I got two of the warranty scam messages just this morning. Grrrrr.

maybe that's what that phone call a few days ago was. From a residential line asking about refinanicing my home....odd thing is I don't even own a home. I rent.

I took the little test. I only missed three, which isn't too bad. Already aware not to click on links in the email itself.

If in doubt, I just delete.

@_catlike_: I got a "this is scott calling you back about how to make thousands at home!" If I weren't at work, I would have told the robot voice to fuck itself.

Gmail is fairly good at filtering these.

Perhaps the ephishent market hypothesis needs to be revisited.

The only one I got wrong was #3. The answer was supposed to be "real". I marked it "fake", because it was addressed to John Smith, but based onl the previous emails, the addressee's name was Eric, so that should have been a clear indication of a phishing attempt.

i worked at citizens bank and this happens a lot. usually its a automated message or a text message that instructs you your debit card has been compromised. then it asks you to please enter your card number, and pin. youd be suprised how many people reply with their info. most banks will quickly cancel your card and replace it. if any purchases or withdrawls are made, the money will be returned (usually after 10 days).

My father and I both received text messages and calls during the last few weeks. Unfortunately, my credit card was compromised...though I can't think of how it would have happened. Ever since I got careless a few years ago and had to change bank accounts, I've been extra cautious.

There's something peculiar about the name "Liquidity Solutions"...doesn't sit quite well with me."

Only 3?
That's like a slow day for my inbox.

@_catlike_: My car is a 1985. I like to answer the call and ask why GM is cutting their 30 year warranty to 25 years. Then they try to give me the speil about "if it's under such and such miles, it might still be eligable". I say, well the odometer is under 100k, but it only goes to 99k, so it might have flipped more than once. That usually ends the call and they TELL ME they're putting me on the DNCL.

When dealing with mysterious phishy phonecalls, [800notes.com] and [whocalled.us] have been some of my best friends in the past year or so.

Added bonus: some of the crazy rants on there are pretty entertaining.

I wish I got ONLY 3 phishing attempts every week.

Maybe you can can win a set of steak knives if you collect them all!

Nobody had to "hijack" that bank's phone number. Anyone with ISDN or Voice-T1 (digital business phone service) or a variety of VOIP services can spoof any 10 digits they want in their caller ID. It doesn't even have to be a real number. That's how some people get calls claiming to be from "1111111111" etc. and it's how this guy got a call claiming to come from the bank's phone number. Anyone can do this and it's not even illegal.

Caller ID is basically honor system on the part of the caller; it was never designed to be secure and you should never trust it.

When you call a toll-free number, however, that system, ANI I believe it's called, cannot be spoofed or fooled. Because the receiver pays for the call, they get to know who it really is calling them.

Last Tuesday, 4/7/2009, I received a phone call at 3:00 AM from "my bank." They had an answering machine with a set-up very similar to my actual bank's one. The machine mentioned that my "card information had been compromised," and that I should enter my SS# and my card information, so that they could cancel my previous card, and issue a new one.

Please be aware of this kind of phishing, and try to just hang-up the phone (Some of us can't even think stright at 3:00 AM). For those who are not aware of it, Visa, in the recent days lost some card member infromation to a third-party, and they had to re-issue cards to some of their customers through their banking entities. Although this message sounded a bit credible, somebody's using the Visa card situation to their advantage, and trying to get private data.

@Thorny: Hear, hear. Between my yahoo and gmail accounts, I sometimes get 3 or 4 a day. Of course, most of them get caught in the spam filters but it's noise that has to be dealt with.

A common trick that happens at work a lot is someone will call in and act like they're a vendor (they probably are a vendor) and ask if you are in charge of so and so department. If not (which they expect) they'll ask you who is and then ask you a bunch of questions like how many people are in you department/group, what brands you use for this, who your current vendors are for this, slowly getting more and more intrusive.

This won't help them get any PII, it's more like spying and market research to help them sell products, but it's shady and sometimes can be used as corporate espionage.

The most insidious thing about it is that they act like they've done a lot of business with the company in the past. I think IT departments (like the helpdesk) get hit with this most often. They'll call the main line and ask the receptionist to talk to the IT department, they'll get patched through to a helpdesk guy. Chances are the helpdesk guy is relatively new and low level and they'll be helpful. If they're not trained well enough on that tactic they could give up a lot of info in order to keep a relationship with a vendor that didn't exist in the first place.

My roommate has received the call about the car warranty a lot (like one every other day), so now he just messes with them and frustrates them until they hang up.

I recently received the "your debit/credit card has been inactivated, enter your info so we can reactivate it". It was definitely for a bank I didn't have.

These calls are to cell phones, and we are both on the do not call list...is there anything we can do in response?

@HogwartsAlum: I missed 3 as well but it was in thinking something was fake that wasn't. Seriously if your company sends out emails that people think are fake maybe you need to rethink your emails. I never click links in emails anyway so doesn't matter if fake or not.

@Raekwon:

Yeah, that's what happened to me. I thought two that were real were fake, and I only missed one fake one.