[conspire] Scam du jour

[Rick Moen]

Around 5:40pm local time, the house 'phone rings.  Ring, ring, ring,
ring... I reach it, and glance at Caller ID.

-------------------
|MURRAY       UT  |
|  801-590-3114   |
-------------------

Rick:  Hi there, Murray You-tee from area code eight-oh-one.  You're on.


Now, it's important in this age of telephone usage that Caller ID has
always been vulnerable to provision of forged (false) information, but,
ever since VoIP has become commodity service to everyone and everyone's
brother, it's totally unreliable and should assumed to be a lie -- with
minor exceptions if you happen to be accepting the call at the desk of
your regional 911 emergency service centre, because E911 lines have
enhanced Caller ID for good and compelling reasons.  (See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_9-1-1)  Otherwise, assume
there's an excellent chance whatever Caller ID information the LCD 
display tells you is a barefaced lie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller_ID_spoofing


Caller:  Is [name of someone I've never heard of] there?
Rick:  There's nobody by that name at this number.


Caller then said he was calling for me, giving the formal version of my
name discoverable from, for example, the property tax records for my
residence.


Rick:  Who's calling, please?
Caller:  [not actually answering my question]  I'm calling to follow
       up on a grand jury summons.  You signed for it on July 11th
       at 1105 Altschul Avenue, but failed to show up at the jury.  
       But we can straighten this out today if you come down to the 
       courthouse.
Rick:  What courthouse is that?
Caller: 450 Golden Gate Avenue  [this being the Federal Building in San
       Francisco].


At this point, I'm seeing lots of signs of scamminess, but am not sure
what the scam is, and also there's always the residual possibility that
this is some utterly inept law enforcement representative, and someone
has epically screwed up at a court clerk's office.  But things that
bother me include the fact that I vaguely recall 801, the claimed
calling area code, being in Utah, and that we're already past the close
of business on the West Coast, not to mention it being even an hour
later in Utah (Mountain Daylight Time).


Rick:  I'm sorry, who's calling, again?  
Caller:  This is the US Marshalls Office.
Rick:  US Marshalls Office in San Francisco?
Caller:  Yes.
Rick:  I'm very sure that nobody signed for a grand jury summons in
       July, and also grand jury summonses don't include signature 
       requirements, and also I'm very unimpressed that your Caller
       ID is from a place nowhere near San Francisco.  If you're not a 
       fraud and are serious, send a letter.


About this time, the connection dropped, not caused by me.  I went off
to tell Deirdre about this strangeness, and the phone rings again.
(In the meantime, I've double-checked area code 801, and, yes, Salt Lake
City.)  Ring, ring....

-------------------
|MURRAY       UT  |
|  801-590-3114   |
-------------------

Rick:  Well, hello again.
Caller:  You need to come down to the courthouse [blah blah]
Rick:  Here's what we're going to do.  You will tell me your name, for
       starters.  I'm going to look up the correct telephone number
       for the US Marshall Service at 450 Golden Gate Avenue.
       I sure hope you can be reached via the front desk, because 
       that's what I'm going to call.
Caller:  [starts to give me a telephone number]
Rick:  No, you aren't listening.  You're going to give me your name,
       then I'm going to call the _real_ US Marshalls Service number
       for the SF office, and in the unlikely event of you really 
       working there, I'm going to be speaking to you _and_ to your 
       boss, and we'll go from there.
Caller:  You listen to me, you motherfucker...
Rick:  No, you listen to _me_, you two-bit poxy con-artist, you don't
       get to call me on my home telephone and make bullbleep threats 
       for whatever your stupid scheme is....

{click}


It remains not completely clear what the exact scam was, but I figure
it goes like this:  The 'hook' is him being able to recite my formal
name and street address (which is supposed to make it seem genuine) --
but that is not at all impressive because he probably was just working
from property tax record, which gave him both data items plus telephone
number.  Also, it's pretty unimpressive that the first time around, he
asked for someone else's name before asking for me.

The scam probably involved something like him telling me a huge fine was
being assessed against me, but that I could settle everything
immediately by going down to a local store and wiring money to
somewhere, otherwise, oh noes!  I'd need to drive to the Federal
Building in San Francisco, where I might be, oh noes!, arrested.

So, the hook is the allegedly compelling name/number/address
information.  The goad is the bullbleep threat.

And that's the interesting bit:  Over the years, I've learned that a
depressingly large number of people get completely terrified if they
hear anything that seems to be a legal threat, and just immediately
switch their brains off.

Probably, some number of targets say they're heading down to the Federal
Building, in which case they end up talking to very puzzled
receptionists at the US Marshalls Service, who say they have no idea why
the target is there.


Last, you do not 'sign for' a jury summons (including a Federal grand jury 
summons).  The summons orders you to show up on a certain date, and
includes a form you can send back to be excused (serious illness,
extreme age, on-call physician, in the military, in law enforcement) or
to request the appearance be rescheduled.  Otherwise, you don't send
anything back; they just expect you to be there.  (The form will have a
telephone number to call the day before you're due, to find out if you
are still needed.)  If you fail to show up for a Federal grand jury,
indeed the US Marshalls Service will be sent out (by the judge) to find
you at your residence or place of work, and bring you back to a very
not-pleased judge why you were a no-show.

And last-last, if I _had_ gotten a Federal grand jury summons, I'd
certainly have remembered it.