Most people identify them right away.
A majority of them are astonishingly bad.
Half the time the scammer can’t even put together an English sentence.
I’ve gotten that one a couple times.
I documented one of those occurrences in a Twitter thread.
But that scam is played out.
Anybody with a quarter of a brain can see that coming from a mile away.
The scam I got hit with last night was legit.
I still shouldn’t have let it get as far as I did.
I feel extremely dumb in hindsight.
But I came pretty damn close to giving this guy the username and password to my bank account.
There at least has to be a few people reading this who are dumber than me.. right?
One of you dummies would have fallen for this.
But in the moment I nearly fell for it.
I’m still not entirely sure I didn’t fall for it.
I pre-apologize for the length of this.
I’ll give a shot to sum it up as quickly as possible.
I immediately called my bank, cancelled the credit card, and had a new one sent to me.
That shit happens every day.
I thought that was the end of it.
So I replied ‘No’.
- A minute after I replied, I got a call from my bank.
I cross referenced the phone number, and it matched the Huntington Bank Customer Service number.
- I should have realized this was bullshit.
But this man sounded professional, and he had information that only my bank should have had.
He told me they were making purchases via Apple Pay with their phone.
He was pretty thorough.
We went though all the steps.
His response was, “That’s totally understandable.
If you’d like to hang up and call back, here’s your case number.
Just call Huntington Customer service and you might pick up right where we left off.”
- But because I’m a fucking sucker, I completely fell for that shit.
I thought “Oh, ok.
The phone number checks out and everything.”
So I said, “Nah that’s fine, let’s just get this taken care of.”
- I talked to this guy for like 10 minutes.
The dude was pretty believable.
It wasn’t some guy in broken English telling me the Prince of Nigeria needs my help.
It was a good ol' fashioned American scammer.
- Now is when I really should have known better.
He said they needed to reset it since she has access to all my information.
- After he tells me that, I get a 6-digit code sent to me from Apple.
He asks me to read the code off to him.
At this point I’m being a huge dick to this guy.
But my anger was directed at the bank.
I was like, “Dude this is fucking weird.
How do you guys not have a better way to go about this.
Like what are you doing?
I don’t know who you are.”
That’s totally fine."
God damn it I hate myself.
This is so fucking obvious in hindsight.
Whatever, it happened and I’m telling the story.
- So I give him the 6-digit code from Apple.
But the next thing he asked me to do is when Ifinallydrew the line.
He honestly had me in the palm of his hand, but he got greedy.
He said he had to re-enroll me in text alerts (which can’t be a real thing).
He told me to wait for a text message, and follow the prompt.
Here was the text message I received.
- That’s when I snapped.
I said, “Fucking no, dude.
I’m not giving you my username and password.
Why the hell would you need that.
I’ll just call back.
I’ll call back.”
They closed at 8pm, which is bullshit.
I should be able to talk to a person at the bank 24/7.
I think money is important enough that banks should offer that service.
- At this point, I still thought this guy was probably legit.
But still, I immediately changed up all of my passwords and usernames.
Then I went to the store to double check that my credit and debit cards were actually cancelled.
I tried my debit card at the liquor store next door.
The clerk said the card was inactive.
So at that point I was like, “Oh shit, that guy was real.”
Because at no point did I cancel my debit card.
The guy I talked to on the phone said he cancelled my debit card.
How else would it have gotten cancelled?
I figured I’d call the bank back tomorrow about this “text alerts” thing.
- This morning, I call the bank and tell the woman my situation.
Shoutout to this woman.
Did you attempt to make two $600 purchases at a store in Florida?"
I said, “No, I certainly didn’t.”
As soon as he realized I was onto him, they tried to make a purchase.
But he went to big.
$600 is going to get flagged every time when your bank account looks like mine does.
He just had to go for my username and password.
Clearly he already had my cards, but he wanted more.
No clue what would have happened if he had gotten my username and password.
My account would probably be fully depleted by now.
- If they didn’t flag that purchase, I was in trouble.
Honestly, I still might be fucked.
I don’t know how much access this dude has to my life.
- That’s about it.
In hindsight, I feel very stupid.
I never should have let it get that far.
But be on the lookout everyone.
Scammers are getting better.
It’s no longer just the Nigerian Prince and the Gift Card Scam that you have to worry about.
Be safe out there.
