How worried should I be (phone scam)

So, we have a minor problem with the phone line, and I called Verizon. I reached a woman with a heavy indian accent, who listened to my problem and told me she would forward my call to the person who could help. But before she would do that. she wanted to tell me they were running a promotion, and I had won a gift card.

She asked to confirm my name and address, which I grumbled at, and said she should have that info since she had my phone number. But I gave her that info. Then she asked for my birthdate, to verify I was over 18. I refused, and asked to be transferred. She insisted. I said I would not give it to her, as I thought I might have dialed the wrong number. She hung up on me.

I called Verizon again, and got an automated voice system. I obviously DID dial the wrong number the first time.

So, how worried should I be?

(And after dealing with the automated voice system, I am expecting a Verizon service call tomorrow. I wasn’t able to exactly describe the problem, so I hope they are willing to deal with it. But that’s not the topic of this thread.)

Wow how unlucky to manage to dial a wrong number of someone willing to scam. I’d think it must be someone playing a joke because the odds of you dialing the number of someone set up to literally do a scam seems unbelievably small?

Regardless, what can someone do with your name, address and phone number? In my pre-actuarial days we used to buy more data than that for cents per thousand so I think it’s pretty widely available.

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I wouldn’t be worried either. I think it’s good you didn’t give her your birthday, but even that would have been ok.

She was probably just trying to establish you giving her information.

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I think the scammers deliberately choose those numbers so as to be easily misdialed from the legitimate numbers.

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I assume the scammer carefully bought a number close to 800-VERIZON, in the hopes people would misdial it.

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I think verizon would be interested to know. they might want to buy up that number.

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Interesting point. But it’s hard enough to reach verizon that I’m not super motived to try. And I don’t know what number I actually dialed. Hmm, maybe my phone does, actually. I should check that.

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it does. Verizon is
800-837-4966
scammer is
800-837-5966

Not too worried, imo, since you didn’t give them a lot of information.

They might have you on a “list “ of potential victims, so just be wary of incoming calls.

If you like the YouTube, I often watch Kitboga, Jim Browning, and Pierogi…where they interact with these scammers.

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I think you’re right about this…if you do give it to them they’ll just send you a form email with “tips on how not to be scammed. #1 if it sounds to good to be true you know it didn’t come from us.”

Yeah, free gift card for being the nth caller. Not really plausible.

Then, when I returned to the Verizon website to check the phone number, they were advertising free gift cards. :laughing:

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you only gave your name and address? No biggie.
Info like that gets leaked all the time.

That’s what I’m thinking. It still kinda creeps me out.

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I agree. All they know is your name, address, phone number, and that you’re almost certainly a Verizon customer. That’s not much more than what’s in the phone book.

Speaking of which, are there still phone books? I feel like it’s become harder to find phone numbers, at least of people.

In Kansas, phone books are still a thing, although I don’t keep them. Now that you ask, I’m not sure if it’s white pages, or just yellow pages.

What was the number you called in error. I want to mess with them. I live for that stuff.

so does my mother (as i roll my eyes deeply in my head with her even answering the phone). you two should hook up.

i googled my name and my phone number as well as all phone numbers i’ve ever had came right up.

:popcorn:

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