Fun with fraudsters

The voicemail from the fraudsters should have been obvious, and to me it was: 23 seconds of silence until on-hold music kicked in for a few seconds; then the robot lady telling me a payment of $999 had been authorized for an iPhone 16 Pro on my account.

“If you did not authorize this payment, please press 1 to speak to a customer support representative.”

The people behind the scam did me a favor by recording the automated call and leaving me a voicemail. How could I press 1 on a voicemail?

The message was from a 518 area code identified as Moira, NY, but I knew before calling back that I would be speaking to someone overseas in some far-flung boiler room where soulless bottom-feeders spend their days trying to trick their marks into giving them enough information to drain their bank accounts.

I wasn’t particularly worried that there was a $1,000 charge to my account. Which account? The fraudsters did not ask me to call back. They didn’t have me on the hook.

I wasn’t expecting my call to go through. Usually, in these situations, they don’t. This time, I had the satisfaction of securing a smidgen of entertainment at their expense for all the times these devils have tried to trick me up.

“Hello, Amazon customer service, may I help you,” said the woman, whose English was good enough to pass for a corporate call center impersonator.

All I had to do to get her to hang up on me was to use a sarcastic tone: “So, you’re Amazon customer service, huh?”

Click.

I called back. This was too much fun.

This time, the fake Amazon employee was a man.

“Amazon customer service, may I help you?”

I was getting punchy: “You’re not Amazon customer service,” I said, like Buddy the Elf exposing a fake Santa Claus.

Click.

I was able to get in one more call before they started blocking my number, this time to another woman.

“Amazon customer service, may I help you?” I was going to give them one more chance to prove they were legit.

“You’re Amazon customer service? Prove it.”

Click.

My next call was to Amazon customer service. I didn’t have to look for the number because someone at Whole Foods had given me a business card with the number on it when I had an issue with a return.

I knew I was dealing with the real deal when a male AI robot answered the phone. Amazon doesn’t give you a real human until you pass the gauntlet of endless questions. But I was doing this solely for the purpose of writing this column. Not quite suffering for my art, but close enough. Plus, I wanted to hear an actual human tell me I did not have a new $999 charge on my account, even though I did not see one there.

Here’s another way you know you’re talking to Amazon and not someone in another time zone trying to scam you: Amazon sends you a text to confirm you are you.

Once I reached an actual live human, I informed her of the scam the fraudsters were trying to perpetrate on me, and she had the system send me some emails to report it. Frankly, I didn’t bother because we all know how futile this all is.

The methods these scammers used wasn’t sophisticated enough to snag me, a journalist familiar with cybercrime, but we should all be concerned about how fast criminals are adapting. They prey on fear, hoping they can inflict upon you the very thing they say they are warning you against. Just another item on the menu of everyday evils.

Meanwhile, this scam got me to thinking: Is it time for me to upgrade to an iPhone 16 Pro?