they come up with inane responses and different methods to achieve the same result - i.e., getting your credit card information. If you ask too many questions, the person just hangs up. As you know, there is no company called Visa Mastercard. Nor is there any credit card that is both Visa and Mastercard. These are competing companies that would not be offering rewards and benefits jointly. The calls always come from a different number but it is undoubtedly the same exact scheme. For a long period of time, it was easy to identify the fraud because the number that they would call from would have the same last four numbers as the recipient's phone line (for me, it was "0994"). However, lately, they have begun using completely random numbers - but again, it is still undeniably the same exact scheme. I have probably received 40 calls like this over the past two years. Sometimes I hang up immediately upon hearing the automated recording. But other times, I move on to the live person to hear what they have to say and to learn whether or not they have come up with any new tactics. I am shocked and appalled that a fraudulent scheme like this has been allowed to go on for 2+ years. I assume that many, many people have been harmed and defrauded by this scam - and even those that have not been defrauded are forced to deal with the nuisance of receiving phishing calls on a regular basis. Today, I received another call in connection with this fraud scheme; however, this time, the scammers not only attempt to defraud me but also threatened me. When I spoke to the live person, I told them that I know that this is a scam and that this is a terrible thing to be doing to people. The woman on the other end of the phone responded by saying, "Oh yeah, now we gonna call you every day. You better change ya number." Unfortunately, I do believe that they have the ability to continue to call my phone on a daily basis and to hassle me with these fraudulent attempts to steal my credit card information. I am worried that I will be interrupted every day and that I will ultimately need to change my phone number. I am also worried for the countless other people that have been or will be subjected to this terrible fraud. PLEASE HELP!! At the risk of being repetitive, I am truly shocked that this scheme has been allowed to survive for so long - and I am willing to do my part to ensure that it comes to an end and that the responsible parties are prosecuted for both fraud and for the other threats that they make to innocent recipients of their phone calls. Please feel free to reach out to me (via email or telephone) with any questions or if I can be of assistance in any way - my contact information was provided as part of this submission.