May 23, 2016
Scam Card Member Services scam
"... This is your final courtesy call before we are unable to lower your credit card interest rate. Press 1 to speak to the member services department, or press 2 and your eligibility to lower your rate will expire." So, of course I had to press '1'. The voice of Asterisk said "Please hold while I try that extension". After a period of time, a indian/pakistani accented person told me that I'd been making more than the minimum payment for the last 6 months, but needed to verify a couple of things in my profile before he could "lower my interest rate". Claimed to work for Visa/Mastercard and needed my expiration date, credit card number, last 4 of SSN. So I told him - all fake information (there are web sites where you can generate fake credit card numbers). So he went off merrily "checking on my profile". Several minute later, he appeared to have problems verifying this (surprise!) and wanted their customer service number (like they were the bank). So I looked up and gave them the credit card services number of some random major bank. Still had trouble accessing my profile. So, you know, you have more than one card, right? Sure I do! So I feed him more fake information. And he goes trundling off again on his fools errand. Still has problems, so he wants to know my credit card limits. I don't know, I can't remember... After a little more back and forth, he gives up and hangs up. All told (with about half the time him checking on my proflie), about 20+ minutes wasting this guys time. All the while, I'm at my computer getting work done.
Never give these guys real information - they will steal your information and try to make fraudulent charges on it (That's why they wanted to know your credit limit). There are places where you can get fake credit card numbers to feed them (google "fake credit card generator"), and all the other stuff is easy to make up. I'd rather they spend 20 minutes with me than 20 minutes who can be conned into giving them real information.