I turn on my cell phone about once or twice a month — I only use it when necessary — so I was surprised that there was a message on it.
It was something about being able to take care of the problem I had called about and that the rep would be able to save me money because I qualified for something. Huh? The way the message was left, the beginning of it was cut off so that there was no company name.
I mostly keep the phone in the car (off) and use it for emergencies (like if my car breaks down). I don’t give out the number. In fact, I only charge the phone every 6 months or so.
So what was this mystery call about?
I put the contact number she left into google and came up with this:
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-877-723-1426
a quote from the page that describes the message I got:
Same here – just got a message left on phone at work she can reduce my payments – found a “solution,” and that it was the last courtesy call she’d be making. The caller ID shows 810-715-1369; however, the telephone number left in the message was 877-723-1426
Google is pretty useful with identifying scam callers. This site seemed pretty useful too.
16 Ways You Can Be Phone Scammed
The site is 800notes and I found it pretty useful:
and they say:
800notes is a FREE REVERSE PHONE NUMBER LOOKUPdatabase built by YOU, its users. Our strength is in our numbers – by sharing pieces of information each of us has we are putting together a free and public phone number directory with information no other service can provide.
Good that useful web services like this exist. Bad that despite the obvious awareness of this type of scam and that several people posted on the site that they contacted various government agencies, it hasn’t changed that these people are still in “business” and even using the same phone number. Like, they ought to be trackable and catchable if they’ve been using the same phone number for 4 months — after all, it’s clear that they are running a scam and they probably wouldn’t keep it up if they weren’t making money doing it.