Some Tricks Never Get Old
As Bruce Schneier points out in this blog post some “clever” folks decided to use an old phone scam to steal credit card numbers.
A fraudster contacts an AT&T service rep and says he works at a pizza parlor and that the phone is having trouble. Until things get fixed, he requests that all incoming calls be forwarded to another number, which he provides.
Pizza orders are thus routed by AT&T to the fraudster’s line. When a call comes in, the fraudster pretends to take the customer’s order but says payment must be made in advance by credit card.
Makes me think of something that happened to me last week –
I called our local cable company to get some Internet service set up for some relatives. I called from my cell, and all I had to do was give the first name of someone in the house and the address.
I was also able to cancel other services this way. Nice for me because it saved me some hassle getting the call done, but just imagine if I were in a grumpy mood and decided to do this to Uncle Joe I’m not fond of.
Or, cancel the cable, then call later on and say,
“Hi, I’m Cable Provider X. We put your account on hold because we were worried someone might be making fraudulent charges on the card you provided. Do you have another card we can use?…”
You get the idea. Old tricks still work – and old defenses against them do too. Don’t trust incoming calls, even caller IDs can be spoofed.
