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This scam is pretty active right now. My brother in law was called 2 days prior and they called my wife again 2 days later… Rough scam script: - <background
by MobileVet 3y ago
This scam is pretty active right now. My brother in law was called 2 days prior and they called my wife again 2 days later…
Rough scam script:
- <background audio of police station>
- hello, is this XYZ?
- this is Officer Z, do you agree to abide by Judge ABC’s orders?
- we have been trying to reach you by mail about this case. It has to do with a minor.
- the judge has issued a gag order, do not talk with anyone about this
- look up the number from the phone, see I am really calling from the courthouse
== keep you on the phone, my wife actually didn’t pick up when I called in the midst of the scam and followed with a text ==
- someone committed a crime using your name, we don’t think it was you but because you didn’t respond to mail, there is a warrant for your arrest
- you need to post bail
- go withdraw money from the bank and bring it to the courthouse
- where are you? The courthouse is closing
- it’s getting late, use a 3rd party processor setup during Covid
- go to grocery store, use a CoinStar machine
- send money to phone number (using XLM currency)
- akoboldfrying 3y agoEvery step feels plausible to me, except the last. Sending crypto to a government agency? Not saying I wouldn't be taken in by this or other scams in the heat of the moment, but from my armchair position, that redlined my suspicion. EDIT: heart -> heat
- MobileVet 3y agoThat is the beauty of the scam… plausibility, isolation and sunk cost. They had my wife on the phone for 90 minutes! It was so exhausting and nerve wracking that by the time the crypto request comes, you are too drained to think straight. It was quite traumatizing… I am very thankful the money (while significant) wasn’t make or break for us. I am sure for lots of people it can mean missing some payment or something. My 8yo was worried we wouldn’t be able to pay the mortgage. (Thankfully not a concern)
- everforward 3y agoJust a small thing if it helps someone; you don't pay bail to avoid pretrial detention, you're paying to get out of it. I.e. you can't bail out if you aren't in jail. Even if you do bail out, you still have to be processed, get your fingerprints done, mugshots, whatever. This may change if you're someone notable, but for us run of the mill people, the police won't call to say "pay bail or well arrest you". You get arrested and then pay bail, in that order.
- pinkmuffinere 3y agoI had this exact same scam a couple months ago! I never figured out how they spoof the courthouse’s number though — any idea how they do that?
- aqfamnzc 3y agoI don't know the technical details, but as I understand it with today's infrastructure "caller's phone number" might as well be a free field where you can enter anything you like. There is no authentication or verification going on there
- geraldhh 3y agosame as email from header
- RulerOf 3y agoThe sibling comment is correct, but to be a little more specific, when a carrier transmits a call into the phone system, one of the metadata fields in that transaction is the Caller ID of the calling party. It may sound asinine, but the infrastructure we've built for the PSTN basically requires it. If you're interested in what's being done about it and the history of how it got this way, the STIR/SHAKEN wiki article has good details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN